Madelein,
a friend of my youth.

My recurrent dream

Many a night I have this recurrent dream of Madelein.
While holding hands we are climbing a most beautiful, very wide, marble staircase, in silence and in total togetherness, very slowly and very peacefully. We are at one with our surroundings. We are surrounded by empty space of a deep and most magnificent blue, an unearthly blue. We are all alone on those seemingly endless stairs. There is no sound, but there is utter peace and harmony. Finally we reach the top of the stairs. Beyond there is beautiful, bright light and I feel this immense longing to go on, into the light.

Then Madelein lets go of my hand and speaks:
"You must go back alone now and only I can go on."

That's when I awake with a feeling of deep sadness and of great loss.
It always takes me some time to realize it was only a dream {or was it?} and to come back to reality.

Madelein's Homeward Journey

Madelein died at the age of 15, taking too many sleeping tablets

"Well, you know I was in the hospital after what I did and I was feeling rather well actually, I wanted a drink, I remember that I asked for a drink. But then suddenly, I just flew away, in a flash I saw my body without me in it and it scared me half to death, well, you know. I went so fast I shot right into a very dark and narrow hallway, going straight up somehow. I didn't see or hear a thing. Yes just a soft faint whistling sort of noise. It didn't take long and then it became lighter and lighter and I fell to the ground with a thud it seemed. I was glad of the light, I was frightened in the dark. 

It was all very quiet and then a strange thick fog appeared, just like that, out of nowhere. I didn't like that at all. I thought that if I'd just sit there very calmly, the fog would disappear and I would be able to look around, I had no idea where I was. I began to get cold and I began to cry, I wanted my mother and I remember calling her, hoping against hope she would come. I had to get up, because it was so cold sitting there, I couldn't bear the cold any longer and I started to walk. Just walk. I wasn't totally sure whether I had died or not, I thought I had, as I had seen my body lying there without me. I wasn't really scared, just hated that fog, that just wouldn't go and the cold. I just walked and walked and the cold and the fog became less and less. And I was sure I could hear sounds and I walked into the direction of the murmurs. 

And then in the distance I saw people walking towards me. It made me feel better, for I did feel awfully alone. They seemed to bring a glowing light along with them, they were coming and the light was all around them. I started to run towards them and a beautiful Lady caught me in her arms and I started to cry again, really cry, you know, like a baby.  I said I wanted my mother, oh how I wanted my mother. The lady said, that that was no longer possible, that I should not have done what I did, that I had myself to blame. I cried and cried and I said I was sorry over and over again. She took me in her arms and said that she was my heavenly mother and would look after me. She cradled me and rocked me like a baby and that was so wonderful, I felt such love coming from her into me, that I stopped crying and the pain of longing for my mother became less. There was a gentle longing without the pain. I was never punished for what I had done, I was just told that it was wrong and that I have much to learn still. I do love being here now. But I shouldn't have done it, you know."

© harriet 2000 2001