Mom dreams

I’m becoming an expert at making others cry. It’s a talent that used to be reserved for my grandmother, Adeline—one of my biggest fans and supporters, she would cry in response to any card I gave her, anything I wrote. It became a joke in our family, but as we’ve lost so many beloveds, I’ve been the one to carry their stories and share and recite them when others could not.

A photo of me and my mom

Last night I dreamt about my mom for the first time since she died last month.

In the dream she was surrounded by boxes, trying to sort things out, to make a pathway out of the room. It was a really white room, like a storage unit. She seemed a little batty, but okay. I asked her what she was doing and she explained. I hugged her, hugged her so tight I thought her bones would collapse and I was sobbing saying how much I loved her and that I wished she would have lived forever. She said, “I know,” and hugged me.

“‘Sometimes I think if I start crying, I’ll never stop.’ But I also knew during those cries, she was present 100 percent. ”

She gave the best hugs, I think because she often didn’t receive them as a kid. The oldest in a busy household, I know her feelings were neglected and she had to watch the younger kids, something she resented later in life.  As the layers of resentment and dreams un-lived wrapped tighter around her over the years, the hugging, loving mom was harder to find at times. But, sometimes, she emerged from the fog of anxiety and day drinking to be present for me and, often when she did, we cried together about something. Missing so many of our relatives, missing my husband, whatever it was we cried together and she would say “Sometimes I think if I start crying, I’ll never stop.” But I also knew during those cries, she was present 100 percent. There was an opening that, while sometimes painful, was emotion unleashed as it needed to be. I remember thinking “If we started every conversation crying, things would go a lot better.” Because she had so much anger and frustration pent up, not unlike little kids, we sometimes/often re-route our emotions to other places—causing tension in our bodies, in our relationships, in our lives.

I think too, if she could have seen what that holding back had done to her body in the end, what abuse we put our physical bodies through to avoid the emotions, she would have cried too.