The last few weeks I have been dreaming about Gregory.

Strange, discombobulated dreams that are just, just plain weird y’all.

(And yes, I totally stole the title from that old movie of the same name, though I’ve never seen it.)

I’ve told you before about the dreams where he won’t answer the phone. In one of these new ones, he answers, but he sounds like he is far away, which hey, I guess he is. But it’s a sound like you’d hear from someone in a well, or trapped behind a wall. In the dreams I can see him, I can see his face moving and the words forming, but can’t understand what they are. In the dream I’m yelling at him “WHAT IS IT? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?” and I’m pounding on what looks like a thick clear plastic wall between us, like in a prison. I’m holding a red corded phone in one hand and beating on the plastic with the other, and I can see him, just standing there, talking to me.

Then there are others. They come in snippets, they do, and I usually jolt awake and try desperately to go back to sleep to see him again to find out what’s next.

In one of the others, we’re together. We’re walking around moss-covered streets in an old town I don’t recognize, full of empty shops. It’s near dark and there is a foggy mist, no one else but us is around, and we just walk. No words. He looks at me every so often and smiles, and I smile back. I open my mouth to tell him something, and that’s when I wake up.

The others are similar. In each, we’re together but can’t communicate. We’re also the only ones in the dream, no matter if it’s daylight, dark, in or out. Always just us two.

So what the hell is this?

Is it because the third year deathaversary is coming? Is this some weird communication from beyond, if that could actually occur?

I’m almost afraid to close my eyes because frankly, sometimes I wake up and I’m scared. But then if I don’t, what will I miss with him? What is he trying to tell me?

What am I trying to tell myself ?

What dreams may come?

Several of my “widdas“ are acknowledging significant dates this month, and others are writing about the loss of their loves. I won’t say celebrate, because who wants to celebrate a death-aversary, a cancer-versary,  or something like that? But I do know that I celebrate each of them and many more, all steel magnolias who have helped me through the last 3 years.

This past Monday was February 20th. Yea, the 20th. One more month until “THE 20th” .

3 years ago, February 20th, Gregory was alive. 28 days later, he was dead.

3 years. Who would ever know that in these almost 36 months I would emerge as a different person, a different Kim.

Not so hard about things, more laid back. Getting used to being by myself.

Closer to forgiving myself for signing the papers that pulled the plug. Telling him goodbye. Admitting to myself in the hospital room, alone at 2am while machines beeped around me that he was really already gone. He was being kept alive by Alabama Power.  There was no life in his eyes, no movement, no warmth. I realized as I was putting lotion on his feet, that I was holding the toes of a dead man. I didn’t cry. Then. I didn’t scream. Then. I just knew. Right then. I sat down on the edge of his bed, put clean socks on his lifeless feet, and knew.

And now I’ve known for almost three years. The pain will never go away. It ebbs and flows, but it’s always there.

I have an inch and a half scar right above my left kneecap. When I was 13, I fell through a plate glass window and required plastic surgery, a blood transfusion and 186 stitches in my legs and face. For years, the scar was an angry red blob. It felt strange to touch it, and though it didn’t hurt, I’d jerk my fingers away like it was hot if they got too near. I’d never let anyone touch it. As time went on, the scar faded, but it’s still there. I found that eventually I could touch it and it was just another part of my body and the reminders of what I have been through in my life. Gregory would lay his fingers across it as he draped his hand on my knee, and it tingled then, not with pain or annoyance, but with the warmth of love and contentment.

That scar will always be with me, the same as the pain of losing Gregory will be. Like the marks on my skin, each day I get more and more used to it. I don’t always think about it, but it’s always there, forever a part of who I am.

“Scars are souvenirs you never lose, the past is never far.” – The GooGoo Dolls 

Earlier today I allowed myself to step into the sucking quicksand that is commonly known as reading over blog posts of the past. Another one of my brilliant ideas. I didn’t dissolve into a wailing, snotty mess on the floor, but at times I felt I sure was about to.

I’m not sure what I was looking for, if anything. Honestly I think I was prompted by that damn new Facebook timeline that dredges up muck like an oily well of despair from times that should begone.

I think I’ve come so far, that I’ve been so strong. I start to believe that I’ll really be ok.

Then, with just a few clicks of the old magic mouse, I’m back in 2009. And beyond. And the part that ticks me off the most is that I let it happen.

Sometimes I really don’t like all of this digital preservation.