Building on Dreams

Chapter 13 - Deer Hollow and an Ocean View

Greg took Susan up to bed as early as it was logistically feasible in the evening of Thanksgiving Day.

"How's your head?" he asked once they were alone in their bedroom.

"Is that truly all you're interested in?" she asked. "After I fell asleep on you last night?"

"At the moment, yes," Greg told her. "I don't mind telling you, you gave me quite a scare today, Susan. I got this sense of premonition that tells me that someday, that is the way you are going to go. Just like that, suddenly due to an event like that or an actual stroke."

"Well if I do, then I'll feel lucky, Greg. There are far worse ways in which to die, as you know, than to fall into a painless death, surrounded by absolutely everybody that I love," Susan told him.

Greg regarded his wife in consternation. "I wish you'd take this a bit more seriously."

"All right, I'll look for a doctor and try to get the situation assessed here, now that we're home. Maybe the local medical community will have a different idea about this than the one in the Capital City did," Susan told him. "But if you are right ... if it is the bone splinters that caused what I was experiencing ... maybe that's by design, Greg."

"How do you mean?" Greg asked warily.

"What happened today blurred the distinction between being awake and asleep. It kept me there, in that state where you can hear and see things, but you can also dream. It's similar to the way I feel when I'm able to recall our dreams most clearly while awake. I've been able to do that a lot more easily since the crash. I used to think it was simply because you've been encouraging me to, but maybe that is the reason I was injured the way I was ... to enable me to do that," Susan suggested.

"Are you saying that the Lord may have intentionally caused you to be injured in this way ... just so you could remember?" Greg questioned.

"That's what I'm beginning to believe," Susan said. "I'm not sure I would have without that."

Greg stared at her. "You believe in reincarnation because of the memories?" he asked.

"And your explanation of them," Susan said. "You helped me to understand that their source was our past lives. If you hadn't done that, I would have continued to think they were products of my imagination, familiar images of a celebrity inserted into my own private imaginings."

Greg continued to stare at her but didn't say anything.

"Does that surprise you?" she asked.

"No, but it does trouble me, Susan. Ever since I have consciously been aware of our situation, I have endeavored not to influence your faith or your beliefs with my own, and now I find I have. Not in some relatively minor sense, but in a fairly major way, a way that has influenced your behavior and your actions to a significant degree."

"How do you mean?" Susan asked.

"A year ago, before we married but while we were thinking of it, I got the impression that it was largely due to our dreams and your memories that you wished to marry me," Greg said. 

"I wanted to marry you because I love you, something that would have troubled me deeply without the memories. But by being able to remember them consciously, I was able to understand ... maybe not the heavenly reason, but the earthly one for why I feel such a pull towards you. They allowed me to be receptive to the idea that marrying you might actually be what the Lord had in mind for me all along. I'm not sure I could have accepted that without them," Susan said seriously.

"Then you did not divorce Michael in order to be with me?" Greg asked.

"I divorced Michael because he married somebody else ... and was unwilling to reconsider that decision once he knew I was alive," Susan said. "We would have been divorced following the crash, regardless of what you and I decided to do. Because regardless of the dreams, I do still believe that we have a choice in how we live our lives. It hasn't all been predestined, though I know some of the things we've learned in the past six months make it feel like I sometimes."