29. Where is Home?

"As real as it may seem, 

It was only in my dreams." 

~Debbie Gibson, Only in My Dreams

It's funny how we do different things over time to keep someone we love alive.  For a long time, it was all about the physical things - Jon's things.  I refused to give up anything he had ever used, touched, or worn because it felt like I'd be letting go of who he was.  Recently, it's been talking about him as often as I can with whomever will listen that provides me with a sliver of comfort.  Sometimes people seem to get a little uncomfortable; other times, they're happy to let me babble away.  Either way, it doesn't really matter too much - I can't change the reality of life without my beloved husband and I can't change all the parts of my future that are now shrouded in mystery.  What I can do is to promise that for as long as I live, Jon's memory will live on through me.  


Over the past few weeks, I've been having all these incredibly stressful dreams recently about everything you can imagine – school, my to-do list, work, etc.  I wake up exhausted and increasingly more tired than I was before I went to bed, which ultimately makes the days seem even longer and the nights that much harder.  But last night for a few wonderful moments, I dreamed about Jon.  He was alive (alive - such a beautiful word.  If someone asked me to pick my favorite word, it would be, without question, this one).  He had been wounded, not killed, and he had pulled through.  I realized I’d been writing for these past few these months about my worst nightmare, rather than reality.  As tentative relief washed over me, I felt lighter than I've felt in over five years.  And then I woke up.  I woke up to a blessed minute of confusion and hope...and then, with crushing disappointment, discovered that it was all just a dream.  Just another dream – the closest I will get to him again in this world.  The weight of the last five years suddenly felt even heavier than when I'd fallen asleep only a few hours earlier with tears streaming down my face.  I had tried to sprawl out over the bed to fill up the space Jon should have occupied beside me, but his absence is a void that, try as I might, I simply cannot fill.


It probably sounds ridiculous, but from time to time, I search for Jon's name in one of the many online databases of fallen heroes.  I already know, of course, what the search results will yield, but in the seconds before the results generate, I hold my breath and tell myself that if his name isn't there, things turned out differently.  It's like a game I play with my own mind to trick it into an alternate form of reality.  You hear and read about these crazy conspiracy schemes where people believe what they're told about who they are for years until finally someone magically comes along and blows the cover off their whole concocted life story.  Sometimes I wish my life were like one of those schemes.  I wish someone would call me out of the blue tomorrow and tell me that they made a terrible mistake and that it wasn't my Jon who died on that fateful day five years ago.  I'd probably be furious - "so you're telling me I've spent the last five years believing my husband is dead but he's actually alive and well?!" - but the anger would be short-lived.  Realistically, I'd want to kiss the feet of the person who brought me such miraculous news.  Or better yet, I wish Jon would call me himself.  I can I almost hear his sweet voice through the phone line telling me, "get ready, baby, I'm coming home." 


Home.  Without Jon, I'm not sure where that is for me.  It was always wherever we made it together.  I'd venture to say it's still wherever Jon is physically, but I don't think he'd want me to think of home in connection with a cemetery, beautiful though it might be.  And although his spirit is always with me, it's only in my dreams that I see his beaming smile and touch his beautiful face.  So that is our home.  Home is, as they say, wherever we choose to make it.  So, if dreams are the window to the soul and home is where the heart is, I guess that's my answer.  Home...is only in my dreams.