She, the departed in my dreams

She comes to me in dreams. She tells me beautiful lies that I wake up wishing I could believe. She is always present, yet she remains past. She is here with me always, I am never alone. She was the girl who laughed the loudest. She kissed with her upper fist. She made you remember her name. She loved the hardest. She lived at lightening speed. She was always going to be okay.

Three years, three months, three weeks and three days since she passed. Her birthday is the third of January, yet another three. I could pass it all off as a coincidence but really, it’s not; she still lingers in my everyday life, stars in a multitude of my dreams. 

At just 7 years old, I met her. She was 10, three years older than me. We liked all the same things; horses, Milo, lip syncing to pop tunes. We were both just innocent enough, just young enough, that our age gap didn’t show.
I don’t’ remember our first meeting specifically, but I remember many times spent together in the first year I knew her.

I vividly remember her excitement over the arrival of her very own pony, Frankie. He was fairly short in stature and chubby, and she remarked, “He’s small and rollie-pollie, just like me. He’s my Frank!” I still daze over the photos of the first day Frankie came home to her. I can remember the warm sun leeching into the shadowed yard, the frost still melting off the grass, wetting the bottoms of my jeans because they were too long. We doubled on Frankie that morning. I can still feel her long hair tickling my nose as we dawdled around the yard, how it smelt like Pears soap and apple shampoo. She brought Frankie to a halt at the gate and announced to both of our parents, “This is the best day ever”.
And it was.

It’s funny how you remember some things as if they happened mere moments ago, and other snippets of time, sometimes months, or even years, are hardly distinguishable. I remember her mostly at 10 years old and at her oldest.

            Having grown apart, with a reasonable age gap between us, I was about 17 when we started seeing each other more often. She still had her long blonde hair but we were now the same height. All of her childhood chubbiness was now non-existent. She was very slight, to say the least. Hugging her, I felt my arms could nearly go around her waist twice. She was calmer, she was kinder, and she was more patient now. 

One of the last times I saw her, she was full of compliments, and wanting to make up for lost time.

“Who did your nails?” She exclaimed, grasping my fingers in her cool, pale hands.
“Oh, I did them myself. Just with a nail pen.” I gushed, remembering the ammonia fumes and the mess.

“They look so good! You know, we really need to catch up over summer, go to the beach, or maybe even riding.” She told me, as she looked straight in to my eyes, then suddenly let go of my hand.
“That sounds great, just let me know when works for you”

Her voice is what haunts me the most. She had a deep, raspy voice; it made you feel warm, from the tips of your fingers to the end of your nose. I can hear her laugh, I can conjure it just thinking of her. What I would give to have that sound in the present and not have to remember it.

She is constantly popping up in my dreams. There are the reoccurring dreams and there are the brand new ones. The most frequent to reoccur, gets me every single time. I dream that I see her, and after all this time, she’s alive, she never died. She had to go somewhere for a while, she wasn’t safe. Like the plot line of dramatic thriller. She reassures me, her husky tones reassure me, her hugs reassure me, the smell of her hair reassures me, until I am totally convinced this is real, she is here. Then I wake up. And reality shatters over me like a cruel joke.

I told her mother about this particular dream just this week. She told me of one she has often, and it’s somewhat similar. She can see her daughter’s car. She knows its her car, she knows that her daughter is sitting in the drivers seat and she bends down to talk to her through the window. But she wakes up, agonisingly missing her moment to see her daughter.  Her mother tells me that she lies in bed after waking, she’s shaken, all she wants is to go back, just for a minute to see her daughter. But she never can fall back asleep.

Everything she did, she truly did in her own style. After her traumatic death at just 21 years old, it was discovered that she’d made a last will and testament. And she’d made it several years ago, at the tender age of 16, with her best friend. Both of them had written one each, and swapped, vowing to carry out the other’s wishes if the other were to pass.

Her funeral had been planned entirely by her. She had picked out each song, specifically didn’t want people in black, but rather in colour, and instructed us, beyond the grave, that we should be celebrating her life. Not mourning her death. I can imagine her writing it out, face scrunched, picking out her favourite happy tunes, not wanting her loved ones lamenting over her passing for too long.

            “Fuck, stop crying. Just be happy, remember all those times we had, don’t cry about me, live for me. “
 

            She vanishes from my dreams, always happy, always smiling; always telling me it will be ok.