# Thanks for the visit, Bev **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 15, 2005, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631 "2005-07-15T11:46:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tio\_Gringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5e925/32.png) [@Tio\_Gringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tio_Gringo)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/21 "2005-07-15T22:23:01Z")
Wow, **mr bus guy** , what a great story. It actually brought a few tears to my eyes (which doesn’t happen very often). Thanks for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/22 "2005-07-15T22:27:51Z")
> [@DeVena](#): > > Just ignore him. He lives in the Pit and just wanders out every now and then to point out the supremacy of being him. I know it’s tempting to do so when you feel someone’s ruining the groove of a thread, but please don’t insult anyone in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/23 "2005-07-15T22:32:55Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > […] but is this forum the place for insults either? If not, I wonder why DeVena is getting a pass on attempting to denigrate me? No one’s “getting a pass”; sometimes not everything is caught right away. If you feel something’s been missed, we encourage you to use the “Report this post” function. It’s handier than jumping to conclusions. If you want to continue quibbling about my asking you to stop, start a thread in the **Pit** –which is the proper place “for all complaints and other discussion regarding administration of the SDMB.” ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/24 "2005-07-16T02:41:31Z")
I have no opinion one way or the other on “visitations”, but I know that after my estranged dad died this April, and we went and cleaned up the house that he died in and spent five days in before being found, I dreamed about him just about every night for a week, and I am pretty sure that the dreams I had were my way of working out all the conflicting emotions this horrible situation brought out. I also dreamed about my sister after she died; it was one of those “Oh, you’re really not dead - it was all a big mistake” dreams, and I remember waking up to gut-wrenching sorrow that she was still truly dead. I think that either got my grieving started properly, or helped me to get out of it - either way, she was dead, and that was it. I think dreaming of the departed is extremely integral to the grieving process. ---
**Author:** ![DeVena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dec6dc/32.png) [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/25 "2005-07-16T02:55:01Z")
> [@SkipMagic](#): > > I know it’s tempting to do so when you feel someone’s ruining the groove of a thread, but please don’t insult anyone in this forum. Sorry. I truly didn’t mean to sound as snarky as I did. Please accept my apology, **WD**. I did not intend to take my bad day out on you. It won’t happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/26 "2005-07-16T04:21:53Z")
I started a Great Debate about this topic [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6372585#post6372585) ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/27 "2005-07-16T04:35:27Z")
> [@Scarlett67](#): > > She loved old-time music and played the accordion, and she even had a one-man band that she would bring out and play if she was sufficiently wired. This has nothing to do with “visits”, but I would just like to say that anyone who does a one-man band act is A-OK in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/28 "2005-07-16T07:28:57Z")
> [@DeVena](#): > > Sorry. I truly didn’t mean to sound as snarky as I did. Please accept my apology, **WD**. I did not intend to take my bad day out on you. It won’t happen again. Nah, don’t worry about it. As you noted, I hang out in the pit. What you said is like a fresh summer day compared to what I get over there. I completely understand and agree with the effect people who are important to us have after they are gone. That’s the legacy we leave, right? It’s only when the nurturing and love that they teach us is misatributed to supernatural sources that I feel compelled to comment. I just seized upon your statement in comparison to my warning from Skip. Fugetaboutit. ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/29 "2005-07-17T02:53:36Z")
In the months before my father died and for a couple of years after, I’d have dreams where it was like he’d never been ill, and some where he was sick but still in okay shape. In dreams when we are so open, vulnerable, they ripped the heart right out of me. The waking day was hard enough at that point, so selfishly I was a tiny bit glad they became more infrequent. Now, I hardly ever think I see him, only to find it’s just a stranger who vaguely resembled him. I almost never forget myself and think I need to tell Dad about this great book, new tool, or exhibit that’s opening. I’m worried I’m forgetting too much of him and no matter how hard I try, it’s been too long and it’s buried too deep. There’s no way to collect those memory fragments of him, they slip through my fingers like trying to hold water cupped in my hands. Ten years later and I’m dreaming about him again, twice in the last month that I can think of. Maybe it’s finally been enough time, because those dreams hardly hurt now. Their small pain is welcome, they are a benediction really, because they’re the next best thing to having him back. He was a giant in my heart-- he made everything seem possible, made so much beautiful and good for us. In those dreams everything is right side up again, there’s no ragged hole in my family and I don’t have to be ashamed that deep inside I believe that hole he left was so big we’re not really a family anymore. Since my grandfather died a few years ago, there’s been no one who sounds like my father. I was surprised to realize that hearing my grandfather speak was as though one last tiny part of my dad wasn’t completely, totally, dead and gone. I’d managed to cheat a tiny part of that pulling away of hope that comes when helping someone die. Trite but true, everybody knows you can’t cheat death. Inevitably, I had to say goodbye not only to my kind, gentle, grandfather, but the last part of my dad that had been left to me, as well. Out in the everyday world, my father is silent as a stone, irrevocably, truly gone. In my mind though, in my sleep, sometimes I can find him, steal just a few minutes of the many years we should have had with him. My favorite part of those dreams is hearing my father speak again, the soft, deep rumble that meant I was home, loved and loving, safe and happy. Now all I have of my dad is a handful of fading photographs, a few cat’s eye marbles in a brittle leather pouch, a worn red- and blue-striped top, a matchbook from when he was stationed in Korea, and the dreams where I can still hold him and hear his voice. I \*know \* he’s dead, I _know_ there is no spirit to come back and visit, be proud at my graduation, see my sister marry, or go dancing with my mother. But dreams of him are the most of my father I’m allowed and I’m not too proud to take whatever crumbs I’m allowed. He was _that_ good a man. I loved him \*that \* much. ---
**Author:** ![SnakesCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4af34b/32.png) [@SnakesCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakesCatLady)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/30 "2005-07-17T03:40:49Z")
> [@mr bus guy](#): > > \>skip\< I’ve mentioned in other threads Ernie, the Best. Cat. Ever. He was her little bodyguard and took care of her, actually guarding her room each night while she slept. Ernie was sick a lot that summer, and finally died the very afternoon of the first day she started attending “grandpa’s school”. Almost like you could hear the old guy say, “ok kitty, I got her from here, you go rest now…” sniff, sniff…damn cat got into the tissue box again…c’mere, damn cat. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/31 "2005-07-18T04:08:14Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Guys, your fantasies are charming and I am glad that your subconscious has found a way to comfort your conscious mind, but do you think that a board dedicated to “fighting ignorance” is a fitting place for superstition and irrational beliefs? Just because something is unprovable does not mean it isn’t real. (It also doesn’t mean it is real). As William Shakespear once wrote “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Substitute science for philosophy and it becomes relevant to us in the 21st century. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/32 "2005-07-19T01:08:04Z")
I don’t believe in heaven, hell, and all that. My logical mind is firmly convinced that on the few occasions that I have had such experiences as are being described here, they stem from my own mind re-creating the lost one as a comfort. However. Shortly after my mother died, I had one of those dreams in which I walked into a room in my house, and she was there, and we spoke briefly before I woke up. The whole morning I felt quite elated, since obviously all those awful things – the operation, the hospital – never happened. When I realized which part had been the dream, I still felt strangely comforted. The feeling of having heard her speak again gave me the comfort that she still existed, somehow, somewhere. This was about 15 years ago. The weird thing is that just a few weeks ago, as I was driving to work, I suddenly had the oddest feeling for a few minutes that my mother was in the car with me. Later that week, my nephew – my only sister’s only son – was found dead, apparently of natural causes. Another strange thing was the night shortly after a dearly beloved cat died – no offense intended to any other cat companions, but Rocky was absolutely the very best cat that ever lived. Ever. That night, the room was dark but I had **not** fallen asleep yet, and I swear I felt him jump up on my bed as per usual, walk around and settle down next to me as always. Like I said, I do not believe in such things. However. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631/33 "2005-07-19T01:20:27Z")
Even though I posted early about visits, I also have to say that when you get down to it, I belive they’re really dreams, not real visits by supernatural entities. I do believe in an afterlife and all that stuff, but I do not believe that someone who has died has the power to make themselves known to the living. Dream, or visit, I don’t really care. The events have always been pleasant, and I enjoy having them. I look forward to more in the future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thanks-for-the-visit-bev/312631.md?page=1)