Katherine:
“Yes! I did feel like I was floating back in time, with all the smells of the flowers, and the harm humid weather. It reminded me of the summer evenings I spent in my Midwest hometown. I also recall spending time in our garden at home when I was young. I loved not just the scent of the flowers, but also the soft texture of the petals. . . And, wow, I remember looking closely at the intertwining of the petals, I would pull one of the petals away from the flower. I noticed (or at least imagined) that the remaining petals trying to take the place of the missing petal. They never were successful. . . .
Wait, wait. I think this dream is partly about my divorce. My ex-husband is no longer living at my home. As a petal on the flower of our family, he is now gone and we haven’t been able to fill the gap. That might be part of reason I was crying. I don’t think I have ever really processed the loss of a loved one in my family. I think my mother showed up in the dream to provide me with some comfort and support. However, she soon left the dream; and I was left to struggle with the loss of my husband by myself. And then I started to cry. I think I was grieving both the loss of my childhood and the loss of my husband. This was a double header!! [Katherine begins to both cry and laugh.]”
After a minute during which nothing was said, Sonya enters the conversation:
“Katherine, you have said quite a bit here. When you talk about balancing the scales between your job and your family, there is an additional weight on the side of the family that must be taken into consideration. This weight is your ex-husband. Even though you are now divorced, here are feelings for him and memories of him that can’t easily be dismissed. I would suggest that you still need to appreciate the important role he played in your family. While you need to move beyond his presence in your family, you do need to appreciate the contributions he made. If nothing else, you need to identify how these contributions will now be offered by other members of your family. These contributions might now be offered by you, as you spend more time at home and less time at the office. Or your two children are now growing older and can provide some of the things your husband once offered. It could be as simply as one of your children making the dinner for your family once a week, or for your other daughter talking responsibility for shooting pictures of your family when you are on vacation or taking charge of decorating your home during the Christmas holidays – doing something that your ex-husband used to do.”
Katherine comes in:
“All of this makes sense. Perhaps this reassignment of roles will help all of us deal with our shared grief regarding the loss of our fully intact family. I know these have been hard times for the kids. And I suspect that I have spent more time at work in part to avoid living with and dealing with the shared tears that my kids and I must begin to share.”
Sonya:
“This all sounds reasonable. You indicated that there was more than one dream you wanted to share. I would love to hear what else your dreams are trying to tell you – or perhaps even teach you.”
