I had a dream……

The other morning I woke up from a dream about dinosaurs.
It has taken me three days to get my thoughts on paper, but this was the gist of it.

DINOSAURS

He remembered the day his Granfer had given him the dinosaurs.
‘It’s magic’, he told him, and sure enough over the years he came to understand why.

Most people had dogs or cats as pets, but his dinosaurs outshone any of them, though nobody believed him when he said they were real and talked to him.

They were such tiny things, one being purple and grey with yellow spots and the other green with pink spots.

They didn’t eat much, never grew higher than a few inches, and more or less lived in his pocket. He took them everywhere, and in quiet moments when he was on his own, he’d take them out to play, and watch in wonder as they nudged the ground and walked slowly across the table.

His parents were convinced he had an imaginary friend, but Granfer knew better.

He’d been about 10 when he’d been taken to one side and told the story.
Dinosaurs had become extinct millions of years ago, but two spirits had survived and found their way into the two toys Granfer now had in his pocket.
Of course plastic toys like these were the latest hosts for the spirits, but these gentle beasts had inhabited various animals, plants and objects through the ages and had seen the world in splendour, glory, ruin and desolation.
Man hadn’t been around at the same time as these mighty creatures, but they had weathered all storms and evolved in this magical way. It was odd how they had come ‘full circle’ when about sixty years ago, they had transferred their entities into two pieces of a manmade substance that in no way resembled any of their living counterparts all those years ago.

Now it was his time to pass them on.
He’d received the bad news a little while ago.
Nothing could be done, so he was just going to take each day as it came and enjoy what was left of his life. Just as his Granfer had before he died, the same two weeks after he had passed the toys to him.

The dinosaurs understood what it meant to die, but they had a way of easing the pain for the youngest member of the family, as they retained some of the passing relative’s memories and shared them in quiet moments when the new owner was feeling lost or lonely.
Just one touch would conjure up a specific special moment, a feeling or a time when happiness ruled, pain was absent, and fear, distress and sorrow were nowhere on the horizon.
He had felt it all as a child when he lost his beloved Granfer.
He just hoped that his own grandson would experience the same magic on his passing to the afterlife, and find comfort and peace as he had done.