In my dream, the plane whose cockpit I’m in is heading straight for a massive impenetrable wall. The plane is on auto-pilot. There’s nothing I can do. All of us on the plane are clearly going to die. In that split second between awareness and the impending crash, I thank God for Life – not just my life but for the concept and reality of life in all its joyful, awe-full, gnarled, radiant, grief-ridden, spectacular, conflicted, exuberant glory. I thank God for this great gift and for all the people I love and who love me and how rich my life has been because of them. I’m profusely grateful. It’s as though my last words are a chorus of “Hallelujahs!”

Then the dream morphed into something random and mundane. Most likely my subconscious paused to congratulate itself on having such a wholesome response to impending doom.

When I awoke from that morning, the tendrils of that scene still with me, I wondered why I’d had that dream. Was it spawned by something I ate? Something I’d seen on TV? Something I’d been thinking about?

Silly me. My son Chase is getting married. Tomorrow! He’s my youngest, the last to be married and over the course of the wedding prep I’ve had plenty of “Sunrise, Sunset” moments. (Cue the music)….

His sunny demeanor from the start. His robust energy. His enthusiasm. His easy knack for making friends. His clever wit, his kindness, his quick intelligence and love for theater, art and words – and, as the years went by (thanks to genetics from his father) his delight in spreadsheets and data. His genius in selecting an amazing woman who “gets him” and loves him and who has her own equally impressive qualities of character, leadership, and love of adventure and service. And let’s not forget that Chase himself played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, singing that “Sunrise, Sunset” song.

So of course it makes sense that I would be thinking about Life, Transitions, and the Joys of Mortality. Of course I might want to shout “Hallelujah!” at this season laden with happiness.

But yesterday another season – this one laden with tears – colored my interpretation of the dream. Yesterday, Dad, age 83 and widowed, was diagnosed with a blood disorder which has essentially disabled his immune system. He has chosen not to intervene except for pain medication knowing that the next sniffle or infection could bring his end. He says he’s happy about it. Given the inevitable, given his decline of function in the past few years, this is a pretty pleasant way to go – likely in his sleep – and fairly soon.

He may be happy about it. But I am not. I can’t imagine my life without him. I am completely against this. I forbid it.

So how’s that “Hallelujah” sounding to me now?

I am not a stranger to the tortured two-step with death. I still have that miserable mud on the boots I wore in my treks through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And while I am a believer and disciple, the silky, scriptural reminders of redemption and eternal life lack the grit and sweat I crave in this muscular grief.

As vague and evanescent as dreams usually are, perhaps the dream I had was in fact a sturdy anchor – a Life buoy – for me with perfect timing, a many-layered gift from God. Life – and the mortal experience – is ALL of this. In its complexity, it is filled with everything, as e. e. Cummings wrote, “which is natural which is infinite which is Yes.”

Even in this braided time – absolute joy and enthusiasm twined with the agony of aching loss – I still want to shout “Hallelujah.”