Why do you keep bothering me?

I delight in lucid dreams. When I find myself in the throes of one, my actions and location are almost always the same. I am at my childhood home and look out across the fields that separate it from my grandparent's farmhouse. It is sunset and the tall grass is on fire with yellow and blue flowers.

I want my grandmother so I go to her. Even in my dream world, I am aware of her absence.

I lift myself into the air and I fly across the space between our two homes. Last night the house was dark so I circled it waiting for a sign that she was inside.

Sometimes this is where fear can take hold. I will be entering the house in eager delight not knowing that I am actually entering a nightmare. The house will be unidentifiable and full of sinister people that I do not know. A man will chase me up the old staircase and the walls are the color of fire.

He will chase me until I decide to chase him back.

To my relief, this didn’t happen last night. I flew to the raised flower bed on the pasture side of the house and looked through the bathroom window into the living room.

She was there in her old armchair with her feet up. The bathroom window gave way to me without breaking and I was suddenly in her living room.

I don’t feel fear when I see her in my dreams but I feel eager to communicate important words to her. Getting the chance to speak with someone who no longer resides in the lifetime you knew them in is a high-pressure scenario.

I looked into her familiar eyes and without pause, she asked, “Why do you keep bothering me?”

I was shocked. In our life together and in dream world she always wanted to see me.

As a teenager I let my disinterest keep me away from going to watch jeopardy with her or joining her on her porch. Dream I would not make this mistake again. If this new version of her said she did not want my bother, bothering is exactly what I will do.

I cried and touched her hands and heard my grandfather's voice far away. He was not in the room with us. It’s been so long since he’s been here with us that my brain could not form his image.

Through tears, I told her I want to keep seeing her and begged her to promise she would keep seeing me.

She nodded in silence.

My cousin suddenly stood in the doorway. She had perfect skin and was at least 30 pounds heavier than she was in her life with us. I hugged her and did not feel her hug back.

I looked at my grandmother and asked her what it was like to die.

She did not answer and neither did my cousin. They both just looked at me.

I may be a little out there on this, but I believe some part of my grandmother's soul resides in the version of her I am meeting in my dreams. The same goes for my cousin and my grandfather.

Maybe she could not answer because she does not feel dead. Maybe her, my grandfather, and cousin are all out there somewhere residing in bodies made of light and perhaps they are more alive than they were when they were with us.

I will believe this is true because every part of me hopes it is.

I hope my grandfather can shout from another room to my grandmother and I hope my cousin can show up at the farmhouse unexpectedly.

I also hope that my calling on my grandmother in these dreams is not a bother to her. Maybe I hope that her new life is so full of light and wonder that my longing presence is indeed a bother.

Before I left the farmhouse my grandmother walked me outside. I lept into the air to fly away and she complimented me on my weightless abilities.

“You’ve gotten really good at this whole flying thing,” she says.