I sat at the table with my hands folded under my chin. I could hear people talking and I saw family moving throughout the room. I sensed his presence before I actually saw him. As I turned in his direction I watched his form move toward me. He walked slowly, head down, staring at the plate of cupcakes he was carrying. My eyes followed him, attempting to get a good look at his face, needing to really see him when he suddenly tripped, spilling the cupcakes to the floor while uttering a frustrated, “gahhh!” A smile graced my lips as this was so characteristic of him, he bore a natural clumsiness about him we had learned to love. He knelt to the floor placing the cupcakes back on the plate then resumed his walk over to me. I didn’t want him to feel bad for dropping them so I would eat that cupcake anyway even though he dropped it. “That’s Okay,” I said to him as he handed one to me…then, just as my eyes were about to meet his..I woke up.

Nearly every single night since Konnor passed away I have longed to see him in my dreams. Some nights I would close my eyes and softly call out to him to come to me. Alone in the night calling out to Konnor, pleading with him to let me see him in a dream. Night after night I would fall asleep to the sound of my own heart beating in my ears and wake without dreaming at all. Other family members had dreamed of him or had a vision of him. I was not so lucky. My mind was too crowded for him to come in or so I was told.

I tried not to be too bothered by this. I had felt his presence in other ways. I believe he was letting me know he was alright. I had my signs. Even though we can never fully understand the power and mysticism of love and the afterlife, we cannot underestimate it either. We have to be open to it. Often, we just have to believe in things we cannot prove and rejoice in it when it comes our way.

We must be open to see what we have otherwise been too blinded to see, listen for those things we may have silenced in doubt in order to experience what is given to us. Grief, doubt and negative energy cast a cloud around us making it difficult to see what is right in front of us. If we cannot move through this cloud we cannot reach our loved ones and they cannot reach us. Only time and space brought Konnor to me. Time for me to heal, space created in my mind. I was finally able to give him the room in which to visit me in a dream.

Dreaming of Konnor was magnificent. In my dream we are together, another moment of time otherwise denied to us. Although brief it was but for that moment real. For me, it was a form of time-travel. I watched him walk around that room holding those cupcakes like it was just another day. In my sleep I felt the warmth in my chest that comes from looking at someone you love and feeling extreme happiness, pride and peace. I am sure my face was beaming. Dreaming of him was everything I knew it would be and more.

I woke shaken, confused at first. Had I really dreamt of him? I had waited so long for this! Certain that indeed I had I immediately tried to get back to sleep. I needed to resume the dream where we left off, recapture the feeling of having him back. It was futile, my mind was just replaying the dream over and over as if on repeat so I would not forget any of it. I felt content enough. To ask for more would be wrong, greedy.

For a while I did attempt to analyze the dream. What could the cupcakes mean? Is he trying to show me something? My daughter had suggested the cupcakes could symbolize the number of  blogs that were published. As if Konnor were acknowledging my accomplishments on his behalf. I quickly realized it did not make any difference to me why he came just that he was there. Any miracle with Konnor in it is cherished no matter the circumstance.

He had given me a moment of calm deep within my soul. A calm I had rarely felt since his passing. I felt as if he reached out to me and touched me. He was telling me he sees me. I, at that moment felt such peace and stillness within my soul.

It has been twenty-three months since Konnor has been gone. Twenty-three months. There are days when I still have a hard time catching my breath recalling that horrible day we lost him. He will be forever eight years old. My first grandson, my first grandchild. To say I am forever changed by his loss is an understatement. I will never be the same. My heart aches every day. I still cry, I miss him. My heart cried out to see him one more time if only for a moment

So you see, dreaming of him was like having him back. I got my minute.

Dreams make it possible to transcend time and space and be granted a peaceful moment where only you and your loved one are the focus. This is sweetness, this is the stuff dreams are made of. Me and Konnor, moving, breathing, touching. He drifted down from the heavens, slipped into my subconscious to enlighten me with an enchanting dream.

My super-hero.

I don’t know if Konnor was trying to tell me something or simply showing up to say hello but what I do know is this, having him in my dreams was as sweet as that cupcake he gave to me.