Two
 

The Honeysuckle Dream - Lost

I stood in the sunlight and felt absolute peace, nothing but a comfortable emptiness. Not the eerie emptiness associated with trauma or pain or a bottoming out. It was a real peace. The kind that so many of us long for in life, right? There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the heavens were as blue as can be in New England.

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I was in the backyard of my childhood home. The place my family called home. Mom, dad, sister, and myself - this was my family. The grass was as green as could be and it was a hot summer day. I remember the feeling of warmth the sun bathed me with and the warmth in the air as the breeze picked up. It was a perfect day if there is such a thing when you're six years old.

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There was no noise in the neighborhood outside of nature's symphony of birds and the rattling of leaves in that warm breeze. No scents save for the ones that are natural; the grass, and the mint growing along the back edge of the foundation of the two-bedroom home, and one other.

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I stood along the back fence of the yard along the row of overgrown shrubs that lined it. To the right in the corner of the yard behind the dog kennel was the old crabapple tree that always produced, and over my left shoulder was the old apple tree that dropped its fruit on the ground through the summer and into the fall providing for the bees. Before me was my favorite scent of all, my favorite space in the yard. I was standing before the wild-looking honeysuckle.

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I loved to stand there and drink in deep breaths. The scent was intoxicating to me. It was so sweet that you could taste it on the back of your tongue as you inhaled. The flowers were so unique, they were inviting. Bold orange color. Their foliage created the perfect backdrop for them.

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As I stood before the flowers there was something deep within me that felt wholly connected. I knew deep within that there was far more to life. I intuitively knew there was Something, a Higher Power, at work about me and within me. I knew it was God, yet I couldn't verbalize it, I couldn't express it. I just knew it. This is what brought me that overwhelming sense and feeling of peace, ease, and comfort as I stood there. It felt like a dream. It became my Honeysuckle Dream.

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It wouldn't last long. Its Power wasn't strong enough to hold me or sway me. My faith wasn't fully arrived at and wasn't fully understood yet. It was weak and ineffective.

In a flash I was ripped away from it all.

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The peace, ease, and comfort would dissipate like a faint wisp of smoke.

The intuitive nudge I had been experiencing would soon be buried by fear and resentment.

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The fundamental idea of God and this Power that was so evident yet undefinable at a young age would be tossed aside as a consequence of unwitting calamity.

I was about to be tossed into the stream of life without a life jacket as so many of us are at such a young age. I had no oars to steer my vessel. I was not prepared for it. That infantile navigation of faith would be snuffed out and would remain like that for a great many years until I returned to the dream.

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The honeysuckle flowers, and dream, quickly withered.