Dream

I dreamed I saw my father, sitting in an old lawn chair outside the room where he and my mother died. He was thinner, and his catheter was gone. He didn't need a walker anymore. But otherwise, he was the same. I wondered at how warm his hands were, as I held them. He said only, "It's okay to cry" and I did.
But the dream wasn't just about him. I found an old bag in the corner, full of Jeremy's old toys and schoolwork (in the dream), and pictures from my wedding. It was about all the stages of my life that I have left behind. And that reminded me of Hopkins poem "Spring and Fall." Since Lou, in her blog, gifted us with a beautiful Hopkins poem, I will do that as well here.

Spring and Fall: To a young child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.