Bix Came to Me Again

The strange ways our lost loved ones bring us encouragement and wisdom

A few nights ago, I had a dream about my son Bix. Even while I was dreaming, I knew it meant something. It wasn’t a vivid dream where he walked into a room, and everything felt almost real. I haven’t had one of those dreams, although I have experienced Bix in other ways outside of dreaming that were quite “real.”

I was in some sort of diner or shop. Not quite sure which, or maybe both. The details are fuzzy now, the way dream places often are for me, but I remember a counter and someone handing something to me as if it belonged to me. It was Bix’s trumpet mouthpiece.

Bix played the trumpet a little from around age 8 to 13, because his father did and he admired Randy so much. It was never his great passion, so the object itself surprised me. But what startled me even more was that the mouthpiece was attached to a CPAP hose.

Even in the dream, I understood the symbolism. A mouthpiece is where breath turns into music. When the person handed it to me, I had a thought that felt heavy and final. I guess he really isn’t coming back.

The realization saddened me, even in my dreams. That particular grief doesn’t go away just because time passes. It’s always lurking beneath the surface, waiting for quiet moments when human thoughts invade, memories push feelings, and we feel the loss again.

But then something shifted. I remembered that he was still there. Oh, right. Exhale. One of the strange things that grief eventually teaches us is that both things can be true at the same time. Someone can be gone in the ordinary sense and still present in ways that are harder to explain, especially to people who think when you’re dead, you’re gone. Those are the true sufferers in this world, and we need to help them whenever they (or, if they ever, when) come up for air.

Later in the dream, I noticed a pair of Bix’s sneakers. They were Converse, painted in bright colors. Someone had covered them in vibrant patterns as if they had been expertly decorated with markers. The funny thing is that Bix never wore Converse, and while his clothing could be quite colorful, he was, as a teenager, a cowboy boots and Hey Dudes kind of guy. But in the dream, I knew they were his.

Dream logic doesn’t focus on literal accuracy. It operates through symbols. Shoes help us move through the world. Color and pattern signify creativity and individuality. A mouthpiece channels breath into sound. Even while I was dreaming, I understood this symbolism.

On my last trip to Colorado, during a guided session, I experienced Bix breathing into me. It didn’t “feel like it,” it was happening. It was probably one of the most profound and deeply pleasant moments of my 67 years on earth. I thought I had glimpsed nirvana. The top of the moment. Feeling his breath within my own breath was extraordinary and, in a way that is difficult to describe, comforting. And long-lasting. Something shifted in me. Subtle and forever.

Seeing a mouthpiece connected to a breathing hose in the dream struck me as strangely fitting. Breath. Voice. Expression. Different instruments, perhaps.

The dream did not end there. At some point, we (I still don’t know who “we” was) started cooking food. I do not remember exactly how it began, but I remember a casserole dish and the quiet activity of preparing something to eat.

It did not feel hurried. There was someone there who seemed to be an old friend, although I could not identify her when I woke up. I remember telling her that I would catch up with her later. “Right now, I’m busy cooking.”

When I woke up, the sequence stayed with me. First, the dream involved objects associated with Bix: voice, breath, movement, and creativity. Then it showed me cooking something meant to feed people. Making food for others is one of my love languages, and a strong one. I remember preparing meals for my neighbors a few days after Bix died because Hurricane Ian had barreled through our neighborhood, leaving us without power.

Making food has, in a way, become what writing about grief is for me. I take the raw, painful, and mysterious pain of loss and sit with it, think about it, and write about its limitless facets. Eventually, it may become something that nourishes someone else who is struggling to make sense of their own loss.

It also occurred to me that the dream also relates to the week I’d been having. I had just finished a play, and the emotional intensity of rehearsal and performance suddenly subsided. And I went almost immediately into another one. I’m recovering from a tooth extraction—and at 67, tooth extractions seem so much more dramatic and harder to recover from than they did at 47. I have taxes to file, a business to manage, and a book proposal sitting on my desk that I feel both compelled to finish and strangely unable to get back to. It all felt heavy.

When life piles up like that, the mind grows tired, giving grief a chance to slip quietly back into view. Dreams sometimes become the place where all that gets sorted out. I am not terribly cautious about assigning mystical meaning to dreams because it’s there, along with story transitions that come from the banalities of human life. Our various levels of consciousness are perfectly capable of weaving together memory, emotion, meaning, and symbolism. Dreams can remind us of things we already know but have temporarily forgotten. What I took from this dream was surprisingly simple.

The instrument is still there. Bix still breathes life into me. We are connected now, and we were then. Just like the person you loved and lost in this human plane. The breath is still there. And the work, like a casserole in the oven, does not need to be rushed. We can catch up with everyone later.

If you’ve lost someone you love, you may eventually realize that the relationship doesn’t vanish. It simply shifts location. It moves into memory, into dreams, and into the quiet support that appears when you’re trying to do something meaningful with your life. Sometimes that support comes in ways that feel almost ordinary. It shows up in ways you may not recognize, but that are not a figment of your imagination. You don’t need a middleman/woman/person to facilitate it either.

If This Is You

I do not believe all dreams are created equal. Many dreams are probably the mind doing its ordinary nighttime housekeeping, sorting through memories and emotions from the day. But there are dreams that arrive in a different way. They carry communication that is hard to ignore, even while you are still inside it.

Grief has taught me that love does not always communicate in the ways we expect. Sometimes it speaks in quieter and obscure languages.

Dreams can be understood in many ways, and I am comfortable with the mystery. But when I remember a dream, which isn’t often, I pay attention.

You do not have to agree with my take. You do not have to believe that dreams are messages from another world to find value in them. Even if a dream is nothing more than the mind working through experience, that process can still be powerful. Dreams allow us to revisit emotions in a safer space. They give our imagination a chance to express things that are difficult to say in ordinary language. They often reveal what our waking mind already knows but has not yet put into words.

Grief, in particular, has a way of showing up in dreams. Many people who have lost someone they love report dreaming about them for years. Sometimes the person appears directly. Sometimes they appear through objects, places, or moments that carry meaning.

Whether you see those dreams as psychological, symbolic, or a form of memory, or as something more mysterious, is up to you. What matters is the feeling you wake up with.

If a dream leaves you comforted, encouraged, or reminded of the love you shared with someone who is gone, it has done something worthwhile. The mind is capable of many beautiful things. One of them is remembering love in ways that continue to help us live.