The Dream

A bloodcurdling scream floated down the hall and into my ears. The scream was a mixture of pain, despair, fear, confusion, rage and immense sadness. It chilled me to the bone. I bolted out of bed and sprinted down the hall. The door to a master bedroom was ajar and I could hear hysterical sobs coming from inside the room. I peaked in and saw a young girl of six with blonde-hair, dressed in a blue nightgown curled into a ball on the floor at the foot of the bed, weeping uncontrollably. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see and old women, the housekeeper, with gray hair in curlers, clad in a purple robe with matching slippers, hurrying towards the room. ‘Cecilia, what is going on? Why are you in hysterics?’ The old women asked. Then she turned to the bed and froze, understanding completely why the child was weeping. I shot up in bed, hair and sheets sticking to me from the sweat that I had produced while dreaming. I was shaking. I did not want to go back to sleep, I was afraid that if I did, then I would finish the dream. I already knew what was going to happen and I could not bare to relive it.
I got up and crossed the floor to the bathroom. I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face in attempt to get a grip on reality. That was the problem though, that dream was reality. I’d had that dream almost every night since I was six and I always awoke right before it showed the bed and why it had made the little girl cry. I couldn’t make myself relive that awful night again. I didn’t want to remember the blood, their lifeless bodies, or the fact that they had been shot in their own bed and nobody heard. I never wanted to believe that the little blond girl was me the night that I found them, but I don’t really get to choose what I believe. Turning off the faucet and wiping my face dry with a towel I headed out of the bathroom and towards the window. I opened it, letting the cool November air fill my room and wash over my body. I sat on the windowsill, pulled my knees up to my chest and for the first time in 4 years, I surrendered to my tears and wept silently for a long while. I wept that they hadn’t been alive to teach me how to ride a bike when I was seven or come to career day at school when I was nine. I wept because they weren’t there when I had my first piano recital at eleven and that they couldn’t come to my thirteenth birthday tomorrow. They had so much love and kindness to give and they could no longer share it with others.
  During my weeping confession, I fell asleep and I began to dream, but this one was not a memory the way the others were. In this dream, I was facing large gates made of pearl and a street made of that gold twisted and curved away on the other side of it. I knew were I was immediately. I was dreaming of heaven, I knew were I was because it looked exactly like the bible described it. I felt a wave of relief surge through me as I realized this is where my parents must be. They had always said that they had been saved and were on there way to heaven, but mom would always say that we would never know for sure if they really are because it is between them and God. The gates opened and the Saint John walked out to me. He silently took my hand, knowing whom I wanted to see, and led me down the streets of gold to a large mansion. My parent’s mansion. My mother ran out followed by my dad. John released my hand and I ran towards them, throwing my arms around the both of them. They laughed and returned my embrace while showering me with kisses. I know tears aren’t supposed to be shed in heaven, but I felt like crying and from the faces my parents were making, they did too.
I awoke to find myself still crying tears of sadness, but tears of joy were mixed in as well. I wanted to fall back asleep in hopes of dreaming of my parents and the happy life they had acquired in heaven. However, try as I might I could not calm down enough to successfully find sleep. I closed my window and  slid between the sheets of my bed, wondering why I had dreamed of heaven in the first place. Usually I dreamed about memories or the last thought that I had before falling asleep and I distinctly remember thinking about how big and bright the moon was tonight, nothing about heaven at all. That’s when I realized that I had been allowed to see my mom and dad because that is what I needed to go on and stop living in a shell. To stop being to afraid to get close to people for fear of losing them, we live, we die, I just had to learn to accept that. To accept it, cope with it, and move on. And I planned to do just that, now that I knew what it was I needed to do I wasn’t going to wallow on my grief and despair. I was going to pick myself up, dust myself off and stride forward with a new outlook on how I lived my life. That was something I could be proud of, my friends could be proud of and my parents as well.