~ to the third floor of the girls' dorm `

Tues 6 Feb 2007
3:45 p.m.

On the weekend I got to visit one of my old high schools and tour the girls' dormitory. Over the 30 years since being a resident, occasionally at night I'd dream of being back there and roaming through the halls. It was a delight to take a tour and rather amusing to be treated like an honoured guest instead of the mischievous class-skipping brat that I was back then.

Even better than revisiting my old stomping grounds, though, was reconnecting with an old friend I had lost touch with. I'd googled his name and not found him, I'd had the odd dream about him, and thought regretfully that I might never see him again.

Gerry and I met in Regina when we were both about 12 years old and enjoyed each other's company while growing through our teen years. He was always sweet and funny and fun to be with, much like every girl dreams her own brother would be. And now, after about 25 years, a friend discovered that she was a mutual acquaintance as well as Gerry's neighbour. She facilitated renewed contact so that Gerry and I, and our spouses, could get together on Saturday night. (Jo, I owe you!)

Like I emailed to Gerry after Scott and I arrived back home, I am still feeling the warm fuzzies from that.

~ a mask Everett made at school ~

Last night I watched a documentary about a 10-year-old girl named Maeve, who died in a traffic accident. Actually the documentary was about how her family and community are coping creatively with her death. Today I looked up their website, called Planet Creature.

Maeve’s father has written about the actual events of his daughter’s death, and I read that with great interest. He, like me, sat with his loved one’s body after death. In common were our feelings of wanting to do something but there being nothing to do, other than quietly communing with the body, saying a silent loving goodbye to it. I could recognize my own emotion in his use of a word that fits my experience around Mom’s death: disappointed.

Maeve’s mother told of a prophetic, symbolic dream the girl told her about on the morning of the accident. The dream clearly showed that Maeve was about to take a distinctly different path than that of her parents and sister. This dream was a huge comfort to both parents after Maeve’s death, and reminded me of Mom’s dream of meeting God and talking about what she was going to do in heaven. The dream seemed so right, to me; a sign that there is some meaningful force that does have a hand in our life, and death, stories.