In retrospect, perhaps the most interesting part of my nightmare was that the actress Angie Harmon, of Law and Order on TV, was with me to represent our family; Debi, the kids, my siblings, to me.  In character throughout the dream, not in front of a judge or jury, but trying to convince me… talking about my life.

Direct and yet kind, almost compassionate; I knew she was telling the truth.  Hated every word she said.

In my dream I was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s.  Memories were beginning to disappear.  Every day, yet important things; like names, words, events.  I still knew people, most people, but was at a point when life as I’d once known it was forever slipping away.  My family had recognized my dementia but I was unwilling or unable to believe them – hence Angie Harmon as an intercessor on their behalf.

It was a dream, who knows why my subconscious dragged that actress into it.

We wandered through a mall, went up an escalator, she, briefcase in hand, explained that soon I wouldn’t remember Debi, my family, the people around me, her, this conversation… I knew she was right… I was still cognizant enough that the image she painted frightened me… but even in the dream I remembered when, in real life, we looked forward to mom not being afraid of what she’d forgotten.  The moment her tension would be gone.  I stood on an escalator, in a mall created by my mind, and imagined my kids praying that moment of release would come for me.

It was all so real that it shook me out of my sleep.

Something about Angie Harmon so elegantly walking me through the loss of my mind, thoughts and life while my family, so certain of my impending demise, watched on.   I could see them watching us as she talked, I listened.  Each of them filled with that familiar dread, on the edge of weeping.   Me, trying to grasp the hopelessness of even knowing, when there was so little I could do.

Even in my dream I wanted to fight against the disease if for no other reason than to rail against the indignity of it all.  On waking up I felt like I was fighting still – while being consumed completely by loss.  Total and complete loss…

I suspect every child who’s lived through the last years of a parent’s life, watching the memories fade into dementia; the words, the moments, the love – just waiting until there’s no recognition when you walk in the room – no glint in the eye or warm embrace, only a stranger…  wonders when the same might happen to them.

A familiar face but no name, a song you once knew but now the title escapes you, a memory that’s so real, so fresh but you can’t give it clarity – it’s beneath the surface – and you wait – pray for it to bubble up and you wonder… is this the beginning?

I dreamt it was me watching every memory fade away.  I suspect it shouldn’t frighten me.  I remember talking with Dad one Friday afternoon, he, sitting in his recliner, mind coming in and out after a devastating stroke, mom next to Debi on the little love seat – thumbing through a magazine – spending ten to twenty minutes on just one page, staring, until Debi encouraged her to go forward.  Suddenly Dad leaned forward, held out his hand the way he’d do so often while preaching, while taking in the scope of a great point, and then looking me directly in the eyes and saying “I always knew I was going to die.  I just never imagined it would be like this.”

It seemed so ignoble an end for two who had lived so great an adventure, loved so very many, held each of us through our most difficult moments… had held me with such strength.  What was I to say to my war hero father, the man who’d led people to build churches, colleges, movements?  The one who toured the world and served in so many places?  Mom, equally amazing, an author, world traveler, servant to all she met in love – was already beyond asking, beyond her simple sense of wonder… in her pajamas and bathrobe, stuck on the same page of a magazine… what could I say?

His cognizance lasted only a moment – Dad’s piercing blue eyes staring into me – and then it was gone.  I’ve thought of it often.  Perhaps that’s what slipped into my dream the other night… a simple reminder… we have today.  We Have Today.

Life’s adventure, for many of us, will someday slip away like the title of a song we once knew, the theme of a story that once held so much vibrancy for us and now the names, the characters are beyond the veil. We always knew there had to be an ending – we just didn’t think it would be like this…

It was just a dream.  Somehow it’s felt like more.  Since waking up its made me want to examine again if I’m living fully awake in every area of my life.  Because regardless how it all wraps up – it does in fact all wrap up – this part of life.   Dad, after serving years in Europe during WWII, ended up dying in his sleep.  Mom, who longed to know every detail of our lives, fought for every breath to the end, fully awake, completely unknowing.

The great majority of us don’t get to choose how we die – but we can choose how we live.

I’ve always lived with a certainty that everything’s going to work out.  Never felt the need for someone like Angie Harmon to persuade me of my current place in the universe.  That said, thankful for the wakeup call.  There are so many moments that seem to slip away unrealized.  Days that become decades without ever making a bold decision that pushes us just over the edge and into the ride of our lives.

If, like me, you’ve found yourself wondering when something, someone, you know you should know – stay’s just out of reach and you think “Is this it?  Is this the beginning of having everything and everyone I know and love ripped away from my consciousness?”  Why not choose to build a new memory?  A new moment?  Why not put everything on the line and jump, try, go, choose, love… brand new?

I’ve lived more than 62 years – I can rest on those decades and struggle to remember the “glory days.”  Or I can make today glorious with my decision to call someone, to say “hello,” to make friends, to connect, to reconnect, take up a new hobby, learn new music, start a new adventure and choose today over worrying about what I might lose from yesterday.  To choose to be fully present and fully aware for as long as I possibly can, going fearlessly, raging into “that good night” knowing that someday – and probably sooner than at any other time in my life – it will all be wiped away.

I had a dream and it reminded me that we weren’t created to leave a legacy; we were created to live today.  It’s what I want to do.  Hope I can do it with you.  You’re Invited!