A sign

Last night, I finally had a dream about my mom. Finally. I have been waiting for so long, and it was very welcomed.

All last evening, I re-read my Facebook updates and blog posts, mostly to face my demons, so to speak. I wanted to look at the big picture, the entire picture that began with my Aunt Polly and led into my mom. While it was difficult to relive so many of these thoughts and memories and all the devastation that came with them, I now am more fully aware of what my family has gone through and also what I have gone through myself. Although I do not feel like clicking my heels or singing a song, I do feel happy with conquering some of my fears of facing her death head on and building a more solid foundation of reality that is now my life. I do not like that she is gone, but that is part of the reason why I am still as miserable as I am. She is gone. No one can change it or fix it, but I can at least move further down the road towards recovery. I thought the challenge of re-reading everything really helped.

Reading about her for hours upon hours is, I'm sure, what prompted my dream last night. My brain was filled with her. It missed her and it continued that image long into the night.

We were on vacation, my parents and Adrian and I. We were staying in a log cabin on the water with a huge wrap-around porch that turned into a dock. Dad was gone scuba diving, and I'm not sure where Adrian was but I knew he wasn't in the house. My mom and I were together and alone, just the two of us. She was wearing her long, white, lacy nightgown with her skinny little body underneath from chemo. She had no hair and still had her PICC line in her arm with a bandage around it. While she looked like this, I knew in my dream that she no longer had cancer. I'm not sure why we were there, if it was a celebratory get-away or a short vacation before her last chemo...I don't know. I like in dreams how you don't understand the dynamics or why exactly the events are happening, but you somehow know the emotions and feelings and reasons for all of them. She didn't have cancer, we were enjoying our new time together, and I was so amazingly happy to be with her I actually felt calm, for the first time in a long time. I also like how dreams can impose these emotions until you wake up. I still felt calm and happy and serene to be with her again.

This feeling, however, melted away as I realized I was laying in my bed, in my empty house, in my reality that no longer contains her. But it somehow wasn't as crushing, that realization that she's gone. The contentment I felt lingering from the dream lessened the blow, I think.

As I read through my blog posts, I realized how sad yet hopeful most of them sound. I remember worrying that she might die, that she might miss my wedding and other important events in my life. I wrote about that so many times and they were all filled with so many worries of loss and death, long before it ever occurred. I am sorry at how scared I was and how afraid I was for her life and for my heart, and I often focused on that rather than trying to stay positive. I think my realistic view can be mistaken as a negative view. Cancer kills people. Bone marrow transplants kill people. My mom had cancer. My mom was having a bone marrow transplant. I knew the reality, and I felt no other emotion but fear at the time.

It obviously was a valid concern, seeing as she is no longer in this world for that very reason.

Sometimes, I am afraid that all of my worrying and fretting and anger caused her to die. Almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know if you know what this is, but it is when you think about something happening long and hard enough that it actually does occur. I hope that I am not the reason that she is gone, that my "reality" (not "negativity") took her from me, and I wonder if the outcome would be any different if I would have been overwhelmingly positive about the whole thing. Sometimes I am afraid this is all my fault.

However, I understand that this type of thinking is what gets people into trouble, and oddly enough, I am more likely to attribute her death to my realistic, rather than positive, point of view rather than the fact that I was one of the people involved in the decision to pull her life support. If there is anything to feel guilty about, I suppose this is it. But I do not for one second feel guilty about this--not at all. Living with machines and medicine is not living--not at all.

I have been told that after a loved one's death, dreams are a way for them to let you know that they are ok. In fact, I have heard of accounts where the person in Heaven actually goes as far enough to say "I'm ok" in the dream. When I was discussing this with someone, I said, "I hope I have a dream like that!" All I have wondered since she passed away is if she is ok in Heaven, if she likes it, if she's with Aunt Polly, and if she has settled in and finally getting used to the idea that she is gone. I would imagine that this process is similar to the process on Earth and the one I am currently facing, attempting to understand and continue my new life without her.

Also, I think it is odd that my view of her, either just day-dreaming or actually dreaming of her, is bald and thin from chemo, rather than healthy and glowing with a full head of hair. To be completely honest, I liked my mom without hair just as much as I liked her with it! I guess I tend to picture her this way because it is what I saw of her for the last several very important months of my life. I thought she was simply precious and her little bald head was part of the reason my heart melted every time I looked at her. I hope this is not a bad thing that I picture her like this. I just adored her in every form she took. Bald or not, thin or not, healthy or not. I just adored her.

She didn't say anything like "I'm ok" in my dream. In fact, she didn't say anything to me that I particularly remember, except I do remember that we were talking. Mostly just about things in life, just as if she was back with me on the couch, talking and living together as if we never stopped. I think because I want this so badly, more than I want to know that she is ok, is why I had this type of dream rather than one where she is reassuring me. I am going to take this as a sign that while I want my mom back in my life and for it to continue on as it always had, this is no longer the case and I must now focus on the fact that she is in Heaven instead. No more wishful thinking. Just reality. She is gone. She is in Heaven. Is she ok? I would give anything to have a sign.

You know how I described the breast cancer rubber ducky that lights up in several of my previous posts? There have been so many times where I have looked at it and said to the sky, "Are you alright? Will you light up my duck so I know that you're alright?" This is embarrassing to admit, but I have done this on several occasions.

But it doesn't light up. She really liked her little duck and thought it was so cute, she kept it along the ledge of her bathtub while she was sick. I thought, since it lit up the morning of mom's transplant, which I am convinced was Aunt Polly, that she might try to do the same. I took it as a sign that Aunt Polly was watching over mom that day and that things were going to be just fine. And they were. That was one of the smoothest days we ever had in the hospital.

I hope that she understands that I need a sign, and I hope she sends one soon. I suppose I thought that since Aunt Polly knew how to send me (and my Aunt Becky) one through the light- up ducky that she would just show mom how to do it too. I just glanced over at it again--nothing. Oh well. I also just re-read this post and how ridiculous it sounds that I'm putting all of my thought and concern into a light-up rubber duck. I hope this doesn't make me crazy, and I hope something comes soon, whatever it is.