In my dream Red Twin and I were up to some kind of mischief. These things are hazy in dreams. But in the middle of it we took a break and were in a kitchen cooking, eating, playing with my little ones. And we stopped to take some photos. We both had long hair and were having a good hair day when it was more ringlets and less frizz (this is how you know it’s unreal!) And then we were off on the rest of our confusing adventure.

I woke up thinking, ‘This is it, it was all a terrible dream and she is not dead, she’s alive. I’m going to call her.’ But of course, she no longer answers her hot pink phone.

I don’t even know where it is. The software is probably defunct by now anyway. A hundred annoying updates that have not been downloaded.

But in my half-asleep state, as I came to realise that it was all just a dream and that she did die almost 3 years ago, I thought to myself, ‘It’s OK because we have those new photos we took. I’m so glad we have them.’ Except they were part of the dream too. There will be no new photos of Red Twin. The ones we have are it.

It’s not really about the photos. The thing that was so powerful about the dream was that it was something new about her. It was a photo from an adventure yesterday, not something that happened several years ago. As we live in a world where we continue to generate new content, taking new photos sometimes every day, there are no new pictures of Red Twin.

They weren’t particularly glamorous or anything, they were just doing life together, and that was the main thing I woke up thinking – how much I loved having her for that time. Just one more day, one more adventure.

I wish I could press ‘share’ on how she looked, her wicked smile and her gentle hands, the way she moved and the angle she held her head on for the photos. Except it wasn’t real.

Categories: Written by Tamie

Tagged as: grief Red Twin social media

Tamie Davis

Tamie Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.