Mike the boys and I were visiting a breathtakingly beautiful canyon and water fall. The sunlight filtered by tiny little prisms of water added an ethereal quality to the crisp day. The water was strikingly blue, the kind of blue that is only seen in the highest mountains. Chunky snow caps shrouded the sharp edges of granite. Tiny purple spring flowers grace the ground all around. The are trees swathed in brilliant green leaves. We laugh and talk as we climb the long stairway to the top . We reach the wooden observation platform. The warmth of the sun radiating through the cool air. Ryan's quiet, toting his travel guitar. Ryan always has a guitar in tow. After admiring the view and taking ample photographs, we decide to climb down for a picnic lunch. Mike , Dave and Gavin start ahead. Ryan stays seated strumming away. Hungry, I start to climb down calling Ryan to come. I look back just in time to see him hoping over the rail onto the razor thin edge of the canyon. He begins playing his guitar and dancing on the precipice. Rocks snow and dirt rolling and tumbling down the steep sides . I rush up the stairs but he's getting further away, In desperation I try climbing up the mountain side. I can't make progress because the dirt keeps giving way and I tumble back down. I'm screaming and begging him to come down. He gets further and further away playing, laughing, ignoring my pleas, dancing a little jig, knees high in the air. Mike and the boys are too far a head to know whats happening behind them. The sound of the waterfall hides my screams. Thats when it happens; Ryan falls, an elegant drifting fall, everything in slow motion his guitar seems to rise as he plummets into the deep cavern. 
If I want peace I must delve into all the intricacies of this dream. It hurts , healing takes work. I eventually realize , the dream is a metaphor for our life with Ryan. Ryan was dancing on the precipice for 10 years. His bipolar illness was only kept at bay with lithium. He hated lithium and would stop taking it. We would beg, reason, bribe and finally hospitalize him in the never ending carousel that is mental illness. Mania feels good, a super creative euphoric space a place where Ryan's writings and music took form. The other side of mania is painfully dark ,angry ,depressed, for Ryan it brought frightening visions and irrational thinking. Every time he gave up meds he thought it would be different.,he would be able to control his unbalanced brain. he couldn't. Like my dream everything would be going well. Ryan always brilliant,would be excelling at school, work, relationships and then for what seemed like no reason he'd jump off the platform onto the precipice. We would go out after him dragging him back to safety, help him , fix him , talk to him. He'd promise never to do it again. His brain calm, his demeanor reasonable and confident from well monitored medications and therapy. The easy days , I loved those times. My son back, the normal sweet Ryan, then he'd jump off again. One day he jumped too far.
There is truth and beauty in this dream. At first I only saw the horrible ending. Like Ryan and Gavin's lives, for a long time I only saw the loss the sad ending. Now I see so much more, I see them I see us , I see the life we had together, I see the deepest bond humans share, family. Death is preceded by life , no matter how short or difficult, there are beautiful moments treasured memories. A family climbing and laughing together, an astonishing view, a gorgeous day. The dream, a reminder to hold those moments, to let them heal a shattered heart. We are all dancing on our own precipice. We will all loss someone and succumb eventually to death. We all have our own journey our own heartaches and dreams. Sometimes were going to fall. Sometimes someone we love falls , sometimes we can't catch them. So I am trying really hard to pay attention to memorize it all because in the end thats all we have.
