I had a bad dream last night...

In my dream, my son was dying upstairs. My grief was indescribable and my guilt was worse. I could feel his wife's grief and as bad as mine was, hers was worse. I held myself back because he was her husband and she was his wife and they needed time alone together. I wanted to be by his side but she needed to be with him more. When I couldn't wait anymore, I went up to see him. Thankfully, the dream ended.

My guilt was that I didn't die, so he was dying instead of me. In real life, I carry this guilt with me when I hear of someone dying.

I know what brought this dream on. A very close friend of mine had a son. Her son never felt he was good enough. I believe he had dyslexia and had a terrible time in school and always felt he was stupid. No amount of encouragement from his parents or talking to him or counseling ever changed his mind. He always felt he was no good.

I know people can tell you until they are blue in the face about all the wonderful attributes you have to contribute to the world and how much their being in your life means to you. If they don't believe it, they will never feel better about themselves. We all have varying degrees of self-talk to ourselves. Some, like Olympic-grade athletes are trained to have the ability that if they make a mistake, they look forward, forget about the bad moment. This is a very good survival trait, I think. There are some of us who lambast ourselves about our mistakes and can't let go those mistakes. Some of us, not wanting to, wear them as medals on our chest. But for my friend's son, I cannot imagine the depths he travelled down to end in the position he found himself.

Early on in his teenage years, he became involved in drugs. This is easy to understand if you know how badly he felt about himself.

My friend and her husband were out of town when they received a call that their son died. They don't know if he died of an overdose or committed suicide but he died a couple of days ago. Whatever way he chose, this has crippled his parents with grief. I cannot know the amount of pain my friend is feeling but I know she is a very special person and did everything she could think of to help her son. She did it with love. She is now moving away from me as she travels down this lonely path of grief; a path where I cannot be by her side to help give her strength and support. In that way, I mourn and grieve for her for having to go through something so devastating and I cannot help her.

Hug your children, kiss your children and let them know how much you love them. As my children were growing up, I took every opportunity to tell them how much I love them. Perhaps they think I did it too much; I'm afraid I didn't do it enough. I know some people have said you can say "I love you" too much. I hope they are wrong. Take Care. LK