not only a dream?

In The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, Fredrick Buechner imagines a conversation with his mother, who has died. He asks her about his brother Jamie, also dead. "And Jamie?" I ask.

"Little by little Jamie will find himself, and little by little he will find all of us," she says. "And of course he will be found. No one is ever lost. Nothing is lost."

"Thank you," I say.

"My dear boy, you are more than welcome. I wish I'd been able to do better by you," she says. "I am a dream, but I am not only a dream. Will you remember that?"

What do you make of this? Sometimes I have found a few words to say to my mother while I stand washing dishes. My mother is nowhere near. She lives in California and is, as they say, greatly diminished. But I tell her that I wish we could speak more freely. She agrees.

Somewhere in our spirits my mother and I are very close and very comfortable together. On the telephone or during my visits to her assisted living home we try but it is hard work and not very satisfying I imagine for either of us.

To imagine that no one is lost is quietly comforting, gently comforting.