To Dream The Shape Of My Heart

A couple of years ago, my cat Rook died.  It sucked.

Don't get me wrong.  Rook was a big pain in the ass.  I called him my seventeen pound furry cannonball with legs.  He couldn't walk through a room without knocking something over, puking on it and shedding two cats worth of hair into the mess he made.

Damn.  I really miss the little bastard.

So last night I had a noteworthy dream.  I found myself at a cottage, unpacking gear from a car along with a few other people.  Among the gear roamed my two cats, Rook and Bishop.  After a bit, I stop unpacking and take a hard look at Rook.

And then I ask him, "How can you be here?  You died."

In one of those indescribable dream moments, he did a sort of Bugs Bunny meets Bill the Cat morph and I was instantly aware I was dreaming.  A second later he was my Rook again, cocking his head at me the way all cats do.

I've had many lucid dreams over the years.  Usually the lucidity is triggered by a moment when I realize something impossible is happening, like I'm flying under my own steam or as in this case, seeing my late cat scooting happily around a cottage driveway.

What happened next is new.

When Rook was alive, he loved to see me lying on the couch on my stomach as I watched tv.  He knew that meant I was pretty much in cat mode myself and unlikely to move much in the next little while.  He'd cock his head at me from the floor and when I gave him the go ahead, he'd gingerly climb up onto my back and join me for a nap.  If you've never had the experience, I can tell you that having a seventeen pound cat with inch long claws gently heft itself into the small of your back is a set of sensations that you'll never forget once you've felt them.

Once I realized I was dreaming last night, I saw that same look of "can I?" on his face and I was happy to oblige.  I lay down on my stomach in my dream and sure enough, Rook took me up on the offer.  I felt his paws gingerly moving around on my back, just the way I remember, felt his weight sink onto my back and snuggle in.  No doubt about it, Rook was settling in for a nap on Dad's back.

Dishearteningly, in that moment I woke up.  I would dearly have loved to prolong the visit.  My baby boy was with me again and while I was fully aware that I was asleep and dreaming the experience, there was no weird dream imagery, no talking cat, no distortions or identity swaps, just a simple, warm, emotional moment with my little man.

As I awoke, I found myself lying on my stomach.  I could still feel the pressure of paws on the muscles of my back and the warmth of a body nestled in the small of my back.  The sensation brings happy tears to my eyes even as I type this.

I am no believer in ghosts or spirits and am certain that the sensations are simply a combination of sense memory and lucid dream imagery conjured up by the power of the human brain.  The moment was no less powerful for that.  Knowing it was just my mind accessing happy memories and sensations on its own makes it all the sweeter because it was all true and real, no other explanation required.

So why would I take the time to tell you all this?

Sometimes an emotional moment can linger longer than usual and I find that writing about such moments helps process them and let them pass the way they should.  As much as I enjoy the memory, it hung around me all day today in a way that threatened to turn maudlin.  Better to set it out and force the normal fading of it to proceed apace.

And Rook wanted me to.