I Died and Lived Again

I dreamed that I died and lived again. It was not an abstract dream, but as solid as the headstone with my name carved into it. I am certain I told my parents I did not want a grave, but there it was for them to cry over. A brain aneurysm, swiftly diagnosed and just as swiftly acting. Then I was gone, quietly, in the middle of the bright day. I dreamed of my funeral.

I woke, back in my bed in my home, whole and sound. Not a ghost, or apparition, but a complete me as I had always known. Everything was as I left it. I dressed and walked down the streets of my city. I bought coffee and the paper, and there is was in the printed pages, my death. There would be a memorial at my college and counseling. There were photos of grief-faced friends and kind words I didn’t read.

Should I go? Should I tell them I am still alive? It would probably scare them and drive them mad. I knew I was not a figment. People saw me. People served me coffee and said hello on the street. There would be questions, endless questions I knew no answers to. Perhaps I should just disappear. This could be my opportunity for a completely new life. I could start from scratch. My family had closure. They had put me in the ground.

But I could not do that to my mother so I went to see her. And she cried and I cried and in the end she was convinced of my reality. She is, after all, a pragmatic woman. A miracle, she called it. I just called it damned bizarre as we sat on her red sofa and tried to decide what to do next.

I woke up and thought “How bizarre.”