Another ending

I had a dream 2 or 3 nights ago that the farmhouse burnt down. I awoke and shuddered and prayed that it would never happen. This afternoon I went in town,gone for an hour and a half. When I got back, the house was in flames, just as in my dream. I tried to save my dog, Zoë, but he blast of heat was so severe that it drove me back within seconds. I tried the other door, same result.  The only thing I accomplished was a backdraft and quicker fire.

 

The house is gone, my dog is gone, everything is gone. All my mother's things, everything I owned, gone. All gone. ll of it was just stuff. Except for Zoë, my beautiful Zoë. And now most of the pictures I had of her are gone, too, except for the few I had in the cloud.

As I sit here, 4+ hours after the fact, I'm only now shedding tears, as the numbness wears off. O nce the firetrucks left, it seemed I stopped holding my breath, and then it got real.

 

What is real?  Is anything real?  Do you see the same things I see? Do we see through the same eyes?  If I could just turn back the clock, if I could have gotten home maybe 45 minutes or even half an hour earlier, if I had let Zoë come with me. If, if, if...  None of it's real.  Only the moment, and even that isn't real.  Today is just a bad dream.  Tomorrow will be better.

 

When I got to my son's house, I saw the picture of Christ in the garden of Gethsemene, that I had hung there so long ago, and I thought, "I haven't suffered as He suffered.  I'll be okay."