A Guide to Grief: Feeling Happiness Again

There is a scene in the first Sex and the City movie where Carrie, fresh after being stood up at the altar, takes her friends to Mexico for a trip which was supposed to be her honeymoon. After days of sleeping and refusing to eat, she finally makes it to the balcony outside, where she asks, “Will I ever laugh again?”

“Yes,” Samantha (I think) says.

“When?”

“When something is really, really funny.”

And then Charlotte craps her pants, and everyone laughs hysterically.

I love that scene, and strangely, I’ve thought of it often throughout this entire process. You see, I’m not entirely convinced that I will ever be happy again, despite reassurance from various reliable sources. Maybe there will be times where I smile or enjoy a good joke but I’ll never be truly free from the grip of death. Even in my happiest moments, I’m so afraid of that dark cloud lingering over me.

This weekend my best friends from home came to visit me in South Carolina. We headed to Folly beach despite the bleak forecast and squeezed into a dated motel room. We ate expensive dinners. We danced. We attempted to tan our hides. We sucked down martinis and beer and other fancy-sounding drinks. And it was wonderful.

I think I was happy for the first time in six months. Truly, utterly happy, laughing until it hurt with my best and oldest friends, taking pictures and never wanting it to end. That must be what happiness is–wishing a moment could last forever. I didn’t really think about my mom. I didn’t wallow in the standard loneliness and despair. I felt like a whole person–not a shattered, ruined existence. I hadn’t been that way in so long I had just assumed those feelings didn’t apply to me anymore. Up until this weekend, I felt I was exempt from elation.

But I’m not, and now I have proof that happiness exists, and now the sun is brighter and some color has returned to life. So I guess it gets better. Piece by piece, day by day. A tiny bit better.

Six Months Later

Has it been six months already?
My, my, where does the time go?
Into thoughts of her I suppose.
They bloom as frequently as nascent flowers
Dreaming of her, I’ve spent hours.

Is it Mother’s Day already?
Sweet Lord, just get me through it
If there was pain before, I never knew it
Not until that call came in
A calm evening before Thanksgiving.

Haven’t I cried enough already?
Haven’t I paid my dues to you?
Didn’t I take the steps to heal
Haven’t I felt this through and through?

If there is a God above
If he’s gracious, if he’s kind
Maybe he could listen just this once
And take this burden off my mind?

Is it time for her to go already?
I told her I’d be all right
I promised her that I’d be fine
Forgive me mother, on your dying bed
What lies those were, what lies I said.

For you my heart breaks every day.

 

The Recurring Dream

For the past several months I have been dreaming the same dream, night after night. The setting varies but the plot is always the same. In these dreams I see my mom. Most of the time she is thin; sometimes she looks sick and sometimes she doesn’t. When I see her, I know that she has died, but for some reason I am able to accept that she is alive once more. I always feel a sense of urgency. I feel that if I can somehow change the circumstances surrounding her death, I will be able to delay the inevitable. In these dreams I know that she will ultimately die, but I am certain there is a way to buy more time.

The past two nights, the dreams have involved me bathing my mother. Last night we were in the bathtub, and her body was thin and smooth like that of a child. She looked young and happy, and I ran the warm sudsy water all over her skin. Then she hugged me for a long time; she clung to me and I could feel the wetness. There was a strange calm enveloping us. I was excited for some reason, perhaps it was because I knew she still had more time. She wasn’t sick yet, she wasn’t at the edge. I didn’t have to face it yet.

I cannot count the number of times this dream has occurred. Always, always the same plot. It is neither disturbing nor comforting. It’s just a thing that happens, just a peculiar thing. Even when I’m in the dream itself, I have knowledge that I’m having another one of “those” dreams. In a way, I suppose I look forward to them. She is alive in my dreams. She beats the odds. She moves, she talks, she smiles, she touches me. If there is one place in this universe where we can experience what is impossible, it is inside our own mind. The dead can rise in our dreams.

A Guide to Grief: Remembering the Bad Times

Another tired cliche that I neglected to include on my list of things not say to a grieving person is, “Try and focus on the good memories.” So simplistic. But I will not devote this virtual space to whining  about how people just don’t understand–I’ve done enough of that already. Instead I’m going to expose my mother for who she really was–a flawed, quite possibly unbalanced woman who cared deeply for her children, but sometimes lacked the emotional maturity to show it.

When people die, their living counterparts spend a great deal of time conjuring up all the fine qualities of that person. I heard these sorts of things all the time when I worked in news. He always had a smile on his face. She’d give you the shirt off her back. He never met someone he didn’t like. She lit up the room. On and on with these bright shiny clippings of a person’s existence, with little attention paid to the unglamourous, unflattering and more accurate descriptions of a life lived.

Can I be honest? I spent a lot of time hating my own mother. She was physically abusive, and as uncouth as it is to share this publicly I’ve got to come clean. She was abusive and she said and did things that were a result of her unchecked rage. She was abused too, and she must have sworn she wouldn’t do the same to her own kids, but then she probably realized, as many of us do when we say something aloud and it sounds tragically familiar, that we inevitably become our parents. So along with the fond memories I have of her, many bad ones have resurfaced in this process as well. At first I tried to brush them aside. I felt guilty for giving them credence. After all, you’re only supposed to focus on the good stuff, right? And how dare I think back to a time when I was so angry at her I wished for her to be dead, and now she really is?

But I am beginning to come to terms with these memories, for better or worse. And I suppose that the point of this entry is that sooner or later we all need to accept that our parents are not the infallible heroes we want them to be. Some people have downright unfortunate parents and there isn’t a thing they can do about it. I’m not trying to garner sympathy here–my childhood was pretty good, regardless of mom’s unchecked anger. It’s just that I’m tired of pretending that just because she no longer walks the earth, she deserves to be sanctified. No. She was a human. She had children and got cancer and died, and along the way she did some wonderful things and some not so wonderful things. When someone passes away, it doesn’t mean we only choose to remember the good. We remember it all, we thumb through the memories subconsciously, and we keep in mind that nobody is perfect and that everybody tried the best they could with what they had. I miss my mom with an incredible ferocity, but a pedestal I will not build.

If there is one thing I truly regret, it is that my mom never forgave her own mother for abusing her. She carried it to her grave, and it ate at her every day while she was living. She hated her own mother. She couldn’t let it go. She wouldn’t relinquish that anger.

If you are in that position, I would urge you to find a way to forgive. Not because Jesus said so, not because it makes you a bad person if you don’t, but because living a life full of hatred and vengeance is a life wasted. Our parents are not heroes. They most likely made mistakes, just like their parents and the parents before them. Acknowledge it, work through it, and quit blaming them for everything.

So there’s my dirty laundry out in the sunlight for everyone to admire. I am not ashamed. I am not ashamed of my mother’s character. I am not embarassed to admit that I often think about our fights and still insist that she was wrong, even though it doesn’t matter now anyway. She was not perfect, nor am I; nor is anyone who walks in the valley of death.

A Guide to Grief: What Not to Say

Before I experienced grief firsthand, I found it very difficult to console others and often wondered whether I should bother saying anything at all, particularly if the person was only an acquaintance. I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. It was none of my business anyhow, and surely the person would come along just fine without any input from me. But now that I’ve come through the other side I profoundly realize the importance of acknowledgment.

There remain a few close friends who have yet to say anything to me about my mother’s passing and I judge them harshly for it. Their lack of verbalization, which probably comes from a place of not wanting to make things worse, has made things worse. It hurts when the people close to you don’t even utter a word about the monumental, devastating event which has more or less ruined your life. When it comes to dealing with a grieving person, who, in the throes of mourning, is irrational, flighty, and consumed with despair, there are some adages which are less comforting than others. No words will be the right ones, however. But when in doubt, say something. Anything. Well, not anything, as I’m about to illustrate. But if you’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, simply lend your shoulder or envelop the person with a  big hug. Don’t just stand back and watch it all unfold, as I have done many times. And if you can, avoid saying the following:

Time heals everything. This is a blatant lie. In the case of my grieving process, time has only made things worse. In the beginning, right after she died, those were the “easiest” days, if there is such a thing. I was in such shock that I barely cried. I returned to work several days later and functioned just fine. People asked how I was and I told them I was okay, and this was the truth. I felt nothing. It wasn’t real. How could it be? But slowly time reassured me that it was. Day after day, it became clear that there would be no more phone calls, no more trips home to visit, no more Mother’s Day flowers to be sent. The further I go on, the more I realize that she’s gone and nothing will replace her. Time has betrayed me. It hasn’t gotten any easier and some days it feels like it never will be. Time may take away the sting, but the wound always remains. Time batters and bruises us all.

She’s still with you. I am a Christian. I wholly believe my mom is in heaven, and I have had several eerie, too-real-to-be-just-a-dream dreams where my mom spoke words that I know her soul ached for me to know. Oftentimes I can hear her voice in my head, guiding me through life; Mom would kill me if I did that. I believe that when I die I’ll see her again, as silly and juvenile as that may sound. Regardless of my faith, regardless of the prospect of being reunited with her again and clinging to the idea that she can see me now, she’s still missing from my life. The presence of her absence is painfully obvious, and knowing she’s smiling down on me from heaven does not even compare to knowing she could have been smiling with me at my wedding or my graduation. The former is a shoddy substitute for the latter. Sorry, Jesus, you know I love you, but it’s true.

It’s all for the best. I generally believe that things happen for a reason, that there are lessons to be learned from our hardships, and that our trials in life do strengthen us. Eventually, after a great length of time has passed, I may be able to decipher some positives which arose from her death, but it’s just too soon now. Everything seems like it turned out the worst possible way, and being reminded that this is the “plan” somehow suggests that I should just accept everything and look at the bright side. Nothing is for the best right now. She was a human, not an aging dog we had to euthanize, and even though she’s out of pain, we’re still here, picking up the pieces and feeling robbed of unconditional love and support. This is a relationship which can never be replaced, and being severed from it is not for the best, nor will it ever be.

Your mom wouldn’t want you to be sad. No, she wouldn’t. She probably would have also liked to live another 30 years as well, but that didn’t happen. Of course she wouldn’t want me to be sad, depressed, unmotivated and reclusive. And if she hadn’t have died I wouldn’t need to be. I know the sentiment behind this statement is one of carrying on and making the deceased proud, but grieving is a journey, not a competition. There is nothing brave or strong about it. It is necessary to be weak if we are to heal, and that includes being sad. It includes crying, sniveling, yearning, and burying our faces deep into our pillows and wishing to wake up from this eternal nightmare.

Have you heard about the five stages of grief? Cue eyeroll here. Yes, I’ve heard of them, they are as follows: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. As if the loss of a loved one could be neatly shoved into five labeled boxes and put on a shelf. Please! They are not stages as much as they are messy, gooey, sloshing entities colliding into one another. On any given day, you could be one of these, all of these, or none. It is not a list you get to place a check next to after you’ve completed it. These attributes, and many more, repeat themselves time and time again.

 

So what do you say? How do you deal with a person who has fallen into the dark pit of mourning? For one, understand that mourning is a process. There is no time limit, there are no stages, and things are not better when you wake up in the morning. Grieving people are not in their right minds. They are tired more often and they don’t feel like partaking in what would usually be pleasurable activities. They are flaky; they might make plans to see you, but as it gets closer they might realize they simply don’t have the energy to fulfill their obligation. Don’t take it personally. As for me, some of the most comforting things people have said to me were not statements which attempted to gloss over the hideous reality, but statements of subjective truth. “It is so unfair that your mom died.” That’s a bold statement, but it’s true. Death is colossally unfair, and that sentence acknowledges an unpopular tenet of life: sometimes we get shortchanged. We just do. Bad things happen to good people, day after day after day.

Other people have told me that if I am any reflection of who my mom was, then she must have been a great person. I feel a little conceited typing that, but you know what, stuff like that really makes me feel good. She was a great person. A flawed person, not always an agreeable person, but she was great woman, and grief is the price we pay for having loved another. It’s also helped to hear others’ experiences. A friend’s mom told me that losing her mom was the single most devastating event of her life. Her honesty was refreshing. It reminded me that I was not overreacting, that I was not being too sensitive. But because not everyone has suffered a loss, the most important aspect of dealing with a grieving person is to just be supportive. Just be there. Understand that the person is not themselves, and give them space if they need it, but also surround them with love and attention. If there’s one thing I have learned from all of this, it’s that I’m incredibly blessed to have the people in my life that I do.

 

Rant: Cell Phones

Listen y’all, I just gotta rant about cell phones.

When I was in college I had a flip phone that fit comfortably in my pocket with no Internet or Facebook or data plan or anything. It had–gasp–an actual keyboard and it got dropped on plenty of occasions without shattering to its death. I did not spend much time thinking about my cell phone. The coolest part about it was the colorful light that went off every time I got a call. Oh yeah, and I could set it to display someone’s photo if that person called me. Groundbreaking.

Last year I got a smartphone, and ever since then my life has been a lot more complicated. The smartphone needs a data plan. The smartphone needs an expensive cover. Now the smartphone needs more memory. Wait, the smartphone wants me to manually update 75 apps. Oh look, the smartphone needs braces.

There are advantages to owning this massive rectangle. I now have the privilege of scrolling through people’s boring Facebook status updates approximately 50% more than ever before. The navigation is pretty decent, and one time I locked myself out of my condo and I was able to Google nearby locksmiths. The HD video is perfect for capturing endearing footage of my cat being lazy and adorable.  Also, Words with Friends.

Today I went to the Verizon store to see if I could upgrade my perfectly functional phone for no good reason because, well, I’m sick of it. But mostly because I FREAKING HATE VIRTUAL KEYBOARDS. Do you know what I’m typing on now? A real keyboard. Where I can feel each individual letter. And I can type without looking. And I’m not consistently spelling things wrong. Such a simple and underrated luxury that is being eradicated from the world.

The unenthusiastic salesman proceeded to show me a bunch of unsightly PlaySkool-esque phones that would cost me nearly $200 had I upgraded and kept telling me  that I ” sure do like to ask a lot of questions.” Gee, what is it you do here again? Sell phones? See what I did there? Ha.

One of my insurmountable inquiries was about why my email wasn’t updating as frequently as it’s supposed to. “Because you have a Droid,” he so wisely said. Oh, I see! Thanks for clearing that up! Guess I’ll just head home now and put the Droid in a timeout so it can think about what it did wrong, teehee! Of course he said this as he stroked his precious iPhone, which was a steal at $199. I love my Mac and I love my iPod, but can you Siri fanboys get over yourselves? Yeesh.

Finally I grew weary of engaging in a staring contest with someone who clearly wished he was DJing in Los Angeles instead of telling me what a pile of crap my phone was, so I decided that this was a mountain to be climbed another day. I left, inadequate device in hand, and proceeded to shoot out a bunch of typo-laden text messages. I felt defeated. I just want a phone that doesn’t irritate me on a daily basis. Is that too much to ask?

Oh yeah, and why do they still insist on this rebate crap? Gee Verizon, thank you for allowing me to pay 25% more than I should and then mailing me $50 back in two months! Wowee, what a steal!

In all seriousness, I know there are much bigger challenges in life than having to deal with a virtual keyboard and a vacant salesperson. Believe me, I know. Nonetheless, I shall continue to lament the days when a phone was a phone, not another appliance to maintain.

 

Nothing to Offer

Although I wane in levels of self-confidence now and again, the last time I truly felt I had nothing to offer was back in middle school, when I was in the prime of my awkwardness and had no business worrying about boyfriends and relationships in the first place. Admitting that you have nothing to offer someone is simply terrible. Saying out loud that you have not one virtuous quality, not an once of empathy or understanding, not a bit of humor to lift you out of your perpetual slump, that’s some heavy stuff. But right now it’s true and don’t bother telling me otherwise.

For what it’s worth, I do not think I am a worthless person. That’s preposterous. Of course I have talents and strengths. I’m doing well in grad school, loathsome as it may be, and people think I’m funny, and the senior citizens like it when I teach them aerobics. Except I have nothing to give to anyone but grief and sorrow and despair, and I’m wondering how long the non-mourning populace will put up with my storm clouds and rainy days. I’m wondering how long I can put up with it. Must it continue? Haven’t I been in this dark place long enough? Haven’t I earned a reprieve?  No.

I don’t care about anyone else’s problems.

I’m not able to feel happy for other people.

I am jealous of everyone who has a mother.

On a daily basis, I feel like telling everyone to f**k off.

Most of the time I’d rather be alone.

There it is. That’s how I feel. I’m sorry if someone takes this personally, but let me assure you, it’s not you, it’s me. It’s all me. These are the ugly things that fester inside me and that I have to push down every day and pretend I’m happy when I’m not. I’m sure some have probably wondered why I can’t get over it, why must I whine all the time, why can’t I look on the bright side, why can’t I be thankful, why can’t I enjoy each day knowing she’s with me, why can’t I focus on other people besides myself, why can’t I look around and see how much worse other people have it? If only it were that easy. If only grief wrapped itself in a nice little present so everyone could deal with it better. I’m so tired of people saying to look at this way, and at least this and at least that, at least you got to do this, at least she got to see that, blah blah blah. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

 

I am a Sham

Everything I am, it’s all a lie.

Today started out like all the others. I reluctantly rolled out of bed, shoveled food down my throat, did some other crap, then got in the car and cried on my way to work. I usually cry on the way to and from work. Who knows why; there’s just something about being alone in the car that does it to me. I was at a red light at Huger and Blossom Street when it hit me, and as I tried my hardest to repress the tears I happened to look over at the driver next to me, who was wearing a black wifebeater and puffing on a cigarette with the window of his rusty Accord rolled down. I hated him.

I sniveled for a few minutes and pulled myself back together by the time I arrived at work. Then I was eager and cheery, teaching the senior citizens exercises for an hour and smiling the entire time. After class a few of them came up to me and thanked me for what I did, and it genuinely felt good to have someone appreciate me. But to say that I was happy, even for a second, would be an untruth.

Her death has ruined everything. It has spilled everywhere and the stains are permanent. There is no bright side, there is no positive, there is no cosmic truth to be learned. It is horrible, day in and day out. It is poisoning my life. Every fucking day is the same miserable repeat of the last. It is not better in the morning, and no matter how much time passes, I am convinced that it never will be.

My sister and I were her number one priority. We were the most beautiful and successful daughters to her, and even the minutiae of our lives were fodder for conversations. I took that for granted and now that is gone forever. Our father just isn’t the same. He loves us, absolutely. He is proud of us. He would do almost anything for us, except eat something that contained saturated fat. But the three hour phone sessions? Those were Mom’s territory.

I don’t feel as if I will ever be someone’s number one priority again. Friends and significant others care, but their loyalties always lie elsewhere. To family, to careers, to gadgets and hobbies. Who thinks I’m special? Unique? Who cares about what I ate today and what the weather is like in Columbia? Only Nina does. Or did. No one will think the sun shines out my ass like she did. Most of the people in my life right now only love me, or like me, conditionally, and therefore I’m not particularly fond of the idea of being close to anyone at the moment. I just want to be alone, locked inside my condo with my misery and thoughts; I just want to pick up the pieces without anyone getting in the way.

Since I can’t become a recluse I must let life carry me forward, but I am kicking and screaming the entire time. You know what’s so hard about three months? No one cares anymore. No one asks how you’re doing. It’s not their fault; that’s just how life works. Altruistic as we may be, we are ultimately most focused on our own struggles and accomplishments. I get that. But it doesn’t assuage the pervasive loneliness I drown in all the time. Ironically, I crave isolation. I fear it and welcome it simultaneously. So I go to school. And I excrete research papers, stumble through journal articles, try and make sense of statistics, push myself in Crossfit, play nice with my classmates. I even go out for a drink now and then. But if you see me smiling and it looks like I’m happy, chances are I’m faking it.

The days roll on. There is never enough time to accomplish everything and yet I don’t care about any of it, once I take a step back. She’s not here, therefore nothing matters. If I marry, if I stay single, if I procreate or not, if I change the world or stagnate in a dead-end job, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Ambivalence is hell. If you think there are positives to every situation, try having your mother die while you’re in the prime of your life and then get back to me.

My heart breaks over and over again, each and every day.

Faking It

After reading an interesting article in TIME called “The Power of Shyness” I am forced to admit that I have faked it pretty much my entire adult life.

Extroversion, that is.

The piece highlights the virtues of the underrated and unsung heroes of introversion; we’re living in a loud and proud society, one which rewards the perennially squeaky wheel. We’re told to network, to socialize, to build up our contacts and stay connected at all costs. We’re asked to share our ideas, to work in groups, to take risks, to jump off the high dive with our eyes closed. Our world does not favor introverts. It’s easy to forget about us.

As I child I played alone most of the time. My parents, introverts themselves, never pushed me to join sports or other activities that involved getting along with others. I dropped out of Girl Scouts after only a few months; it was too cliquish for me my mother. While I did participate in soccer one fall and even though I attended camp in the summer, I was usually much happier in my room, inventing stories about my stuffed animals and talking to myself. I loved to read and I would write constantly. I began my first diary when I was eight and it’s been going ever since. There are volumes of diaries still in my old room; my entire life can either be found in those pages or here on the Internet.

I was never popular. I never had many friends, only a few close ones. Birthday parties were for family only. My mom looked down on sleepovers, so there weren’t many of those, either. In middle school, I was scared to raise my hand in class lest I answer incorrectly and feel judged by all my peers. There’s a lot more I can say about middle school, basically because it was hell served luke-warm on a platter, but I’ll save my vitriol for another time.

When I got to high school I was sick of being an introvert, so I joined the drama club and participated in a few plays. I was average at best, and my fear of being on stage was positively correlated with the amount of sweat I produced just before it was my time to shine, but I proved to myself that I could recite lines in front of people and not die. I became more confident and less concerned with how others perceived me, and then I went to college in another state so I was forced to be social and all that jazz.

To some extent, I think I naturally grew out of a few of my introverted tendencies, but I also spent a lot of time pretending to be some devil-may-care, personable cheerleader when I wasn’t any of those things and I probably never will be. At parties I’d be flirtatious and social with the help of alcohol when all I really wanted to do was sit in the corner and watch people. I spent time with people I knew I had nothing in common with but decided it was better to have some friends, even if they weren’t very good ones, instead of sitting home on a Friday night. I joined an improv group, which I enjoyed so much, yet I could never shake the waves of nervousness that washed over me before each and every single show. I never felt comfortable on stage, but putting myself through that experience taught me to think on my feet and that other people sometimes found me funny. It was rewarding. So faking it wasn’t all bad; it was good to push myself, as it helped me realize that some situations I had previously been terrified of weren’t so bad after all.

So, I’m 24, I’m an introvert, and I’m okay with that label now. I’m no longer embarrassed  to raise my hand in class but I’m not a big fan of schmoozing in a crowded room. I’m much better at making conversation with strangers but every now and then I’ll sneak away to the bathroom just to be alone. I still don’t have many friends, but the ones I do have probably know everything about me, and I’d much rather spend a Friday night in my condo, cat on lap, authoring a blog entry than stumbling around in heels and acting like my hips don’t lie.

I will always admire those who light up a room. Those who don’t leave a place without making three new friends. Those who are fearless leaders. Those who challenge me to become bolder and to take more risks. Without extroverts, we introverts wouldn’t have anyone to watch while sitting in our corners.

Dreams, That’s Where I Need to Be

For awhile now, my dreams have been a place where I can see and hear my mom in real time. She lives in my memory during the day, but at night she stars in my dreams. There have been two instances so far where, after I awoke, I felt as thought I had actually been in her presence. She has been a fixture in countless dreams but only two have felt real.

In the first, she and I are walking around a track and I am telling her about all the new things I’ve purchased for the condo. She’s thin, very thin, just like she was at the very end. But she is listening intently. After a certain point she says she wants to try running around the track. It’s as though she wants to impress me; she wants to show me she can do it. But as soon as she starts, she falls to the ground, vomiting as she goes down. I rush next to her to help her, and the dream ends there.

When I woke up I had an unusual sense of comfort, of ease; similar to the feeling I’d get after having a hearty phone conversation with her or with someone else to whom I was close. There was no sadness or anxiety; I did not wish the dream had lasted longer and I did not receive that sharp, painful reminder of her absence when I was awake. I felt as though she had met me on that track, I felt as though her soul, wherever it was, somehow knew everything I wanted her to know.

In the second dream, I am walking towards my father and sister in a crowded group of people. When I reach them, I see my mom standing next to them in a bright red coat. No one else seems to notice her, but I am in shock because she is supposed to be dead. Sometimes I remember this fact in my dreams, other times I don’t. My eyes are wide and I’m asking her what she’s doing here. Her face looks young and beautiful; she has pink cheeks and bright blue eyes. She looks completely healthy. She hasn’t looked that way in years.

She takes my hands in hers and says, “I didn’t want to go, but when you told me I could go, I knew you were right. I knew I had to go.”

Then I reach for her, we embrace for a few seconds, and I wake up.

Tears are in my eyes, recalling the night I stood over her bed and told her she could go now if she wanted. I remember how hard it was to utter those words, and how frustrating it was to hold a conversation with someone who was incapable of answering. But they say hearing is the last to go, and if I have any faith that my dreams are more than just conjectures of my own subconscious, I am certain she heard me.

A woman from hospice called me the other day to check up on me and I told her about these dreams. She said that so many people wish they could see their loved one in that manner and that most are never able to. She said I should consider it a gift to be able to experience those dreams. And I do, I absolutely do.

So, more fodder for my theory that dreams are something greater than our own minds. I believe that people visit us in our dreams. It may sound silly but I’m almost sure of it. I know that if my mom had been able to answer me when I stood over her bed that evening, she would have said something similar to what she did in my dream.

Seems like I’m having a good week so far; the pain hasn’t been too bad and I landed a paid graduate assistantship today. I actually dreamed about the interview last night, and in that dream my mom was following me around while they asked me questions. You know, just in case I needed her for anything.

I will never stop yearning for her presence and no amount of vivid dreams could come close to filling that void. But I’m not choosy. If dreams are where she is, then dreams it shall be.