It's true in real life too.

I had a dream last night. It was winter and really cold, which is true in real life, and I was completely down about it. See, dreams can totally come true.

I was in a bleak room, with crumbling walls painted muted yellow, and I was working at a concrete table, while really missing Alice. I was yearning for her, feeling her absence, and having difficulty once again tolerating my loss, when she made herself present to me. I couldn't see her, or actually hear her voice, yet from inside my mind, like to my soul, she said "I promise to be with you for the rest of your life."

How relieved and heartened I was to hear this statement! It was new, and profound, that she was expending energy to push this message to me. Since her death, our communication has really been one-sided, as in I reach out to her. This time, she totally reached out to me, made herself known, and expressed the fact that she will always be with me. I took it somewhat literally, that she will fade once I perish. Yet thinking about it now, I believe she will continue to live on in the people whose lives I will have touched. True?

When I awoke, my eyes were soaking wet, and my heart ached from crying. It was also buoyed a little, having been in touch with Alice overnight. In real life.

Hooray! The Return of S.A.D.

The sun rose this morning at 7:18am, and will set (not much) later at 4:52pm. It's 30 degrees outside, and the weather report says it feels like 19. Tonight's expected to be -1 degree. Yesterday I didn't step outside once. Friday I woke up at 7:30am, still tired after after having gone to bed the night before at 7:30pm. So this California boy is feeling cold, and ravaged by Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.).

And this is all good news! I haven't really felt the impact of S.A.D. since Alice died, so all the fatigue and doldrums suggest I'm no longer grieving for Alice. Rather, I have the wherewithal lately to be beaten down by nature's wintertime darkness. Terrific, no?

This is how life goes on after the death of my sister. If I were to call her today, I imagine she'd admonish me for living in such a harsh environment, impatiently wondering why I would ever do such a thing.

Then she'd encourage us to come visit her in California.  That's what we're planning to do in February, Alice.