Sometimes, simple words pull up emotions that I've tried to keep buried down. Even though it's been a year since things had started, there's always some reminder of the emotions that I thought had been put behind me. Some days are easier than others. Some days it's easy to forget that someone who was a huge influence in your life died and left you alone. Other days, ever single thing you encounter in the day seems to remind you about that person.

    From the commercial about the new movie that's coming out, a movie that your loved one would have loved to see. To a commercial about their favorite hobby.

It's like a little part of you went away. Not only did the person you loved die, but they took a small part of your soul with them. That part of you never really comes back completely, but bits and pieces may come to visit. They come to visit in the scent of a t-shirt or a sense of loss. It comes as a reminder of the things that you loved about the person, but now they're tainted. They aren't completely pure - because you'll never be able to think about these associations without the sense of 'I wish you were here'.

    It's like being a child all over again, and having the sense that the world is going to end every time someone you really love leaves you. Whether it's a day while they work or a week while they're on a trip or a year until they visit again. That feeling of never wanting that person to leave. That's how it feels every single day when you lose someone and you don't find a way to find peace about it.

    I really wish that my loved one was still here.

    Even if I am the person who is helping him leave for good.

    I wasn't the one who killed my uncle. Neither did I purposefully cause any part of his death. If I had my way, he would have never left us. So don't think that what I said before is me admitting that I had any direct hand in his death. Although, I will always feel some type of guilt. Isn't it normal to feel guilt when someone you love is gone? Isn't it normal to blame yourself for small things that you probably didn't think were important? I blame myself for not waving to him, the last day that I would see him alive. I blame myself for not being able to explain some things properly or giving him better advice. Most of all, I blame myself for not doing everything I could to help, even if he would hate me for it.

    I told my mother that he needed to be in a hospital. That what he was going through wasn't normal, and that it wasn't enough just to be seen. He needed someone to watch him, and to make sure he was okay.

    No one wanted to take responsibility for that action, though. I've always been too frightened of my family to make decisions that large without someone to back me up. So I just suggested it, and no one else tried to make it a reality. I'll never really forgive myself that I didn't have the backbone to face everyone and make a decision that could have saved his life.

    You see, it all started the morning that my uncle decided to get up out of bed and take his own life.

    I wasn't there when it happened, but I knew. I knew as soon as I woke up that something was wrong. I knew that I should have waved the day before.

    That guilt is what led me on a journey that most people aren't meant to take until it's their time. It led me to where I am now, this journey to take him to wherever we are supposed to end up. I haven't really been told where I'm helping him go, but I do know that it's my responsibility. I made it my responsibility when I decided that it was my fault, and when the guilt started to eat away at my days until I realized I was an empty shell of myself.

    Since the anniversary of his death, I've been trying to help him move on and in the process, maybe I'll be able to find some peace of mind for myself. It hasn't been very productive so far though, and I think I've finally figured out how to combat that.

    I decided it was best to write it all down, because I'm afraid that once I'm done I'll forget all of this. I don't want to forget, because this is possibly the last thing I will ever be able to do for him. It's a responsibility I take not only for myself, but for him as well.

    I've always been fascinated by dream catchers. I first heard the myth behind them when I was very young. Dream catchers, I was told, worked like a spider's web.     When hung above a person's bed, dreams would have to go through the dream catcher and nightmares wouldn't be able to go through and would be stuck in the dream catcher. These were able to keep people from nightmares, and that idea has always stuck with me.

    My uncle was a registered nurse, and he worked with neonatal babies that were normally in intensive care. He was so proud of his job. The only downfall early on was that he had to live with infants that weren't able to be saved. Babies died, even if he did all he could to help him. He was always a bit sensitive when it came to things like that. I remember him telling me about the nightmares that those lost babies would cause him. Dead babies that he couldn't save. I never could imagine what those dreams were like, because I've never cared for a child that much. If they're anything like the nightmares I've had since he died...I definitely could see why they haunted him so much.

    As a child, I wanted to help him get over those dreams. That's what started my fascination with dream catchers. I found a kit to make one at the store, and I remember trying to get it just right. It wasn't perfect. Far from it. The weave was loose and the feathers were clumped together. The knots were clumsy in the way that only a child's hand knows how to make them. It was still a dream catcher, and I adamantly believed that it would help him get rid of his nightmares. I didn't think that the story I had heard was a myth at all, only that it could help him. So I tried to do what I, at five years old, could do to help him at the time.

    When I showed him the two dream catchers I had made for him, he seemed so happy that I had put so much effort into the gift for him. He had even asked me to hang it above his bed for him. Maybe he believed they would help, maybe he didn't. He still humored me and gave me the honor of hanging them there, where they would help protect his dreams from the memory of the dead that he couldn't save. His nightmares of babies stopped soon after, probably by coincidence. The nightmares didn't come back until after he had been tricked out of his job three years ago.

    I didn't know how much those dream catchers meant to him until after he had died.

    When my grandma was cleaning up his room a day or two before the funeral, I had found myself staying upstairs to keep her company and try to console her after she lost her youngest child. It was while she was cleaning up that I noticed the two dream catchers hanging from the post of his bed. They were covered in dust, and looked as though they hadn't been moved since I had put them there almost 17 years earlier. That's why when his funeral came, I decided to put the dream catchers with as much care as I could to lay with him in his final slumber. I wanted him to forget those last nightmares that he had before his death, and didn't want them to follow them into his death.

    Somehow leaving those dream catchers in his casket caused the dreams to begin. At first they were nice. It was like he had never left. In my dreams, I could speak to him and revisit the man who I missed so much. But, they weren't always so nice.While in some dreams he was so happy to see me, genuinely happy...other dreams he was so upset. He seemed to realize what he had done to himself and regretted so much. There was so much pain and distress. Other times he was angry, not at me, but at the situation and himself. It was frightening. All of it was so difficult to deal with, and many days I woke up crying.

    There were days that the dreams were a comfort, and days that the dreams were just a reminder that I had lost a man that was like a father to me. Then almost a month ago, there was a different dream. One that was completely different then the others.

    It hadn't just been my uncle in this dream, instead there was an elderly man. He had been scary, in a way that can be. It was like nothing was wrong, but at the same time everything was. He honestly didn't look like someone that I should be frightened of. There were none of the familiar signs of nightmarish old men. His body seemed to be toned, although there were many wrinkles in his weathered face. His hair was freckled with salt and pepper, without the common hair missing that normally showed on older men. And in his hands was a weathered old crystal chalice. The colors changed the more I looked at it, with rays of light reflecting until it just looked dark. All the colors mixed in one. The light seemed to fill the cup full of liquid, liquid rays of light.

    "I think you already know who I am, but...let me formally introduce myself. You probably know me by a number of names. Death, the Grim Reaper, oh...who knows what names you kids have for me now. Even imagined I was a girl at one point! Wasn't that a hoot?" The man had a deep voice, smooth and refined. He seemed like he was having his own good time. "Those are the names that have been given to me over the years, but I'm actually rather fond of Gideon." He added, and his eyes looked up at me. They were the same color as the rays of light in the chalice. As if his eyes reflected all the different colors possible, all at different angles.

    I had never imagined death as this old silver fox, but then again...I had never really imagined a lot of the things that seemed to be showing up lately. I already know I'm going to hell at some point, so at this point it's go big or go home. What harm is there in talking to Death? Or...Gideon, as he apparently preferred to be called.

    "Alright, so you're supposed to be responsible for death. Or something like that, right? So why are you in my dream?" I've always had the knowledge of when I was dreaming or when I was awake. It's a specialty of mine, and also how I've always known when the dreams with my uncle were just that - dreams. "I'm pretty sure I'm not anywhere near dying, at least not that I know of." I didn't want to die, not so soon. It had been hard lately but not enough to want to give up.

    "I think you know why I'm here. It isn't for you. You're pretty ambitious, quite the firecracker. You don't seem to want to give in to things anytime soon." He was still holding the chalice with liquid made from light. "I don't actually have anything to do with killing people, by the way. I just happen to help the people that do meet their end move on. Find their way away from the world you know and into something else." It wasn't something that necessarily needed to be clarified, but it did help me relax a bit more.

    I wasn't going to die here in my dream and that was reassuring.

    "So if you aren't here because I'm dying...what are you here for?"

    "Someone you knew died recently. Someone you cared for. He's keeping me from doing my job." Gideon said it matter-of-fact, but with a hint of annoyance to his deep voice.

    "Uncle Alan? But he's already dead. He killed himself...that should make your job easy."

    "It would, if he wasn't so remorseful. And if you hadn't found a way to tie some kind of link between this world and the in between. He can't move on while he's so concerned with communicating with you through your dreams. Your grief mixed with his regret has made this a pretty impossible situation. And frankly, one of you needs to budge. Or else this is probably going to get worse. I think you've already seen some of those symptoms. The anger he has on occasions, the depression. The fact that you feel like you're always walking through a haze, even while you're awake." Gideon seemed to be concerned, like he wasn't a person who dealt with the dead all the time.

    "So you're saying that I'm the reason he's still visiting my dreams?" It had made sense almost immediately. I had left the dream catchers in his coffin, without thinking about how it might be a symbol to him that I was hoping for communication in a way. Or hoped for dreams. I had left behind objects with a heavy meaning for both of us.

    "Yes, you're the reason." He nodded, then offered the chalice towards me.

    I found my hands moving to take the chalice carefully, cupping it and staring into the different lights that reflected into the center of it. "What are you here talking to me for then? Aren't you supposed to be helping him? I don't know how much help I could be." I also had no clue why he had handed me this over sized cup. I wasn't going to just drink from strange cup that was handed to me by the man who brought souls to their resting place.

    "I think you're the only other person that can help him move on. You need to talk to him. It's a long journey, the one he'll have to take. And the longer a soul lingers, the more perilous it becomes. He was already so weary when he left your world, I'm honestly not sure he will make the journey. Which is...troubling, to say the least. It means I'll have to work harder to fill my quota, and I've already spent a few months since I've been assigned to his case. The last person trying to get him to cross over gave up and handed the job over to me." Gideon seemed troubled as he glanced at a large, old watch.

    "So you want me to just...tell him to go with you?" The journey had sounded dangerous, even though I had no clue what it would entail. "What happens if he can't make it?" Before he had died, my uncle hadn't been in his best condition. To be fair, most people who killed themselves weren't always at their best, or else they wouldn't feel so desperate as if they didn't have any other choices but to end their lives.

    "That's the optimal choice, yes. I wouldn't be asking you if I thought there was another solution." Gideon seemed annoyed at the amount of questions I was asking. "If he can't make it...?" He sighed, seeming like he didn't want to tell me about what might happen. "If he doesn't make it then he's trapped in this kind of in-between limbo forever." He seemed slightly apologetic about what was happening, but it all seemed so distant after hearing his last words.

    "So if he can't make it...he will just be stuck? He's so unhappy though..." I couldn't imagine a family member that I loved, being made to suffer. With the dreams, I knew that I would be stuck suffering as well. I didn't want to live the rest of my life with dreams where I had to see how sad he seemed, how angry he was about everything. Most of all, I just didn't want him to have to continue with the same depression that had caused him to end up where he was now. "I can't. He won't just leave. He seems so upset. And even if he does leave, he can't make a trip like what you're describing. It isn't that I just don't believe in him. At one point in time, I would have never doubted my uncle, but sometimes people need a chance to recover. Especially when life did nothing but put them down. Especially when life put him down enough that he didn't think there were options with him in life.

    "Let me take him to wherever he's supposed to be. I can make the trip for him." It seemed so simple at the time. Like I could take his place on his trip to whatever afterlife there was.

    "That's not how this works." Gideon said, although he looked intrigued by my proposition. "However, it may be the only way you'll get him there." He added. He glanced at the chalice I was still holding, as if he had expected this from the beginning. "I'll make an exception, this once. You can take his journey, but you'll have to carry him with you. This is the deal. And if you fail? He'll fail as well. If you succeed, he'll pass on. But you won't remember anything more of this, except as a passing dream." He explained the terms of our agreement, and in the way that can happen in dreams, he pulled out a piece of paper and a pen as he started to write down what we had agreed upon. "Are you sure you won't want to ask your uncle before you agree to this?"

    "No." I knew my Uncle Alan. He wouldn't want me to risk anything for him, he would want to go alone. He would worry how dangerous this could be for me. He would insist on going alone, even if he knew he had a chance of failing. That was how he had always been. "I want to do this for him, but he wouldn't want anyone to help him." I hadn't been able to help him in his life, the least I could do is help him in his death. "What do I have to do?" I asked, unsure what this journey would even entail or how I could help if I was living my life. This was, after all, a dream. How was I going to help him out?

    "You won't be able to help except in your dreams. Each night, you'll be faced with the same dilemmas that your uncle would be facing if he took the journey alone. You must carry his soul and his consciousness. You can't lose either one or he won't be able to make it to the finish line, so to speak. They are separate entities at the moment, since he's been visiting you. The consciousness is what has been visiting you lately, while his soul is what left his body when he died and is like the long term memory of everything he is and was." Gideon seemed more serious, less flippant than he had been in the conversation previously. "To sign this deal, you must drink from the chalice in your hands." He motioned to the chalice acting as a prism for the light in the room surrounding us.

    I glanced down at the different colors melding into one, both black and all the colors at once. It was my chance to save what was left of his life, in some fashion. I raised the heavy chalice to my lips, the liquid was flowing into my mouth. It had no taste, but seemed to fill me with warmth. Then I felt something hard bump against my lips as I was swallowing the rest of the liquid. I tipped the chalice back upright, and found a crystal amulet at the bottom. "What's this?"

    "His soul." Gideon answered, walking forward to pluck the amulet from the chalice, threading a thin metal thread through it as if it was a necklace. "You will need to keep it safe with you until you finish." He placed the necklace over my head, and the sudden weight was staggering. It felt like a thick chain had been placed around my neck, dragging me towards the ground. "Now all you need is his consciousness...now where did that get to. Can you call for him, if you please?"

    "Uncle Alan?" I called out, unsure why I would be calling if he wasn't there. It was a dream though and anything could happen. "Are you here? I need to talk to you!" I called out a bit louder into the void of nothingness.

    Suddenly I saw him walking from the distance. He was tall, but he had a tendency to slouch and it made him seem like he wasn't as tall or as intimidating as he could look. He did have a bit of weight on him. He had been a small man in pictures I had seen before I was born. As long as I had been alive though, he had always been the same relative size. He always dressed casually, in sweat pants and tank tops (or t-shirts). Much like how I dressed. Maybe there was more I had inherited from him than I really thought I had. He had always been balding, as long as I remembered. The hair he did have was dark black and curly, although in my dreams I had noticed the strands of gray that I had ignored in life. He had a mustache, well-kept and clean. He also wore glasses. He had a gentle demeanor normally, which made him seem smaller than he was as well. He wasn't intimidating unless he tried to be. And he had never been very angry in life. The only times I had ever seen him angry were scary, and always for a reason. He had seemed smaller before his death, depression making him shrink into himself. Sadness making his personality seem smaller, less like the cheery man I had grown up with. He had always been kind of like a young Santa Claus to me, always happy when I was growing up.

    Yes, there had been many days when he had been sick or tired. He had always had time for a smile or a joke though, and always time to cook. The depression had taken most of that away.

    He didn't say anything, just eyed both Gideon and I in a sad, almost scared way. Like he was worried about why we were both there.

    "Your niece has graciously offered to help guide you to your journey to move on. It isn't good for a person to stay and dwell on the pains of their lives." Gideon spoke, because I was out of words to say. I had been speechless with sadness almost every time I witnessed my uncle in my dreams. "But, she'll have to carry you along the way...and it isn't going to be easy with the way you are now. Will you go with her? It is probably your only chance to move away from all the negative emotions tied to what you were before." He seemed much more sympathetic and nice to my uncle than he had to me before.

    "What? I don't...I don't want to go." His voice was so desperate that I felt a lump in my throat. Tears threatening my eyes. He turned that gaze onto me. "Ninny? You really want to do this for me..?" I felt the tears spill down my cheeks as I heard one of the many nicknames he had given me. It was a play on my self-given nickname, Jenni, short for Jennifer. "It's dangerous.."

    "I know I shouldn't be able to ask you for this. But you kind of owe me. You owe me at least one last favor." It all seemed so simple, to demand this from him. His death had shaken me and my waking life had been little more than a blur for the past year. A blur of days, of events that I didn't remember, of spending life without really realizing what I had to do to carry on. It wasn't all his fault, part of it was my own for not being able to handle his death appropriately.

    "I guess I can do that much.." He said, seeming close to tears.

    "One last favor, let me carry you." My own tears were still pooling at the corner of my eyes as I spoke. It wasn't all for him. Part of this was for me, to let myself know that I could do something for him. Even if it wouldn't matter for the life he had left. It would matter for his death.

    He nodded. Then I saw the amount of tears in his eyes and my heart broke a little at the thought I was causing more strain on him.

    Gideon had watched the exchange without a word, but finally cleared his throat. He walked over to my uncle, and offered his hand. "Well, since it seems we're all agreed there's only one thing left to do. She can't carry you like this, so let's go about this a bit differently."

    As my uncle took his hand, they both faded for a second. What appeared in their place was a large, grey teddy bear. It was dressed in sweats, with small glasses on its face.

    "Carry his consciousness with you. Be careful, because if you lose either part. His soul or his consciousness, you'll lose him." Gideon's voice echoed over the dream as I walked forward to grab the bear. My hands were no longer the size they normally were, instead they were smaller. Actually, all of me was smaller. The bear was almost as large as I was. A mirror appeared in the nothing, and I was glancing at the reflection of myself - but as I had been as a child. I lifted the bear onto my back, the only way I could carry its weight with the heavy amulet around my neck.

    Then the dream faded, and I had woken up with a crystal amulet around my neck and a gray teddy bear abandoned on the ground next to my bed.