So, weird things pop into my head when I’m cooking dinner and I can hear the joyous sounds of children proudly showing off their spore creatures to Daddy in the living room. Strange things like, “What is Death like?”
OK, it didn’t start off quite that dark. It was more of a gradual progression toward that topic. I was listening to my children and thinking about how wonderful were the days they were born. How we had prepared. How we were all gathered there, together, awaiting their arrival. Expecting, knowing they were on the way…. excited and loving and happy. They were both extraordinary days.
When my thoughts just kind of rambled off course, “I hope dying is like being born.”
You know, somewhere someone getting ready for you.. knowing you’re on the way. Preparing. Expecting. Gathering together to welcome you into your new place with love.
Maybe you know that I am an Anything Is Possibilist. I like to take a moment to let things like that sink in and settle as an absolute truth.. at least for a little while. So, my mind continued along this path… on to comparing this world to a womb… a bubble, with babies in it and us.. stuck in our amniotic sacs, you know.. bodies. Wandering around on earth in the dark so to speak, not fully developed and just waiting to be born.
I wondered if late-term babies dream and what their dreams would be like…..
The very next day, I laid down to take a nap. I had a dream that I was visiting my mom, who is deceased. In my dream, I knew she was dead. It’s funny, now that she’s dead, I always know she’s dead when she’s in my dreams. I never dream her alive. Anyway, I was visiting her where she lived. It was a huge, massive mansion. I never saw the outside. We were inside. It kind of resembles a hotel, actually. You know, lots of long hallways filled with doors. The lighting is very soft. The dream was very detailed. I must hesitate before I say it was not real, that’s how vivid and detailed it was. We were in this massive mansion, she mentioned it was her friend’s mansion, though she didn’t mention which friend. Walking down the hall, we chatted a bit. But, mostly it was difficult for me to say much because here I am visiting someone who I know is dead… and it’s my mom. Makes for a very choked up event, I could feel the aching pain in my throat.. I remember, thinking in my mind that, “it doesn’t matter if we talk much, I just want to be with her for a while.”
We walked down hallways until we came to a childcare center. In someone’s house. A real full-fledged day care… with about 7 or 8 children, their artwork and things hanging on the door. Names written in red ink on yellow stars, even. The little half-door that the teacher can open the top, but leave the bottom part closed. This was my deja-vu… strange to have deja-vu in a dream. But, I did have it.. when I saw the daycare. Like a flood, the mansion.. the hallways.. the daycare.. I’d been here before with my mom, and the women.. Two female women were there and my mom communicated with them… non verbally, more like telepathy, though they still responded with body language and gestures. I understood they were communicating, but had trouble understanding what was going on. I still don’t know why my mom was speaking to daycare workers. Later, after I woke up, I decided she must be a daycare worker - or has a child in the daycare.. though, that doesn’t sound like my mom, to have a child in daycare.
We walked out of the building, but I never saw it. I never looked back to see it. We walked forward, and we were in a store. I remember thinking that it was a strange time of the year for the store to have it’s Christmas displays out. But, I remember this very large wooden reindeer decoration that looked very nice and it caught my eye because it didn’t look like cheap shit. I noticed that all of the decorations looked of high quality and decided that maybe it was a Christmas in the Summer sale, or something.
We kept walking and I thought, “I could pick up a few things while I’m here.. ” Mostly groceries that I knew we needed in the non-dream world. But, my thought was interrupted by my mom who wanted to pick out something for “the boys,” my sons. She looked around for a minute and picked out a winter outfit.. long sleeves, long pants. I thought it was strange for her to be picking out something wintery when it is summer, but I thought, maybe it’s on clearance. She only chose one outfit. One outfit, two boys. It made me think that she must know the boys are right about the same size and clothes for them is interchangeable. I looked at the outfit and realized that it was much too small for the boys. I asked her to let me see it and the size was much too small for them. But, I didn’t say anything.
Later, we were sitting and chatting, when my mom began to act like I had announced I was leaving…. hugs, goodbye.. But, I was confused. I had no such intention. I started to ask her why she thought I was leaving when I woke up. I felt like I’d been awake the whole time, but also like I’d been sleeping forever…. longer than forever. Time is such a weird thing, I’d only been sleeping for a little over an hour.
June 9th, 2009 | Tags: death, dreams, mom | Category: Life at WCR | Leave a comment