Dreaming the Dark

I don’t think we are ever ready to lose our mothers. I certainly wasn’t in 2002 at the age of 26. My heart breaks even today thinking of my younger siblings who were 22 and 20 at the time. They had yet to unravel the complexities of the parent-child dynamic as they grew into adulthood, still in the midst of parent-child rebellion and angst complicated even further by terminal illness. At least I got to know her as an adult, a peer, a friend. But I still wasn’t ready for her to leave.

Since that Christmas morning in 2002 when life departed her illness-wracked body and she found peace, alone in a hospital bed at dawn, her image has visited me in my dreams intermittently. It was often at first – I’d dream that the phone rang and she’d be on the other end with something to tell me. Those dreams felt eerily real, as if some part of her were actually communicating with me through dreams from the great beyond.

But as time has passed, she appears less in my dreams. Now when she shows up, she is more ephemeral, less bound by the mundane. She is of stardust, timeless and forever 51 years old. As I approach my 43rd birthday, I realize there will likely come a day when I have outlived her.

She often comes to me surrounded by or even in water. She was a Pisces and my natal moon is in Pisces; water connects us and is the element which best defined our dynamic when she was alive. Perhaps this is the realm her spirit found its way to in the afterlife – a world of ponds, rivers, oceans, and clear, warm blue pools. She once came to me in a dream sitting half submerged in water with a book that seemed alive, its pages depicting decaying flesh and images of death. She calmly showed me a few pages, then closed the book for it was not time for me to understand the mysteries of death yet. She was at peace, her blue eyes exactly as I remembered them. But the sound of her voice was absent. Perhaps I have begun to forget what it sounded like. Time can be cruel, slowly stealing our most precious memories.

Last night, I found her sitting near water, watching the waves crash. A storm was coming in and she was there to witness it. I suspect it is no coincidence that on the other side of the country, hurricane Florence is reaching the shore. This time, I did not see her face. Only her distinct shape, her hair, her hands. I sat beside and slightly behind her, first touching her back, then resting my head on her shoulder. We sat and watched the wind, the waves, the darkening sky. In the dream state, I knew that she was gone. I knew that this visit was not to be repeated in the physical realm. And so I savored it, despite its notes of foreboding. Sometimes we must accept what is offered, even if acceptance brings a bit of discomfort.

I miss you, mom.