There she is. And here am I.

A vision delivered in a dream for an everlasting memory

Our memories of lost ones we love, like that of our dear daughter Jocelyn, build into albums, treasures of thoughts and encounters, and stories told into reels we can select and replay, not in homage but rather in reconnection.

I have a memory of Jocelyn, a memory of a dream I’ve been having almost every day. A memory of what must be a vision. Something to add to everyone’s collection of the woman torn from our world too soon.

Picture by Jenelle Pearring

Jocelyn passed from this life just a few days earlier — June 23, 2024 — before my startling dream encounter. Shattered by her grueling death and departure, God provided a peek at her hoped-for and subsequent, I determined, trajectory into the next life. The vision was, I arduously believe, a genuine and generous gift from the one who comforts us.

It begins with me being dropped into a vivid scene, a frantic escape by Jocelyn from something I did not get to see. I am following Jocelyn up a gray path surrounded by what might have been a forest. She did not know I was there. Upon closer study, the shadowy trees were people standing in the dark, waving their arms and beckoning. Jocelyn, ignoring them, moved quickly up the path’s slope, her eyes aimed at an opening ahead.

I heard her mumble, running through a blathering gauntlet, a stream of calls for her to stop and “come here.” In whispers, she spoke back to them, looking now and again, “No, not you,” then faster she ran and louder she yelled, “No!” as the forest of those who left the path stepped onto its edge. Jocelyn kept her eyes steeled forward. “I am going this way!” she shouted, churning her arms and legs with purpose.

The frightening scene finally ended when she reached the opening.

There she is, and here am I

The noise stopped. She broke her pace to a walking trot, bouncing finally into a field of littered items, papers, bits of cloth, and torn photos. Jocelyn stepped through them, catching glimpses of her history. “Oh, my,” she said several times.

When she slowed to eye the details, the litter gathered into piles, obstructing her progress. She could see a flatter space ahead, so she forded faster, plowing at first, and the piles fell around her. The field soon emptied her onto a lawn of sounds, soothing hums that drew Jocelyn forward, quieting her pace.

She walked slowly but steadily now, no longer bothered and hindered. I saw her shoulders relax. She squinted at something I could not see ahead and was comforted by the music that drew her untempted. I followed her to the middle of an area where I could no longer make out lawn, field, or forest behind.

It was a semi-lit-up place, shy of a glow, yet cloudy with the hope of sunny surroundings. She held her sides with straight arms and pressed through its foggy exterior. When inside the cloud, a humid, sweet air rolled over her. She slowed her walk, carried toward a light by the warm wind.

Jocelyn stood still, and her breathing quieted. She raised her arms with hands clasped across her breast as she did so often when holding a purse, but there wasn’t one.

There she is, and here am I

She glanced at her hands and legs. She breathed in and out deeply and said with a thankful sigh, “I’m better.” After a relishing moment, she waggled all her extremities. With a matter-of-fact discovery, she said, “Everything must have been fixed. There is no pain.”

She closed her eyes, clasped her hands together again, and nodded. I saw a grin. After a long, lovely pause, she examined her surroundings.

“Where am I?” she said with more curiosity than worry.

Below, in front of her feet, she spied a long, flat piece of what must be wood, laying tightly into a brownish, firm dirt. There was earthen ground on one side of the area where she stood and inviting grassy moss on the other.

After a moment, tracking left and right where the board ran like one long railroad track, she inspected the spot at her foot and said more than asked, “A threshold?”

She paused, smirking, though not with her typical disdain, and said, “How derivative.”

She huffed a bit, and a thought came to her. “But if this is the real threshold . . . the original,” she thought out loud, tapping the wood with her foot, “then every other one derives from here.” She laughed at the thought. “Such a clever place!”

Still giggling and shaking her hands in delight, she stepped across the threshold, tripping just a bit as her left foot dropped, and she hopped, catching herself with a “whooo,” cleanly landing on the other side.

The ground was soft, comfortable, and pleasant. Jocelyn caught a figure to her left, several yards away — a man, shorter than her, draped in white.

“Who are you supposed to be?” she called to him.

There she is, and here am I

Under breath, just so I could hear, she murmured, “A midget angel or a tour guide, I suppose.” He waved at her to join him, and they walked toward each other.

He extended a hand and introduced himself. “I am Micah. I’m here to welcome you.” Jocelyn shook his hand, asking, “Do I know you?”

“I am friends with Ezekiel and Malachi.”

“My sons?”

“No, Jocelyn, their namesakes. They asked me to come and meet you. They calculated that I and they might have significance for you.”

She held his hand for quite some time, taking that in, and then cuffed her hands on her mouth.

“Oh,” she finally said through her fingers. Thoughts and images rolled into place. I could tell. She said nothing, but that look of her mind figuring something out was very familiar.

Micah smiled at her.

She stood up straight, back to her assured, confident self. “You’re a tour guide, then?”

He shrugged in agreement. “Fair enough,” he said, and winked.

There she is, and here am I

Micah backed up, leading her to a wall of moving ivy. He stopped, and so did Jocelyn. Lowering his hand almost to the ground, he raised his outstretched hand in a lifting wide arc. A portal in the wall opened, revealing a window through which she could see acres of people in a festival atmosphere. Something like frisbees were being thrown around a field. To the left, a beach area held scads of people swimming and diving. People were on hillsides, having a good time, talking, laughing, and running.

Now and then, someone waved at Jocelyn. She smiled, gently waving back, not sure if she recognized them. She was given a lot of time to investigate and take in the scene. Many people were embracing each other and touching the shoulder or arm, and then Micah lowered his arm back down, closing the portal.

A bit startled, Jocelyn returned her hands to her chest and said, “That was sweet.” Micah nodded and stepped along the wall for a few minutes. He beckoned Jocelyn to follow him.

Micah reached down again and swiped his hand upward to reveal another portal opening. Jocelyn bent forward to see an enormous library fanned out from the inside, like a studious sports arena. There were many stairs leading into diffferent sized sections with hundreds of balconies and generous cubbies of reading corners. Books and papers and scrolls lay across tables. People of all sorts were in conversation. Large maps hung over railings; she could smell cinnamon and coffee and hear paper shuffling and note-taking. Folks were chatting — but not arguing — leaning over items with reverence and scrutiny. The many sounds were voices of discovery. A group of people stood up and waved at Jocelyn, and she tentatively waved back, unsure who they were.

Micah closed that opening like the other. Jocelyn looked into his eyes, and he smiled at her. She returned to where the first portals might have been, and Micah beckoned her to follow him again.

At the next portal opening, Jocelyn moved quickly to peer inside. A vast landscape stretched out for miles and miles. Mountains, waterfalls, and to the left an island on an ocean with dozens of docked boats of different sizes. Hikers could be seen to her right, strolling in the mountains. Wide open spaces were full of wanderers, here and there, in twos and threes. Some people, hands clasped behind them or with staffs, walked alone. She could hear birds singing. Too far away to see at first, a crowd of people waved from a ledge off the side of a mountain. Again, she didn’t recognize them.

After giving Jocelyn time to study the scenery and settings, Micah closed that portal, too. Then, with his hands behind him, he stood still.

There she is, and here am I

Jocelyn tipped her head to Micah and said. “So, just these three?” He held his smile without remark. She paused, looking at the ivy wall, and stood quietly with Micah in a comfortable silence.

Finally. “I am supposed to choose one, aren’t I?” she asked. His smile widened a bit.

“Well.” She thought for a very long moment.

“I am very familiar with those scenes in the second and third portals.” She hummed in thought, a lilting tune, from a game show that waited for a contestant’s response. “They are all missing the difficulty, conflict, competition, the stuff I never liked . . .” She sighed.

Micah produced out of the air a chair. He offered her a place to sit while she thought.

Touching the chair’s back but standing straight, she thanked him and said, “No, I can decide.” She lifted her chin, a smooth stretch of her skin and the firm bite of her teeth that she could enjoy once again.

“I believe I am supposed to go into the place of that first portal.” She had tears on her face. “I don’t need more space in my head for curious things and distance from the busy. I need that,” pointing to the first place she’d seen. Another deep sigh.

Determined, she looked at Micah, no glasses to stare over, and politely asked, “Would that be OK?”

Micah took her hand and began to lead her without another moment to wait. They began moving away from me, and I could not follow. But, after a few steps, Jocelyn stopped him for a question, pulling Micah to her. She looked behind her, staring at where I had been observing her. She looked at me and beyond me.

She pointed to my location, then turned to take hold of both his hands and asked, “Do they know I am here?”

“Oh . . . Yes, of course, they do,” Micah said. He waited for her to stop staring back.

Jocelyn turned, took one more look back, and waved softly for a very long minute.

She then went with Micah. I could see her skipping once or twice as she walked away from me and entered the portal in the ivy wall.

There she is, and here am I