Today I heard a song that I have not heard in a long time. It is a song that I wish I had written the lyrics for. To me there is something incredibly nostalgic and moving about the words and sounds of the music. My favorite line is “I can make a dream that’s only half awake come true.” Those words speak to me on a primal level. To me the line is about grief. Grief makes all of my senses sharper. Grief makes me so much more aware of the lack of presence that was once so real and that is now so gone. We tend to think that death ends a relationship in the same way it ended a life. It does not. Death ends the physical presence of the deceased in our world but it does not end our relationship with the deceased. The remembrance of the deceased makes the dream that is only half awake come true. The dream coming true is the realization that the relationship endures. Yesterday is gone but tomorrow is yet to come. This is the comfort in the midst of the storm of grief. That dream is true! I maintain relationships with those I have lost every time I remember them, every time I laugh at a remembered joke or saying or when I see their face in that of a stranger. All of those moments are dreams that were once only half awake coming true.
T.S. Deary
Pictures Assembled From Memory 