Last night I had another solid sleep and with it vivid dreams.
Preface – Ma never “comes to me”. There was the one time, immediately after Dad’s death, that I saw a couple who looked just like them from afar. I stared at them with my mouth open, Al was with me and experienced it too. I ended up walking over and randomly hugging a stranger. I am that person… But as far as coming to me in dreams or thoughts, offering a touch after death, it never happens. Until last night.
Until now, when I “need” to think about Ma, I envision her at the end, the sick self. No matter how hard I try, to just conjure a thought of her up involved the Ma at the end. Last night I transferred old entries from my journal to here (trying to get all of my writing under one umbrella). Although the old written journal entries had nothing to do with my parents, I suddenly became sad and I wrote: “Tonight I miss my Ma. It suddenly felt weird. I miss Ma but I have compartmentalized my Daddy’s death to a point that I cannot “envision” (for lack of a better word) the two of them dead at the same time – occupying the same heavenly cloud. My grief is so different this go around than the first. I miss Daddy as if he were just around the corner. I miss Ma like in an absence that is indescribable.” And after that I became very sleepy and went to lay down on the couch where Husband was watching TV. I fell immediately asleep. And, although this dream was not as vividly colored as my dream a few days ago, it was detailed. I remember the dream in more broken pieces. These are some of those pieces:
Mom was there, so was Daddy. Daddy was the Daddy at the end of his life, sick, overweight and tired. Ma was late 80s Ma, before she became bed-ridden or had sunken eyes. She and Daddy were renewing their vows. We were at the old double-wide where I grew up. When I bought the place in the 90s, I put a wooden deck on the back, the length of the house. They were going to renew their vows out there. There were people in the background, I don’t know who. They were not center to the dream. Suddenly I had to get ready because everyone else was in their finery and I was in jeans with my hair in a whore bun on top of my head. I went to my old room and struggled to get the door open. Finally, when I did, I was naked going into the room (running from the hall bathroom to my room, hoping no guests saw me). I pushed the door open finally and fell to the floor, there was someone, a tall young man, behind the door who ran around the door and away. I did not see what he looked like, just that he had on jeans. Next I remember looking in the mirror to get ready. My hair was like it was before I started to straighten it, ultra curly and it did not look horrible but I was mortified and thought “straighten” for a moment. Ma was suddenly there, wearing her white capris pants. I asked her “Is that what you are going to wear?” Then I flashed to walking into the kitchen, ma sitting at the bar. She seemed shorter (Ma was short but sitting at the bar like that made it seem as if she was much shorter.) Then there was a flash of sickly Dad in an ill fitted suit, kind of moseying around the main living room area. We didn’t speak, he was just moseying around kind of aimless. Flash forward to me and Ma walking. I could see myself. More like, I could see my hair – and it was old. Like I had aged a few decades. I could not see my face. This morning I have struggled to recognize the fashion of hair I was wearing, because it was familiar. Then it hit me:
When I tried to find images of Frances Sternhagen just now from when she played Bunny on Sex in the City, the hair was TOO grey. Then this one flipped past of her, off-set, and it is exactly how I pictured it – that grey with hints of brown and pinned back on the sides. I digress…
I did not see my face – just old me hair. And when I turned around, I was standing next to a lake and Ma was at its edge. She was dressed beautifully. She was wearing an army green long sleeved cotton shirt with a round neck that fit her well (in life she was prone to wearing plunging necklines that were all cleavage but this was not the case). And she had on a long flowing gorgeous skirt of cream, green and burnt orange. So totally not what my Ma would wear but it was gorgeous on her. She walked into the edge of the water and said to me: “Make sure no one is watching.” She then proceeded to hike her dress up and squat right there in the water. Was she peeing? I don’t know. I was mortified that her beautiful dress was getting saturated. And then there was someone there in front of her. Much deeper in the water, just their head above water, I could see it from behind. I think it was Daddy, I am not sure. And before I could find out or flip to the next scene – you guessed it, alarm.
The thing is, I dreamed of Ma – healthier Ma and she was so pretty in her finery. And I dreamed of sick Daddy and he was in an ill-fitted suit, looking much older than he was at the time of his death. (He almost looked like my Pawpaw walked, kind of stooped over with a cane.)
When I woke I cried. Quiet streaming tears. I am teared up now. I know that the dream was an extension of my thoughts when I went to bed. I believe that my brain was just working out that they are together now and Ma is helping him along. My heart is so heavy. So very heavy.
Thoughts and Ponderances 