Restoration [Shawn Mendes] AU

Chapter 74

Michelle went to see Dr. Kane on the last day of June for her monthly appointment. After a few minutes of small talk about her graduation, her part-time job at the bookstore and how her new coursework was going, he wanted to delve into what, if any, problems she was having at the moment that she needed to discuss. She decided to open up about the recurring dreams and occasional nightmares which had increased in frequency over the last month and half, as well as feeling very nervous over the fact the perpetrator of the assaults that were happening at campuses throughout Providence hadn't been apprehended yet and seemed to be feeding her anxiety, especially after the encounter she had with the man dressed in black in the parking garage. The security cameras had picked up his image, but no one in Shawn's building or surrounding buildings could make a positive identification since he had his ball cap pulled so low they couldn't clearly see his face.

 She had been writing down her dreams and nightmares when she could recall them, looking for a pattern of some sort, or to see if there were some recurring themes that could give some insight to the underlying cause. So far the only conclusion she had come to was the most prevalent recurring dreams had to do with Robert and Beau and the anniversary of their deaths coming at the end of July. The nightmares she had were always of some unseen force that made her feel insecure and unsafe, except the one nightmare about the shark closing in on her as she was in the deep ocean at night and even then, the reason she was in the ocean in her dream was because she was searching for Robert and Beau.

After sharing this information with Dr. Kane, he talked with her about where she felt she was in the grieving process and the frequency of these dreams and when they began, as this could be helpful in figuring out why she was experiencing the kind of dreams she was having. He explained that generally there are four common types of grief dreams: the visitation dream, in which the deceased comes to spend time with the bereaved, next is the message dream where the deceased appears in dreams to give information, alert their loved one of a situation, or simply to convey their love. Reassurance dreams, the third type, are ones in which the message is comforting and positive. And the last type is the trauma dream, which can be distressing. These tend to occur when the death has been particularly disturbing as with murder or an accident. 

She told Dr. Kane she thought she had passed through most of the grieving process over the last year, but that the one year anniversary was what had been on her mind for quite awhile, especially since she had no grave site to visit and had to find a something to honor them in a tangible way somehow to put her heart and mind at ease. She had spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how she could do that, but nothing seemed satisfactory for how she wanted to memorialize them and that seemed to be what had triggered these particular dreams.

 "Is there a certain thing you could do, perhaps at the beach house since that was the last place you spent time with Robert and Beau?" Dr. Kane inquired.

"I've thought about making some kind of memorial for them at the beach house. I've been thinking about that for the last 6 months actually. I'm just not sure what I want that to look like or if it could be something I'd do on my own or if I should include the family. I guess that's kind of been an ongoing thing that I haven't decided on yet."