Dreaming of Mom

I dreamed about my mother early this morning. The kind of dream that wakes you and forbids you to go back to sleep. Mom was on vacation with us and yet not with us, so I was walking down a long, wide carpeted hallway toward her hotel room to check on her. As I got closer, she appeared, wearing a faded blue nightgown, walking purposefully toward me, tiny, frail. I stepped into pace beside her and asked, "Where are you going?" She answered, "I think I have pneumonia. I'm going to the hospital." I pulled her to my side, hugged her close, turned my head and kissed her on her left temple. Once, twice, again and again until I woke up.

The last time I saw her was October 14. In two months it will be a year and a lifetime ago that I was with her. And yet she's always with me. When I fold laundry, I can hear her chiding me that we have too many clothes. Of course, she's right; I do a ridiculous amount of laundry. When I sew or cook or bake, she's looking over my shoulder, remarking about how I do things just like she did and how I do things so differently than she did. When I'm with my children, I can feel her watching me with the same amount of maternal pride I exude. She often said her greatest joy was her children, and we knew that even when she didn't say it.

Kermit and me, October 14

I will never get over losing her. I will forever miss her so deeply I find it hard to breathe at times. So this morning, it took me a minute to get out of bed. In time, the dog bounded in, jumped up on the bed and put his head on my chest, his paw on my shoulder. He's good that way—the way good dogs know when we need them the most. The way he was when I got home last October, exhausted from spending four nights beside my mom in the hospital, not wanting to leave her side. I had stumbled into bed to nap and, after an hour, my husband opened the bedroom door so the dog could join me. Kermit had been ramming the door with his head so much, my husband was afraid he'd hurt himself if he didn't let him in.

Most nights I don't dream about my mother, but I know she's with me. She's always with me.