Contentment to despair

I had a visitation dream this morning, the first one I've been sure of in a few weeks. It wasn't dramatic; neither of us said anything profound. But she was here, with me, and we were us. We interacted in ways that felt so normal, ways I don't interact with anyone else, ways I'm homesick for.

Here she is in my office eight years ago, but I
don't have any photos of her at the window.
She used to come in and sit on the trunk I have
in front of the window, checking in with me
while I was at my desk. It felt good to stand
next to the window today and remember her
there with me this morning in the dream.

Unlike other visitation dreams, she was back but we knew it wasn't permanent. On the heels of another dream, in which I'd been voting and had screwed up my ballot, I told her that if she was still here when we got closer to an election, we'd need to go ahead and amend the death certificate so she could vote. She wasn't sure about that; she was concerned that they'd just have to make another one. I said she could have a stack of death certificates if she kept returning and dying again.

Sandy said she planned to read her email tomorrow while she's on the treadmill, so I told her that I've been checking it occasionally, replying to things that seem important. She was grateful for that, as the backlog in her inbox always overwhelmed her, and she was looking forward to seeing the messages I mentioned, since I told her I'd kept them. We also talked about her laptop. I told her that I haven't removed anything she had on it, but I have been installing betas on it, and she was pleased that I'd been using it that way. It was a very factual, practical, normal conversation, and it felt like home.

Most of the time we were in my office, next to the window, but then suddenly we were out on a sidewalk with a lot of commotion, traffic noise, people yelling. I said something about it being cacophonous; I couldn't hear her. And then, abruptly, I was in a different dream, with a bunch of people looking for parking at a campground, and it took me a few minutes to realize that Sandy had gone.

I woke feeling content that I'd spent some time with her. I lay in bed, untangling all the other, complicated dreams from my memories of the simple, straightforward visitation dream. I'd been asking for one, missing her terribly. The dream this morning fed me, comforted me, gave me the sense of normalcy I crave.

But in some ways, visitation dreams are cruel, too. They trick my subconscious into thinking she's here, physically, and that everything is okay. This evening, after a challenging day of work that demanded my undivided attention, I looked up and realized just how alone I was, how quiet and empty the house seemed. I'd felt her here this morning, after the dream, but now she's not. Her absence is much more pronounced than usual, and I once again feel lonely and despairing.

It seems so cruel that what comforts me can accentuate my feelings of loss so sharply. I wouldn't give up any of the visitation dreams I've had, or any other contact - real or imagined. But I wish the road between contentment and despair wasn't quite so short.