A Night Without Nightmares

Dear John,

Thank you - no nightmares last night! I only remember one dream. I was at Walmart and heard you call out "ishi" behind me, like you always did. (It made it easy to know it was you, and you were calling me. Who else in the Goshen Walmart would be hollering out "my wife" in Hebrew?) I turned around and saw you smiling at me, just like you always did. I waved and walked toward you, then I woke up. There - we were doing something normal. Was that so hard? :)

I knew in the dream that you had died, but I wasn't surprised to see you at Walmart. In all these dreams I knew that you'd already died. During the nightmares I'm always thinking, "He already died once. I can't let him die again." It doesn't feel like guilt - I know that we all did everything that could be done for you. Maybe it's just that I just want so bad for it to have ended differently. And we came so close in Indy, before you got pneumonia.

But last night was better - thank you for praying for me. I could always wake you up if I was having nightmares, ask you to pray for me, and they'd stop. Please keep praying. I'd love for the nightmares to not come back.

Always your wife,

Joan.