LISTENING TO ECHOES

By MICHAEL PERKINS

I’M SURE THAT I AM FAR FROM UNIQUE in having dreams in which the departed appear; clear, real, close enough to touch.

I’m not certain why I get these visits, as they are random in nature and don’t follow any coherent narrative. All I know is: the dead are back again, and they seem to have something to impart, some issue that they are weighing in on. There seems, in these dreams of those who’ve gone ahead of us, some unfinished business, some cosmic curtain call that poses questions, teases at the prospect of answers.

Of late, for me, many of these dreams involve my late father. Let me clarify by saying that I am personally unaware of any issues between us that still remained to be settled. On the contrary, our relationship. in his final years, seemed to move very satisfactorily toward a clean finish, our chance to say everything that needed to be said.

And yet, he comes to me, and the sightings have sent me back into the last few opportunities I had to take his picture. Some of the images, like the one seen here, let his inner light and miraculous energy shine forth, making him, in the best way, immortal. Others revealed his frailty, the collapse of his outer envelope. Both messages were sad and happy and true and beyond price. On his weak days, he was a flickering candle. On his strong days, he was, as he had always been to me, a beacon.

We all lose people. That’s a universal experience, but the specific way that loss registers is infinitely personal. Grief is not a brief twinge, like the spasm that results when a doctor hits a knee with a reflex hammer. Instead, it is a long, drawn-out process, as the loved one does not vanish all at once, but in flashes. They’re gone! They’re back again! We are all haunted, but not in predictable ways; we experience, instead, a million little gratitudes and sorrows, making the photographs of our dear ones the most poignant document we will every create. We pray we get it right while these essential people are here, since our take is eventually the last echo of their lives.