There is a certain vagueness, a feeling of ‘not being there’ that is heavily associated with dreaming, whether that be daydreaming or night-time dreaming or even with nightmares; you know that feeling, you’ve experienced it yourself. It comes more so in the waking moment than in the dream itself. You know you have had a dream and that it was only that, just a dream and nothing more.

I only really fully remember one dream in my life. I’ve recalled it over and over. Every detail, every sound, every smell, and every emotion at the time of and from within the dream, all so very strong and powerful, as if it were something a lot more than … just a dream. Yeah, I can recall that dream, even now, so many years after I had it.

In my dream, there is a lady, an exceptionally beautiful lady, a lady from a time gone by. Her perfume intoxicating, her smile larger than life and her eyes, her eyes so full of … love. And in that, I love her beyond words, beyond anything I’ve ever known in this life, yet in my mind, I kept telling myself that I do not know her. How can any of this be?

Whether a dream or not, how could I love a lady that I’ve never met, spoken to, or even seen before? How could such an intense feeling exist? Even in the dream, I can’t help but wonder how or why, no matter the realization that it is a dream or the fact that in dreams, I guess anything can be possible.

We take a walk, my love and I. It’s a glorious summer day, perhaps maybe even a day in spring. No matter which, it is so nice that I feel my skin prickle as warm sunshine graces both me and my love with its presence. We smile at each other, our bodies in contact only via our hands, cupped together as one, a symbol of joining, a simple show of our love.

If this was truly just a dream, then why or how could I feel it and feel it so strongly? I could understand to the point of feeling on some kind of an emotional level but a physical one too?

Our walk is short as we reach a near-by park, a creamy white pathway stretches ahead paralleled either side by dark rich green grass. We are full with joy and a sense that life is precious. I feel comfortable, safe, and happy.

A loud sound emanates and echoes out from my right, the backfire of a car possibly. It has drawn my attention away, but when I look back to her face, she, whose company I am within, her smile is frozen, and her life essence seems to pale and wither.

Time is moving slowly, just like in the movies when something dramatic and unexpected happens, and I acquire a brief external view as if seeing things happen from outside myself. No matter how hard I try to fight my own internal panic, I can’t stop or alter what happens next.

Back within myself, I Look over my love from her face to her still rising and falling chest, then to her stomach I see blood seep from a small hole in the blouse she is wearing—the blood pools and stretches across the lower half of her torso. My eyes move upwards to rest on her face, a face where only a moment before was so full of life and love, smiling into mine, but now a frozen grimace of pain is returned along with the knowledge that she is dying.

My love has collapsed into my arms before time sped up to a more regular pace as I scream for her to stay with me. My right hand covered with the crimson life I cannot prevent leaving her body. Her face so brave now, almost willing me to go on after this moment passes, her breathing so ragged, her physical existence coming to its end. My eyes blur with tears. Only one emotion is present; my throat is thick with grief.

‘Please,’ I beg her, ‘please don’t leave me,’ I say heavily.

My love says nothing for what seems like a long time … she stares up into my face as if to etch her soul into mine for all of time to come.

‘I love you,’ she says softly with her final breath, and then she is gone, lifeless in my arms.

‘I love you,’ I say, unsure if my words are heard. ‘I love you,’ I whisper once more, mostly in prayer.

I wake from my dream with pain and dread in equal measure, just as strong as what I felt in the instant prior to waking. My pillow is wet from crying, my tears in sleep evident in consciousness, and I feel so lost. I ache for the lady I’ve lost, a lady I don’t even know and oddly, save for her eyes, those eyes that held her love for me right to the end and even beyond, along with her smile, her perfume, and a shared love which goes both ways, I know not who she is.

How odd it is, how those eyes stay with me like a recalled memory rather than a recalled dream. I wept into the night, and many times since, for the lady of my dreams, my love, lost.

In dreams, we can be anyone, past or present, real or imagined but could it also a record of who we once may have been? Surely my dream, my emotion must have been real at one time, and a recollection visited my dreams, visited my soul, like a returning memory. Who knows?

All I know is that somehow, I’m comforted by the knowledge I had once been loved so greatly, and that I loved so greatly, even if that love only came from within a dream, an everlasting dream.