Mr. Virgo has been gone over five years now. In those five years, I have had two or three dreams of him. I’ve wanted more. I begged God for more back in the first couple of years. Just one more conversation. One more hug. Hear his voice one last time. Unfortunately, I had erased all of his voicemails just three days before he died. I had a couple of messages on the answering machine at home, but he didn’t sound happy because he was trying to reach me and kept getting the machine instead. Those just make me sad because he really left great voicemails. I hadn’t heard his voice in so long. I wasn’t sure what he sounded like anymore. Then…he came to me in a dream a couple of nights ago.

In the dream, Mr. FixIt and I were in Florida at a flea market. You know, the kind with the roof but the sides are all open to allow air flow? It was really crowded but no one was looking at each other. We were all busy looking at merchandise. I walked around a small group of women. I was looking down and I saw a pair of familiar men’s shoes. Rockports. With the man in them. I slowly raised my eyes and saw the gray dress pants, the black leather belt, the crisply ironed long sleeved shirt. It was a pale blue. The tie a stylish navy with slight flecks of red. I was so taken by the familiarity of the clothing that it took me a moment to comprehend what was happening. Suddenly, I jerked my eyes upward and there he was! That shock of meticulously groomed silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses. Curiously…he didn’t have a beard. He was clean-shaven when he died. I assumed that must carry over into the afterlife.

I sucked my breath in with a start.

“It’s YOU!” I said.

Then…he spoke to me!

“Well…it’s about time, don’t you think?”

I heard him and saw him as clear as if he were actually standing in front of me. I walked up to him and he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. I laid my head on his chest. I couldn’t hear a heartbeat.

“They told me you died.” I whispered.

“Oh, baby doll. I just went somewhere else.” He didn’t offer anything else. Suddenly, I remembered Mr. FixIt was with me. I turned to him and he was looking at an item in the booth next to me. I had a momentary feeling of awkwardness. How was I going to introduce Mr. FixIt to Mr. Virgo? I needn’t have worried because soon it became obvious…Mr. FixIt couldn’t see him.

I turned back to Mr. Virgo. He was watching this new love of mine. He seemed to be studying him. Finally, he turned to me and smiled the sweetest smile.

“You tell him I think he’s doing a great job, will you?” The two men I loved most in the world were just steps apart but a world away from one another with me as the common denominator.

“I will,” I promised. “He’ll love knowing you said that.”

And, with that came the call of the mockingbird in the trumpet vine outside the bedroom window, putting up a ruckus over some interloper getting too near her nest. I woke up.

There was a time in my grief when that would have slayed me. But I woke up feeling so happy that I got to “see” him again. That I got to “hear” him again. That I got to “feel” that big bear hug from this handsome man. Soon…as with all dreams…he began to recede to the back room of my mind. I was tickled to pieces that he got to see Mr. FixIt with me.

“Thank you.” I whispered into the early dawn light. “It was good to see you again. Don’t be such a stranger!” ❤

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭1:1‬ ‭ESV‬‬