The poem “Across Two Worlds” was inspired by a very special dream I had. The evening before this dream, I watched the movie “The English Patient“. Many years I postponed watching it, without having any particular reason. It was just the feeling that I didn’t want to see it. Until an evening of February 2007, when the man I was dating came to my place and wanted us to watch this movie together. I didn’t want to destroy his enthusiasm, so I made myself comfortable in my Fatboy and shhh! As the film was coming to the end, a feeling of emptiness grew in me. After the movie, I didn’t even want to share impressions. My inner world was in ruins. I went to bed with the feeling that there is no sense in waking up the next day. Scary!! It was the first time in my life, when I experienced that feeling of nothingness of life.

During that night, I had a dream. I dreamt I was visiting my grandparents, where I had spent the first three years of my life. It was a Summer day and I was looking for a shopping bag in the kitchen. I was about to leave for the store when the door opened and my late grandfather entered the room.

“Grandpa! What are you doing here?!” I burst out with joy as he was walking towards me. He had passed away in 1996 and I was fully aware of this in my dream.

“I came to see you!” he replied with a kind smile on his face.

“But I gotta go to the store to buy biscuits. They’ll close soon.”

He hugged me so strongly that I felt I could hardly breathe. I felt a pleasant warmth in my chest. All my organs were smiling and a wonderful peacefulness reigned in my body. Did I really have to tell him that I had to go to the store? Well, I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay there in that kitchen and chat with him. I wanted to know how he’d been. I wanted to tell him how I’d been.

“Now, you’d better make it for that store”. He said.

Alas, it was beyond my abilities to  steal more time with him. Before I could say anything else, he walked out of the kitchen door.

The next morning, I woke up as I normally do, feeling sleepy and complaining that I could have slept longer. Ha! Hardly did I know anything about sleep deprivation at that time of my life! The snooze reminded me that I had scheduled a day trip to a ski resort and a friend would come to pick me up. I forgot everything about the emptiness I had felt the previous night. When I was in the car, talking with my friend, I suddenly remembered the dream. The next minute, I fumbled for a piece of paper and a pen in my bag to jot down this poem. It took only few minutes to scribble it down. I read it on and on again till we reached our destination. I was so happy. The happiness was not originated by the poem but by this strong feeling that I had actually met my grandfather and I missed him slightly less after that meeting.

Before and after this dream, I had other dreams in which I met my late grandfather. The same joy recurred in each dream, that kind of joy that I felt my heart is not big enough to hold it. But this dream was the most special of all. He had visited me in my sleep and had brought me to inner balance with his touch. I started reading some books about life after death but I could not find the understanding that I was looking for. Or maybe the books on spirituality are the wrong place to look for interpretations of dreams Iike this one. Maybe books on psychology hold the answer for me. I may look for some at the right time and place in the future. For now, I will just hold onto my simple conviction that there is a life after death and that my late grandfather was my angel for many years after his death. Now, I feel he is in another dimension where he can’t reach  me anymore. His soul has another journey to take. I feel grateful and lucky that he is my grandfather, my role model for a playful and creative mind.

PS In case you wonder what happened with my date with whom I watched “The English Patient“, I didn’t break up with him the day after. I broke up with him some months after and not because of the movie.

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