I woke up in the middle of a dream. One of those awakenings where you immediately know: this wasn’t a fragment, this was a story. Only… it wasn’t finished yet.

My parents were in it. That alone is remarkable. They both died a long time ago-fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years ago now. They don’t appear in my dreams often anymore. And when they do, it always feels different from ordinary memories. As if the dream isn’t just about them but happening to them.

We were standing by a pear tree. Or rather: they were standing in it. High up. Much higher than a pear tree could ever be. There was a ladder, and they were picking pears.

That’s strange, because we never had a pear tree. My mother never picked pears. And certainly not high up in a tree, on a ladder. Yet it made perfect sense in the dream. My mother was concentrating. She examined the pears one by one. Some were good. Some weren’t. The bad ones were also picked but then set aside. Removed.

That detail stuck. Not just the picking, but the discernment. This is good. This isn’t. This can stay. This must go.

Meanwhile, we were busy with something completely different. I told them about a story of a singer who had caused a serious car accident. A true story. Not a figment of my imagination. I knew it was true, but I couldn’t find the name anymore. Only “Marco” stuck.

We started searching. Together.

And then something happened that was perhaps even stranger than that tall pear tree: my parents were sitting at the computer. Googling. As if it were the most normal thing in the world.

I can imagine my father doing that. He worked with computers. But my mother… she had never sat at a computer before. She always stayed away from them. And yet here she was. Focused. Involved. As if she was saying: I’ll help you.

We couldn’t find the name. No matter how we searched. It wasn’t until I woke up that I typed in the same question. And then it did appear: Marco Bakker. The story was true.

And that’s what makes the dream so intriguing.

Because why all of this together?

Why my parents-who have been gone for so long-in a tree that never existed, with fruit we never had, while they help me search for the name of someone who caused something irreversible?

Slowly, a meaning began to emerge.

The tree felt like something that had grown. Not literally, but internally. High, because it requires an overview. The ladder as the means to reach it. Not naturally, but with effort, step by step.

Picking the pears-good and bad-felt like something that went beyond fruit. It felt like organizing. Like purifying. Like distinguishing between what nourishes and what doesn’t. Between what you take with you and what you leave behind. Even the bad pears had to be picked, not ignored. They just weren’t allowed to stay.

And suddenly I thought of something else. Something real. Before my mother died, we, her sons, each received an apple tree. With the idea that we would receive a new gift from her every year. As a symbol of life that goes on. Care that continues, even after the farewell. We didn’t know then that she would pass away soon after.Perhaps those pears weren’t separate from those apple trees. Perhaps my dream simply used a different image to express the same thing.

And that accident? That singer?

Perhaps it’s not about him. But about guilt, rupture, irreversibility. About the moment something tips over and you can never go back. And my search for his name-that endless “who was it again”-suddenly felt like something else: the need to name things. To give responsibility a name. To understand what happened, even if it doesn’t undo anything.

That my parents helped me with this doesn’t feel coincidental. Not like nostalgia, but like guidance. As if they were saying: you don’t have to figure this out alone. As if they were helping me sort through this one last time. Choosing. Putting aside what no longer serves.

I woke up before the dream was finished. But perhaps he had already come full circle.

Not everything needs an answer to be meaningful. Sometimes it’s enough for something to come together briefly: care, loss, distinction, searching. And for you to feel you’re not alone in this-even after so many years.

Perhaps this wasn’t a dream to be explained.

But a dream to be carried.

A Bridge to the Triptych

Perhaps this is where this dream belongs.

Not at the beginning of the story, nor in the middle. But here. After the shift. After the emptiness. After the first contours of something new.

Over the past two years, I’ve written about demolition, about belonging nowhere, about searching without a map. About how the old had to disappear before I could see what was truly mine. About how vulnerability turned out not to be a weakness, but gave direction. About how humanity carried me, especially when systems didn’t.

This dream story doesn’t feel like a retrospective, nor like a pointer forward. It feels like an intermediary moment of order. As if my inner world—just like my life—halted for a moment to consider:

what has matured?

what may remain?

what must still be let go, even though you first grasped it?

That my parents appear in it doesn’t feel coincidental. Not like nostalgia, but like origin. Like the place where values ​​are passed on without words. That they don’t provide answers, but help me search, perhaps fits who they were to me better than any conversation. Even then!

And perhaps that’s why this dream fits perfectly between the second and third parts of my triptych.

Between emptiness and direction.

Between waiting and moving.

Between letting go and choosing.

Because only after you’ve cleared away—not by pushing away, but by discerning—does space arise for something new. Not as coincidence. Not as magic. But as something that presents itself when you’re willing to take responsibility for what you take with you.

In that light, “Where Miracles Begin” doesn’t feel like a sudden turning point, but as a logical continuation. Miracles rarely arise from chaos alone. They arise when someone, after everything that has fallen away, dares to say:

I’ll take this with me,

I’ll leave this behind,

and this is what I’m going to build—not just for myself.

Perhaps that’s what this dream came to do.

Not to add something new.

But to quietly confirm that the direction is right.