Dreams of Bill:
Tuesday, 9/1/20 Somber Morning
A dream just before awaking:
“Fool”….. “Cathy !” …. ( sound Bill crying”)……
How often had I heard Bill calling out to me to come in recent months to help with one of the dogs who had peed on the floor or cornered a cat or something else! “I need your help here!” He’d gotten exasperated. I’d go running to help. Silently help. Then sit with him as the crisis passed. I could see his frustration. Perhaps he had dropped a dish or Winston’s insulin again due to his fingertip neuropathy. Cutting up chicken for Winston’s meals had become my responsibility lately.
This morning I heard him call me in my dream. I looked at the clock. 4:36
“going forward” – 4
“Holy Spirit” “peace” – 3
“man” – 6
Bill is at peace now. No more yelling. No more high blood pressure for him…. or for me.
I remember two small dogs that we had, Sandy and Frieda, Chihuahua-ish. After Frieda died, the high strung, competitive, skin-allergy, nippy, bullying Sandy mellowed right out. Lord, is that a lesson for me? Have I been expressing anxiety internally over Bill through hypertension, arthritis, and skin disorders, etc?
When Bill would talk about dying at 68 over the last 30+ years like his parents and many of his uncles or not wanting to “live like this” (with the burden of his health problems) I’d bit my tongue more recently to keep from dismissing his concerns and downplaying his complaints. I remembered Christ’s words to Peter when Peter dismissed Christ’s words about his own impending death. Bill had grown more and more accustomed to the reality of death and seemed to be waiting for the shoe to drop, especially since his cousin Bobby’s sudden unexpected death on Labor Day weekend in 2019.
9:30am – After working out at Platinum Plus Fitness yoga class today-
Tracy opened the class in the dimly lit room telling us to take inventory of our bodies, to feel our emotions – body , soul, and spirit. I immediately reversed the order and let my spirit inform my soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23) “be ye wholly sanctified spirit, soul, and body….” . She told us to reach up- to extend our arms toward the sun, through the ceiling. Immediately I recalled the image of the smiling baby from the Teletubbies children’s TV program, with rays of sunbeams around his face, but it wasn’t a baby’s face. It was Bill’s face and I was reaching through the ceiling up to Bill’s smiling face in the Heavenlies with sunbeams radiating around him. He was laughing and looking down at me, so happy and my tears started flowing and I was laughing inside, silently, too! This lasted for what seemed like several minutes and I knew he was at peace and filled with joy and love for me and for where he is now. It made me happy, too. I went to the restroom as Tracy moved on to the next set to get a tissue and dry my tears. I returned and resumed the class, thanking God for the vision of a joyful, healed, happy Bill.
Sunday, September 20th, in dream journal:
Awaking up to a New Day. 4:52- “Go forward: Mind of Christ”
5:39- “Mind of Christ-(5): Servant (3) with Certainty (9)”
I wrote last week about awaking many mornings at 4:22 which, to me, meant “going forward” (4) or “another day” with Christ (2 2) and how, as I awoke, God gave me a vision of Bill and Jesus sitting together watching me, waiting for me to wake up! Jesus said to Bill, “Watch. She is going to wake up in a minute. Her first thought will be of me. Then of you. She is still connected through eternity to both of us.” Bill is with Christ. I am in Christ, so we are still together, through Christ! Just separated by a mere thin veil that Christ holds! God is good!
October 12, 2020, in dream journal:
This morning I dreamed….. Before awaking I dreamed Bill was driving us along a quiet country road along a lake. It was lovely and calm. He pointed out some ducks as we came to what seemed to be the end or a little cove in the lake. I looked beyond to a small hill and a wave rose up over the top of the hill. A vehicle like a Humvee was behind the wave and seemed to be pushing it upward. We drove a little further and the road went down into the lake, like a boat ramp. We drove in and the car floated. Bill turned to the left in a large circle and drove back up on ground, then turned back toward the road which had all become water and Bill didn’t seem surprised. We were now driving on water.( The end.)
The phone rang then. It was 7:02 and Pat Hall was calling to see if I was on my way to breakfast at Coram’s. I jumped up. She said to stay home. She’d come to me.
I sat for a minute thinking about the dream. It seemed to me that going to heaven would be a bit like transitioning from solid to liquid and gently being carried along by a vehicle that could easily maneuver in either medium! Bill didn’t seem surprised by our journey, of course not! He’d already made that trip before. He was simply showing me how to ease into that transition. Let my heart rest in the peace of that leisurely drive!
November 4, 2020– from dream journal:
On Sunday night I dreamed about cleaning a shower. It didn’t look like one in our home, but it had to be because I was thinking in the dream about how soap scum was way up high, like water had bounced off of Bill’s head and shoulders. I was diligently cleaning.
Carol had told me when she was here to help stage our home for sale that I needed to change out my shower liner and scrub the tub. Maybe that directive from several weeks ago hung in my mind and I was feeling the need to follow through on that (although I have bought the new curtain liner, I haven’t put it up yet.) I hoped the dream might be a nudge from the Lord to prepare me for a prospective buyer of this house. But so far this week and last there’s no sign of a buyer.
I have looked at a townhouse in Billy and Joni’s neighborhood. I’m uncertain about moving forward, but it sees more and more desirable to downsize and be near them.
Friday, November 20th, from dream journal:
Last evening I spent a frustrating three hours on text chat with a tech from Intuit Quickbooks trying to change our Titus 2’s master admin from Bill to me. We just kept going around in circles. I finally broke down in tears, exhausted, and gave up. My eyes were strained, my brain was short circuited. I was a mess! I felt hopeless. Once again I felt, in my weakness and ineptitude, like closing Titus 2 altogether. Oddly, just the night before three of our ladies celebrated their new freedom in Christ after recently completing their 4th and 5th steps. A victory for Titus 2 followed by a major attack and stumble by me…. As if I needed such a humbling to remind me Who really does the work in their lives!
Afterward I slept fitfully and my mind continued in a helpless mode and tearful. Sometime early in the morning – 4:21, I think it was, I had a dream of Bill walking to me and placing his hand on my shoulder, a posture and action I’ve observed many times as he prayed for someone. It was certainly a time in which I needed prayer. Thank Jesus, he sent Bill in a dream to reassure me I am prayed for.
This morning I feel comforted, if not confident though, that I will get through this. I miss Bill. It’s moments like this that one realizes how a spouse’s strengths complimented one’s weaknesses.
Lord, help me. Thank you.
Sunday, December 5th, 5:30 a.m., posted on FB:
I dreamed about Bill all night…..riding in the car with him and laughing together, hugging him and telling him I love him, him feeding the dog…….. it was a comforting night.
Tuesday, December 15, 9:16pm, reflecting on Kairos times…
Saturday, December 12th I drove to Birmingham to see Charlotte and her family. As I drove up Hwy 77 out of Southport, I checked to make sure I had a face mask with me. I knew they would likely be wearing them, as we all should, during the visit. I wondered to myself if I’d be allowed to hug them, especially the grandchildren. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about hugging them and I pushed the tears back and said to myself that was not what was important, whether or not I was allowed to hug them. What was important was seeing them and visiting with them. I have not seen them in a year. A year….. so much has happened. I felt the longing for a hug and in that very instant I had the sudden memory- cognitively and physically- of Bill’s chin on top of my head and his arms wrapped around me in a hug. The tears welled up again. I FELT him hugging me…. a vivid memory of something he’d done many times. I was reminded, too, of how many times in the last two years I have been conscious in certain moments of how precious that particular moment was…. Watching Bill with our animals on the patio…… Watching him in his recliner watching TV or eating…… Lying with my head on his shoulder and my hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat…. Listening to his breath as he slept. In those intentional moments I recall being aware of wanting to remember them, that those moments were important. I realize now that God was making me keenly aware of the connection to Bill in those moments for this purpose…. To use the memory of them in this time to bring comfort to me. I am so grateful for the intentionality that God inspired and how he is using those moments now to comfort me.