Let’s talk more about these dreams. After the Grubby dreams I had that I wrote about last week, I had another one that next night. This one was different. When I awoke in the morning, it was obvious by the condition of my bed that it was different… even if I hadn’t remembered what the gist of it was.
So, in this dream, I had been out of town at some fancy hotel for a business meeting. When I came home to our house, which wasn’t really our house but somehow, I knew it was where we lived, Grubby wasn’t there. I tried to call him, but he sent my call to voicemail. I waited for him to come home, but when he didn’t and didn’t return my call, I knew something was up. I started going through his stuff and most of his clothes were gone, like not there.
I searched around for him, and I ended up going out to the place where we used to live. They were building a road behind it that led to a little farmer’s market or something like that. On the other side of the farmer’s market, there was a trailer park, and I saw his purple Jeep there. I tried calling again and sent him a text asking what was going on and telling him to please call me. Instead, he ghosted me. I started hearing some talk around town about him being with some new girl and I asked one of the shop owners, “He’s never coming back, is he?” That’s when I found out that he had left me for some trashy girl from Ringgold! I was LIVID!!!
When I awoke the next morning, to reality in our real house, my bed linens were everywhere! Apparently, I had been thrashing around quite a bit in my dream – either with angst over trying to find him or angst over finding out that he had left me. I am usually not a restless sleeper, I stay on my side of the bed, and it’s easy to make the bed the next morning because everything is basically in its place still. Not that morning. That morning, it looked like there had been some sort of exorcism in there: sheet going one direction, duvet going the other and hanging all cattywampus off the bed, and the throw pillows that I sleep with were tossed about recklessly. That morning, it was clear that my dream had been very unsettling.
I was talking to one of our dear friends last night, and I told her about the dream. In my conscious mind, I know that Grubby a) was not a cheater, and b) would never have left me because he loved me so deeply. So why would I have a dream that he did the opposite of what I know his character to be, and why did it disturb me so deeply? Sherrie nailed it when she said, “You’re still angry about what he did. This was a way that you could be angry about the act, but not be angry with him.” Wow! That was an eye-opener, and she was absolutely right.
I don’t want to be angry with Grubby because I know that his suicide was an act of desperation, that had he been able to see even a pinprick of light in the darkness, he would still be here today. As Abby has often said, that man that walked into those woods was not her father – he looked like her father, he walked like her father, but something else in his mind took over that day. I don’t want to be angry with Grubby because he was hurting, worse than he had ever been hurt before, and he saw no other way to escape the pain. I don’t want to be angry with Grubby because I love him so deeply, and I am a little afraid that if I get angry with him, he will stop visiting me in my dreams or stop showing me signs that he’s still here with me.
But, yes, I am still angry at the act, and that is okay…
