Bad Dream

Last Monday, in its early morning hours, I had a very upsetting dream.  It was the kind of dream that feels so real and vivid that it stays with you all day.  Maybe I had it because of next week's three-year-loss anniversary, or maybe I had it because of other things going on in my life, but regardless, it was a little too real for comfort.
I dreamed I was somewhere in late evening.  I don't know if it was out at a quiet restaurant or something, but it was someplace I'm unfamiliar with.  I must have gotten a text or call on my phone, but something alerted me to Mike, and the fact that he was in the hospital.  In my mind, I knew Mike had passed, so it was all a bit confusing.  I remember rushing to the hospital to go see him.  It was not Mass General Hospital, where he was treated and spent the final weeks of his life.  The place seemed smaller and more "homey," without the clinical feel of a typical hospital.  His nurses were not his regular nurses that we knew, but I recall one of them being a nurse I vaguely knew.  I went to Mike's room and saw him, and he was still sick but seemed to be slightly on the mend, and definitely better than in the final moments of his real life.  He was even showing me how he was able to take care of a few of his medical needs, and that I didn't need to do it.  The overriding feeling of the whole thing was that all this time he was still alive, though still sick in the hospital, and I hadn't been there all this long while.  He had wondered where I was and had been waiting for me.  I remember being out in the hallway or something -- maybe even outside -- and talking to his nurses (maybe three or four of them), and they were saying again how I hadn't been there.  One of them even gestured with her fingers, making a twisting motion, saying that I was "twisting" or "messing with" Mike by not having been around all this time and now suddenly showing up.  I told them that I was around, but that he died.  I angrily told them to go ask any of his regular nurses, that they would tell them that I never, never, never left Mike's side, and that I was always there.  The only other things I remember are knowing I had to go tell Mark that Mike was back.  I didn't want to upset Mark, but I was stunned that Mike was still here.
I just woke up feeling horrible that I had been away from Mike all this time, and it killed me knowing that he'd been asking where I was and that he missed me.  It brought me to tears several times that day.  I hate feeling like I wasn't there for Mike, even though I know in real life I never left his side.  Even when the rational part of our minds know differently, dreams have a horrible way of distorting reality and making us believe the distortion.