Gentle on My Mind

Saturday night I went to bed feeling blah, maybe nervousness about my first solo time on the Audio/Visual desk at church Sunday morning. We had a visiting speaker and my system teacher was away in Plano as a guest speaker herself.

After a lot of emailing, I was assured that the PowerPoint file for the service was already installed on the laptop computer. All? I had to do was copy the slides from the speaker’s PowerPoint presentation into the one on the laptop. 

Would have been a snap except I haven’t run a Windows machine in several years. Since the file types were wrong, I couldn’t do a trial run at home first on my Mac.

After studying the problem for half the night, I went to bed after a long, hot shower.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up shivering a little. A chill from a little cold virus, I guess. I pulled the covers up around my neck to try to stop the shaking.

Soon I felt a presence in the dark room. She walked over to the bed and laid across me and hugged me, not saying a word. I recognized the smell of her hair and neck, and when she then said something, (I don’t remember what) I recognized the voice immediately. It was Carolyn, my wife, just as she was in her Thirties, long before she got Alzheimer’s and died. 

Of course, I hugged her too, and it felt so warm and comforting to have her back.

And then she wasn’t there anymore. Was it just a dream? Was it all a delusion brought on by a small fever? It seemed so real!

For the first time in a couple of years, I didn’t feel sadness or get teary eyed thinking about her. I only felt joy at remembering the wonderful life we shared for so many years.

For the rest of the morning I felt good, and the A/V desk flew just fine, with a couple of small bumps before landing safely. Every solo flight should go as that one did.

There is comfort in knowing that she is still with me, even if I can’t always touch her anytime I want. But I now know she is there, ever gentle on my mind. 

Life is a little lighter today.