I had a dream last night that my mom had an enormous house "down south." It was full of nicknacks and her bedroom had dark blue damask velvet wall paper. In the dream she was old and had a southern accent and was unhappy as she is in most of the dreams I have of her. My high school boyfriend was sleeping over in my trundle bed which was covered in dust. I could not find the vacuum. Ah, dreams.
After my mom died I started to dream about her. Often. They were not the dreams I hoped for, where your dear departed love one embraces you and tells you they are happy and well and that they will see you again some day. In every dream I had, she was angry with me or indifferent. I would see her and run up to her and throw my arms around her, crying. She would push me away with a look of disgust.
I have dreamt of her in different houses in different far off places. She is never happy. Neither am I.
I dream that I realize she is alive and that we haven't spoken in so long and desperately try to find a phone and cannot. Struggle to make my way home and never get there. Or I get there and she won't see me or has nothing to say, no smile to offer.
Or I dream she is alive and feel so relieved, only to wake up to be reminded again that she is dead.
These dreams are like bonus torture. In 16 years I have really only had a handful of dreams with her in them that were not horrible, stressful or sad. None of them have been blissful or comforting.
The three days after my mom died were just what we all needed. To huddle close to each other and forget about everything else. When these days were over, everyone went back to their lives, except for me. I had a new life to begin, one I didn't really want.
My mother kept a journal for me my senior year in high school. She recognized it as being the end of our way of life together and felt like she wanted to record it and give it to me as a gift. It is a great gift that I still cherish and the one thing I worry about if ever my house burned down. (Besides the people and the dog.) In that journal, which is typed and includes photographs taped to pages that she set in a binder, she writes about a story she read. A woman comes across a butterfly beginning to break free from it's cocoon. She sees it is struggling so much and decides she will help it by going inside and getting a pair of small scissors to cut open the casing so the butterfly can escape with ease. She does this, and when the butterfly emerges, it cannot fly because it has not built the muscle strength it needs by breaking out of it's cocoon. My mother spoke about how watching me grow up and struggle, she felt like she was watching a butterfly emerge from it's cocoon and how badly she wanted to take away that struggle but knew it was important for me to grow and become strong on my own. She also added that she thought the butterfly must feel like it is dying.
I felt like I was dying when my mom died. I felt like I wanted to go with her. I did not want to do this without her, this life.
That sounds sort of melodramatic but that is what I felt. I have often thought too, since she died, I am grateful it was not me who died and left her behind. If I had to choose, I would have chosen to spare her the grief. As hard as it is for me to have lost her, I cannot imagine what it would have been like for her to have lost me instead. Especially now that I am a mom. And now that I am a mom, I cannot imagine having to leave my child either. If something were to happen to me. The thought of missing anything terrifies me. Of having to leave Desmond. It has given me a broader picture of what she may have felt, having to leave. Knowing she was going. How badly she wanted to be a Grandmother.
After she died everyone went back to their lives. The house was very quiet. I was alone for the first time in a while. I did not go back to school. It was the last semester of my senior year in college and I had not gone back after winter break so that I could be home with my mom. I went back the following fall and finished.
I started to clean closets. I pulled everything out of the linen closet and cleaned it. My mom's closets. I immediately turned her bedroom into my own. I went through her things. I kept a few things and donated her clothes to charity. I have memories of looking at her clothes in her closet. Going through her drawers. Offering my sister jewelry and then not letting her have the earrings she picked out because they were earrings my mom wore all the time and I couldn't let them go. Feeling ashamed. Greedy.
What did I do with her heads up coins? What did I do with her feathers?
Brad moved in with me. I worked hard to turn my mother's house into our house. I wanted to erase the sickness and the events that had happened. I wanted it to be a happy home for us. All of a sudden we were like a married couple with a house in the suburbs, two dogs, and a car. He commuted to the city on the train. It could not last. It didn't. Eventually he moved out.
My mother had someone who came to clean her house every week. She had become a trusted friend. At some point she had not been able to continue and sent a cousin or someone to take her place. She would come, not clean and take the money. I had to fire her. Brad and I cleaned the house.
I remember one day, I think it was after my mom died, but it could have been while she was sick. The house was not full. Mary Francis was there and my friend Vanessa was there. Maybe Mary was staying in the basement on the pull out couch. I was in the basement with Mary and Vanessa was upstairs. I was sitting on the couch with Mary, the bed was pulled out. I was bawling. Bawl-ing. I had never cried like that in front of anyone. Mary was so lovely, rubbing my back, just being with me. She was such a good friend.
I would have horrible crying bouts. I was so afraid I would start to cry and not be able to stop. But each time I would cry until it stopped. It would be like someone turned off the faucet, it would just stop. Because eventually, you have to move on. You have to eat, or pee, or pay the bills, or walk the dog. Life goes on.
I could not believe the first Christmas that came and went after my mom died. I did not "do" Christmas that year. The audacity that it went on without me anyway. The rest of the world still had Christmas. The nerve.
My mom's friends were all good to me. They kept in touch. They invited me over for holidays, I never felt forgotten. But Howie stepped up to the plate and stood center stage to help me with every detail, every question, every need. He went above and beyond. I can never repay him. I could never find the words to tell him how he has saved me. He saved me. He became my fairy god father. He became my good, close friend and guide into adulthood. He had always been my mom's best friend's husband. This tall, smiling, friendly guy. A father to his daughters, Lori and Nicki, who Johanna and I grew up playing with. I always liked him, but I didn't know him well. The way you don't know adults very well when you are young. Like a nice uncle you see at holidays and birthdays. And then there he was, just loving me like I was his own kid. And that was that. I sort of became the third daughter to Maureen and Howie in a lot of ways.
To this day, I have a key to their house and go to Long Island to visit often, letting myself in when I get there. Their whole family has welcomed me and become like an extension of my own family. Maureen has become such a close friend to me over the years as well. I wrote to her once in a mother's day card that like a home away from home, she is a mom away from mom. She is as close as I'll get in this life time to having a mom again, I know. I cannot express how blessed I feel to have them in my life, Maureen and Howie. How grateful I am that Maureen and my mom met when they were little and connected. "Forever friends" is what the called themselves, because they had been friends forever. Out of that first friendship, so many others formed and now a third generation of friends are growing up together as Lori and Nicki's children play with Desmond. How amazing is that. I think their forever friendship may actually go on forever, even after they are both gone, together again somewhere else perhaps, laughing and dancing together, watching over the generations of love and friendship that they sparked, when they were seven, in Valley Stream.
After my mom died I started to dream about her. Often. They were not the dreams I hoped for, where your dear departed love one embraces you and tells you they are happy and well and that they will see you again some day. In every dream I had, she was angry with me or indifferent. I would see her and run up to her and throw my arms around her, crying. She would push me away with a look of disgust.
I have dreamt of her in different houses in different far off places. She is never happy. Neither am I.
I dream that I realize she is alive and that we haven't spoken in so long and desperately try to find a phone and cannot. Struggle to make my way home and never get there. Or I get there and she won't see me or has nothing to say, no smile to offer.
Or I dream she is alive and feel so relieved, only to wake up to be reminded again that she is dead.
These dreams are like bonus torture. In 16 years I have really only had a handful of dreams with her in them that were not horrible, stressful or sad. None of them have been blissful or comforting.
The three days after my mom died were just what we all needed. To huddle close to each other and forget about everything else. When these days were over, everyone went back to their lives, except for me. I had a new life to begin, one I didn't really want.
My mother kept a journal for me my senior year in high school. She recognized it as being the end of our way of life together and felt like she wanted to record it and give it to me as a gift. It is a great gift that I still cherish and the one thing I worry about if ever my house burned down. (Besides the people and the dog.) In that journal, which is typed and includes photographs taped to pages that she set in a binder, she writes about a story she read. A woman comes across a butterfly beginning to break free from it's cocoon. She sees it is struggling so much and decides she will help it by going inside and getting a pair of small scissors to cut open the casing so the butterfly can escape with ease. She does this, and when the butterfly emerges, it cannot fly because it has not built the muscle strength it needs by breaking out of it's cocoon. My mother spoke about how watching me grow up and struggle, she felt like she was watching a butterfly emerge from it's cocoon and how badly she wanted to take away that struggle but knew it was important for me to grow and become strong on my own. She also added that she thought the butterfly must feel like it is dying.
I felt like I was dying when my mom died. I felt like I wanted to go with her. I did not want to do this without her, this life.
That sounds sort of melodramatic but that is what I felt. I have often thought too, since she died, I am grateful it was not me who died and left her behind. If I had to choose, I would have chosen to spare her the grief. As hard as it is for me to have lost her, I cannot imagine what it would have been like for her to have lost me instead. Especially now that I am a mom. And now that I am a mom, I cannot imagine having to leave my child either. If something were to happen to me. The thought of missing anything terrifies me. Of having to leave Desmond. It has given me a broader picture of what she may have felt, having to leave. Knowing she was going. How badly she wanted to be a Grandmother.
After she died everyone went back to their lives. The house was very quiet. I was alone for the first time in a while. I did not go back to school. It was the last semester of my senior year in college and I had not gone back after winter break so that I could be home with my mom. I went back the following fall and finished.
I started to clean closets. I pulled everything out of the linen closet and cleaned it. My mom's closets. I immediately turned her bedroom into my own. I went through her things. I kept a few things and donated her clothes to charity. I have memories of looking at her clothes in her closet. Going through her drawers. Offering my sister jewelry and then not letting her have the earrings she picked out because they were earrings my mom wore all the time and I couldn't let them go. Feeling ashamed. Greedy.
What did I do with her heads up coins? What did I do with her feathers?
Brad moved in with me. I worked hard to turn my mother's house into our house. I wanted to erase the sickness and the events that had happened. I wanted it to be a happy home for us. All of a sudden we were like a married couple with a house in the suburbs, two dogs, and a car. He commuted to the city on the train. It could not last. It didn't. Eventually he moved out.
My mother had someone who came to clean her house every week. She had become a trusted friend. At some point she had not been able to continue and sent a cousin or someone to take her place. She would come, not clean and take the money. I had to fire her. Brad and I cleaned the house.
I remember one day, I think it was after my mom died, but it could have been while she was sick. The house was not full. Mary Francis was there and my friend Vanessa was there. Maybe Mary was staying in the basement on the pull out couch. I was in the basement with Mary and Vanessa was upstairs. I was sitting on the couch with Mary, the bed was pulled out. I was bawling. Bawl-ing. I had never cried like that in front of anyone. Mary was so lovely, rubbing my back, just being with me. She was such a good friend.
I would have horrible crying bouts. I was so afraid I would start to cry and not be able to stop. But each time I would cry until it stopped. It would be like someone turned off the faucet, it would just stop. Because eventually, you have to move on. You have to eat, or pee, or pay the bills, or walk the dog. Life goes on.
I could not believe the first Christmas that came and went after my mom died. I did not "do" Christmas that year. The audacity that it went on without me anyway. The rest of the world still had Christmas. The nerve.
My mom's friends were all good to me. They kept in touch. They invited me over for holidays, I never felt forgotten. But Howie stepped up to the plate and stood center stage to help me with every detail, every question, every need. He went above and beyond. I can never repay him. I could never find the words to tell him how he has saved me. He saved me. He became my fairy god father. He became my good, close friend and guide into adulthood. He had always been my mom's best friend's husband. This tall, smiling, friendly guy. A father to his daughters, Lori and Nicki, who Johanna and I grew up playing with. I always liked him, but I didn't know him well. The way you don't know adults very well when you are young. Like a nice uncle you see at holidays and birthdays. And then there he was, just loving me like I was his own kid. And that was that. I sort of became the third daughter to Maureen and Howie in a lot of ways.
To this day, I have a key to their house and go to Long Island to visit often, letting myself in when I get there. Their whole family has welcomed me and become like an extension of my own family. Maureen has become such a close friend to me over the years as well. I wrote to her once in a mother's day card that like a home away from home, she is a mom away from mom. She is as close as I'll get in this life time to having a mom again, I know. I cannot express how blessed I feel to have them in my life, Maureen and Howie. How grateful I am that Maureen and my mom met when they were little and connected. "Forever friends" is what the called themselves, because they had been friends forever. Out of that first friendship, so many others formed and now a third generation of friends are growing up together as Lori and Nicki's children play with Desmond. How amazing is that. I think their forever friendship may actually go on forever, even after they are both gone, together again somewhere else perhaps, laughing and dancing together, watching over the generations of love and friendship that they sparked, when they were seven, in Valley Stream.
Beautiful, Sarah. <3
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