It is common to have disturbing dreams for some period afterwards; or not be able to dream about the husband (or wife) at all; or to see the partner in the distance but not get near. In accepting the death, meeting any feelings of loss, grief, anger and continuing love, the dream may become as below.
The example both shows the resolution of the loss, but also the paradox felt at realising the meeting was an inner reality. Example: ‘A couple of months ago as I was waking I felt my husband’s arm across me and most realistically experienced my hand wrapping around his arm and turning towards him (which I had done so often in his lifetime) and saying “1 thought you had died. Thank God you have not.” Then I awoke alone and terribly shaken’ (Mrs I).
A critic might say this is only a dream in which a lonely woman is replaying memories of her dead husband’s presence for her own comfort—thus her disappointment on being disillusioned. Whatever our opinion, the woman has within her such memories to replay. These are reality.
The inner reality is of what experience was left within her from the relationship. Her challenge is whether she can meet this treasure with its share of pain, and draw out of it the essence which enriches her own being. That is the spiritual life of her husband.
The aliveness’ of her husband in that sense is also social, because many other people share memories of him. What arises in their own lives from such memories is the observable influence of the now dead person.
But the dead also touch us more mysteriously, as in the next example. Example: In a recent news programme on television, a man who survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Singapore had been given a photograph of children by a dying soldier he did not know.
The man had asked him to tell his family of his death, but did not give his name.
The photograph was kept for 40 odd years, the man still wanting to complete his promise but not knowing how. One night he dreamt he was told the man’s name. Enquiries soon found the family of the man, who had an identical photograph.
See also: husb, under family. [1]