Last night I felt your arms around me

Grieving is a strange and unpredictable process.  Last night I dreamt that my mother came back...

My sister and I were at her old house sorting through her things, which for some reason were all still there.  I Went to the kitchen to make us some lunch and suddenly the back door opened and mum came in from the back garden, pleased to see me and acting as though everything was normal.  She had just been pootling around outside in her dressing gown and didn't seem to know that she had died 18 months ago.  Just a straightforward wish dream...  I grabbed the unexpected chance to rush over and give her a long hug, which none of us had had a chance to do before she died.  It felt vivid and real.  Nothing in the world is the same as a hug from your mother.  I called for my sister to come in and join us.  Afterwards my sis and I could not work out whether to act like everything was normal, or to try and help her understand that she had died.  Selfishly, I wanted to keep her here, but was afraid of what would happen when we left her alone there and went back to our own lives.  It was hard to wake up and find that she was not really back.

It was only when she died that I fully appreciated the human desire to believe in an afterlife...   the overwhelming need to believe that you can say things to someone who has died, tell them how you felt about them and confess your regrets.  Also the need to believe that they have gone somewhere better, to make up for any pain or loneliness they may have suffered. 

I suppose the only thing we can do is keep the positive things about that person alive in our own behaviour and make sure they are not forgotten.