Heaven on the Line
I’ve read a lot of memoirs and novels lately in which the dead return in dreams bearing messages for the living, and it really pisses me off because no one I’ve lost has ever returned in a dream to stand at the foot of my bed and tell me they’re fine. That they’re in a better place and they’ve run into a mutual friend and they’re fine, too. Or that it all turns out okay in the end, so don’t worry. I’ve encountered my dead in dreams in many unlikely settings: a street in Mexico where neither of us had ever been; a cluttered attic where the stuff I’m trying to throw away keeps multiplying like the broom scene in Fantasia; or suddenly turning up in my elementary-school cafeteria dream that recurs with dreary frequency. Their apparitions are at once nonsensical and perfectly reasonable in dream time, but they’ve never told me not to be sad. They’ve never coughed up any info on what to expect in The Great Beyond (although maybe that’s not allowed—too much like giving away the ending of a movie). And they’ve never delivered messages from other relatives who are otherwise occupied in the resort known as Heaven. Not once. Not even “Your Uncle Jay says hey” or “Ran into your old boyfriend—he’s here with his wife”. Not my mother whose forgiveness I long to hear. Not my father, and to be honest, I hope he doesn’t decide to drop in. Not my hard-working, hymn-singing, card-playing aunt who lost two of her children in a drowning in one day. Not my cousins who perished, one of whom was my first crush—it was Kentucky after all. Not my ex-husband or my ex-lover, both of whom are probably busy appearing in other women’s dreams, occupied in death as in life.
Is my connection to the afterworld as spotty as my wi-fi can sometimes be, or am I just demanding too much of the dead?
We weren’t the most affectionate or communicative family when they were alive, so why am I expecting a sea change now? If one of them returned in a dream, it would be to suggest fresh flowers in the cemetery more often in the passive-aggressive way that runs in our family. Or maybe my mother and aunts would show up as a gaggle of nosy ghosts to say “I told you” so about my marriage one more time. And, of course, my ex will wonder why the kids never visit his grave. (It’s in Idaho, for god’s sake! We never go there!) My family never adhered to the adage that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, so it’s probably just as well that they maintain the silence of the grave. But I can’t help wishing for a midnight manifestation or a spectral wave from the spirit world just to say hello. A sign, a Cheshire cat smile, a glimpse of ectoplasm just leaving a room. Still, they do live on in the funny anecdotes I tell my kids about their grandparents, the sepia-toned photos of long-ago ancestors, and the handwritten family histories featuring pig drovers and Valley Forge soldiers and laudanum addicts and dueling brothers who fought over a woman. Maybe that’s their way of haunting those of us who remain behind for now. Not leaving eerie cold spots in an empty room or mysteriously moving objects around behind our backs. Those stories are their wave from the grave—better than ouija board summonings or dream drop-ins or astral projections. Just stories, wonderful stories. Pass them on.
Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.