Number 65

I Heard Her Laugh

To fully understand why what I'm about to tell you means so very much to me, I need to explain a few things first.

If you've been paying attention recently, the first two will things require very little explanation, as they're kinda what I've been writing about. (1) I recently returned from a two week  trip to disperse my wife's ashes at various places significant to her life. In that way, I finally felt as if I put her properly to rest. (2) Also recently, I unearthed and came to terms with my own feelings of both homo and transphobia. As a result, uneasy feelings that my transition had somehow devalued my marriage to Rebecca were finally put to rest.

The third thing I need to explain is my mind-trippingly, bizarre dream world. One of the common side-effects of anti-depressive medication is a dream life that is more vivid and weird than otherwise. Let me state, conclusively, for the record: "Yup." I don't remember my dreams in any conventional sense. After one or two minutes of vague awakeness, almost all details of my dreams are gone. At best, I am able to recall a small snippet, or maybe a couple of details. Mostly what I recall is the 'mood' or 'emotional tone' of the dream, and nothing else.

That's a good thing too, because for the most part my dreams are a heady stew of intense violence, bizzaro imagery, and unlinear plotting. Frequently, when I'm involved in a dream, but also in a semi-consciece state, I try to intentionally wake myself up, in order to escape whatever fucked-up scenario my sub-conscience has served-up at that moment. Unpleasant doesn't even begin to cover it.

Interestingly enough, though, there does seem to be some sort of crazy internal logic to it all. What I mean is that there are common themes and images that often come up. For our purposes today, I only need to tell you about my 'Rebecca' dreams. After she passed, I don't remember dreaming about her for a long time. I kind of wondered about that. But when she did start showing up, I began wishing she hadn't. You see, the common 'mood' or 'tone' when she would appear was one of disappointment and unhappiness (with me). Quite often she would express her desire for the two of us to divorce. These dreams struck such disturbing chord in me that I would feel relief when I awoke and remembered that the reality was that she was dead.

Well, this morning, as I was in the sub-conscious state right before awakening, I was in the middle of one of my typical stream-of-conscious, outlandishly plotted dreamscapes (seriously, I have no memory of what all was happening), but at one point Rebecca was there. I could see her, but I also think she and I were on the phone together at the same time. In any event, something funny happened in the dream, and I heard her laugh.

For the first time in almost four years, I heard her laugh. And I recognized it. It was her laugh. My heart leapt inside of me in amazement and joy! For our entire life together we had laughed together so, so many times, and to hear that sound again was the gift of an angel.

Why did I finally have a dream like this now? Did it have anything to do with the recent events of my life that I mentioned above or was it coincidental? I don't know. But more importantly, I don't need to know. The only thing that's important in all of this is reflected in today's title: I heard her laugh.