This book has been many years in the making. When my real “Mick” died, I began experiencing vivid suicide nightmares surrounding the actual event. The nighmare was the same, every single time and went like this:
I was alone in the northern woods, our cabin about 20 feet in front of me. It was eerily quiet, early in the morning. The air was cool and crisp, with the scent of pine and damp needles. I walked toward the door, dry twigs breaking under my feet. So far, a peaceful dream. How I missed our weekends in the woods, completely turning off the noise of society.
I slowly open the door and what I see is horrifying. Mick is at the kitchen table, arms at his sides, head back against the wall, slightly tilted to the left. There is a single candle, still burning, on the table in front of him, a pack of Marlboro reds and a lighter next to it. There is a hunting rifle partly in his lap but has fallen over so it is pointing toward the floor.
I look down at the rifle, then back up at Mick. Now I see it. Blood splattered all over the wall and running down toward the floor in thick streaks.
At this point, I wake up, sometimes screaming, but mostly gasping for air, drenched in sweat and my heart is racing. My hands are shaking and I cannot calm down. After having this same nightmare every night for two weeks, I decided to make a doctor appointment. I was given an anti-depressant and it was recommended I seek therapy for what she called trauma related nightmares.
Not being a fan of therapy, I decided to skip it and start writing a journal instead. Every time I had a nightmare, I would get up and open my laptop and just start writing whatever was on my mind. Sometimes it was describing the nightmare, sometimes it was getting my anger out at Mick for what he did, not only to himself, but to those who loved him. Sometimes I would write about how I still loved him, even though we had been divorced for several years beforehand. Or I would write about memories of good times we shared.
The nightmares continued, but less often than before. Then one night, the dream started out the same as before, but when I opened the door, he wasn’t there. I looked around and found there were six or so people under our cabin packing up boxes. I found this very strange because there was no basement, but it was as if the cabin had been lifted up and there was a perfectly square dirt hole below it. None of the people could see me. Then in the distance, I spotted Mick. He was smiling at me, wearing his favorite green polo shirt. I have to say, he looked amazing! Then Mick spoke to me, but I couldn’t hear any words. I could read his lips, however. He was saying, It’s ok, Ell. I love you. I’m happy now.
That was the last time I had that particular nightmare, which had turned into only a dream. It did wake me up, but I wasn’t sweating, or shaking or any of the usual things that happened with past nightmare wakeups. I was happy and scared at the same time. The dream was so real, it was almost as if he was visiting me and that really freaked me out.
For the next several years, I continued to have dreams about Mick. He was alive in my dreams and we were together. Our kids were always young in the dreams, almost as if they were stuck in a certain timeframe of our life together. Then, at some point, the dreams stopped. During this time, I had continued to write whenever I had a dream. I wanted to have these notes to go back and read whenever I was feeling lonely and missing Mick. Unfortunately, my computer died and I lost everything.
To continue the story, see The Poem.