I Couldn’t Waste a Moment of Sunshine

I keep a notebook beside my bed.

Not because I think every dream means something. Mostly because dreams disappear so quickly, dissolving somewhere between sleep and morning before I can gather them. But every once in a while, I wake from one I don’t want to lose.

Recently, my father was there.

He has been gone for some time now, but in the dream there was nothing strange about seeing him. He was simply Dad. And he seemed insistent, as though there were something he needed me to remember.

When I woke, I reached for the notebook beside my bed and began writing before his words disappeared.

How I love ya.

Don’t waste a moment.

Even when you didn’t see me I was there.

And then this:

I couldn’t waste a moment of sunshine.

I don’t know why those particular words stayed with me. But they did.

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My father and I used to leave notes for each other—little messages left somewhere the other would find them in the morning.

Nothing extraordinary.

Just another way of saying, I was thinking about you. I love you. You matter to me.

There is one I still have.

He wrote it on December 22, 1984.

It begins:

“Good morning my sweet daughter. I was missing you last night so thought I’d leave you a note to let you know.”

There is something especially tender about reading those words now.

Then, he missed me.

Now, I miss him.

But farther down the page, he wrote something I had almost forgotten:

“When you smile it’s like a house full of light and I have seen how gentle and warm you can be. It’s as though your heart is a little sun full of everything wonderful looking for someone to give to.”

A little sun.

More than forty years later, I dreamed of my father telling me,

I couldn’t waste a moment of sunshine.

I don’t know what to make of that.

Maybe I don’t need to.

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There was more to the dream.

“Listen,” he said. “Remember how I taught you to dance?”

And I did.

I step. You step. Follow.

There is something about dancing with someone who knows how to lead. You don’t have to know the entire dance or anticipate every movement.

You learn to pay attention.

A step. An answer. A turn. A hand guiding yours. You follow the movement you are given.

But then his words became strange in that way dreams sometimes do:

Whenever you go, I will lead. I will follow.

Whenever I go, you will lead. I will follow.

It doesn’t make much sense when I try to straighten it out. But somehow, in the dream, I understood.

We were still dancing.

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That may be one of the mysteries of loving someone who is no longer here. The dance changes. But love has already taught us some of their steps.

There are things my father taught me deliberately, and countless others I learned simply by walking beside him—ways of seeing, wondering, noticing, loving.

Somewhere along the way, what belonged to him became woven into me.

Love leaves traces.

A phrase we still say. A kindness we learned by receiving it. A way of seeing the world that began because someone once stood beside us and pointed. A step they taught us long ago that our feet somehow still remember.

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There was another line in that old note.

My father wrote:

“So many times I wish we could do something together, or walk, or ride, just to be with you.”

Just to be with you.

I understand those words differently now.

When someone we love is gone, we would give almost anything for one more ordinary afternoon. Not a grand occasion or an important conversation.

Just a walk.

A ride.

A note waiting in the morning.

A little sunshine.

Maybe that is why the words from the dream have stayed with me.

Don’t waste a moment.

Not as a warning or as though we must clutch at life because everything we love will someday disappear. Quite the opposite.

It is an invitation to receive what is here while it is here.

The person sitting beside you. The bird outside the window. The laughter coming from another room. The hand reaching for yours. The sunlight falling across an ordinary afternoon.

Don’t waste it.

Not because it won’t last.

Because it is here.

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Scripture speaks often of remembering.

Remember.

This is not to merely looking backward, but to carry what we have been given forward.

Remember what God has done. Remember His faithfulness. Remember the way He has led you.

Remembering is not simply an act of memory. It is also a way of walking.

One step. Then another. Following what we have learned of love. And beneath every other hand that has ever guided ours is the hand of the One who has promised never to leave us.

There are seasons when I cannot see where He is leading. Faith can feel a little like learning to dance.

I step. You step. Follow.

I don’t need to know the entire dance. Only the next movement.

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I don’t know exactly what dreams are made of. Memory, perhaps. Longing. Love finding its way through the sleeping mind.

I don’t know whether that dream was anything more than my heart gathering pieces of someone I still miss terribly.

I don’t need to know.

I only know that when I woke, I reached for my notebook because I didn’t want to forget.

The last words I wrote were these:

Never alone. Never apart.

Always here in my heart.

Remember. Remember.

And maybe that is enough.

Today there is still sunshine.

There are still people to love. There are still notes to leave where someone will find them. There is still music.

And there is still time to dance.

I don’t want to waste a moment of it.

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© Gilda Wray. All rights reserved.