Then of course there was the dream where I was at our old neighbor’s house, which was next door to the family house, where Maria and I lived in the second floor apartment for five years after the divorce. I was in the car, in the driveway…began to back out, when I looked up at our old kitchen window and I saw that there were two framed pictures up there in the apartment: one was my mother, the other, my Maria. All of a sudden Maria was at the window! She was three. She was dressed in an outfit from when she was three: black fleece stirrup pants and a black and red plaid flannel shirt. Her hair was in pigtails and she began smiling and waving to me. I said to myself, look at her up there! She’s so happy! Her spirit is alive up there! I got out of the car and stood in the driveway and stretched my arms straight up…and opened and closed my fists like when you wave bye-bye to a child. No, that’s not the way you wave bye-bye to a child.

When you stretch out your arms like that and open and close your fists, you’re saying: I had you…I lost you…I had you…I lost you. I held you tight… but you left my grasp long ago. There’s helplessness in arms stretched straight up like that…the opening and closing of the fists…that’s futility…it’s saying you’re out of my reach now…beyond my reach…and my hands open to be empty with the air…and I’m so helpless down here, and how can this be that you’re up there in the window, and all I can do is wave back, and get in the car, and drive away?