Dreams

I dreamed of Mama last night. It was one of those dreams that felt so real. I dreamed that I lived in a penthouse in a large city like New York and mama was there. My dream made it seem like she had gone to the hospital and came back good as new, not on hospice. I was so confused because I kept telling everyone that she had died yet there she was. In my dream, she was as I remembered her from my teenage years.

One of my best friends was there and she had a big bag of Legos that she poured on the floor. They were the new ones where you could make bouquets of flowers. I went to help her and my old dog, Huey, from childhood was there. I instantly felt guilty because I had not fed him since I was a kid. But as dreams so often do, I was fooled into thinking that everything was fine. The dog had not been fed in almost thirty years and would have been about fifty years old.

The brain is an amazing thing. It can make you really believe things that are impossible, if only while asleep. It felt so real and so easy to believe simply because some days, it doesn’t feel real that mama is gone. I’ve caught myself a hundred times thinking of how I needed to tell mama this or how I needed to pick up something for her at the store. It’s funny how the impossible can become so believable when I’m asleep but the reality can feel so impossible while I’m awake.

I suppose the yearning to talk to Mama will never really go away. At almost 50, I still feel like a child. But now I’m a child alone in this world without my parents here on this side of heaven. It’s an adjustment to say the least. Growing up is voluntary while growing old is inevitable. I guess in some ways I thought that Mama would live to grow old with me. Time is a thief and if we live long enough, it will steal a lot from us.

Thank goodness for dreams where I can still feel the presence of those whom I’ve loved yet are no longer here. No matter how impossible, improbable, or illogical, dreams can take me to a place I love to be. It’s a place where Mama is still right here with me.