Dreams vs. reality
It's hard to discern. The dreams I have now, also called chemo dreams are so vivid that I confuse them with reality, even though there are always elements of the fantastical in them.
I often dream of people who have passed who come back to speak to me. Sometimes they convey messages. Sometimes not. I jump through time in my dreams, going from childhood to the future to back to the present, sometimes in one dream. Yet, they are so vivid that I often remember them for days and have this strong feeling in my heart that....I am meant to remember them. Checking in with my cancer support group, I find that this is commonplace. Some take the dreams seriously. Some do not. I fall in the middle.
Last night, I dreamed that I was in the home that I grew up in as a child. It was chasing me. I have no idea who it is, only that it wants to hurt me and I am trying to elude it. I was upstairs in the big bedroom and knew that I had to make it to the middle bedroom to find my mother. I somehow did this and found her sleeping in a heap of blankets on the floor next to the bed. I asked her why she wasn't sleeping in the bed. She said, "Your Dad just died and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to sleep in that bed. T will understand after you die."
I was somehow laying head to toe with her and I grabbed her foot and held it against my heart. I was blathering on about how It almost got me, how I hated it when it got so close. Her foot and leg smelled like her, like Jergens lotion and some talc from Avon. I held on tightly. I noticed that she was holding my baby sister in her arms. I felt my older sister, C, crawl in with us. We all huddled under the blanket together.
The dream shifted. I was floating somewhere and I felt incredibly at peace. I heard someone who carried my blood calling to me. I could hear her voice so clearly. She was crying. I touched down next to a young woman who was sitting in a rocking chair weeping. She was whispering, "To any of my ancestors who fought this horrible disease, please come to help me. Please help me find courage."
I was an ancestor. I knew this woman. She was my great great great niece. And she had breast cancer. I touched her shoulder, stroked her hair. We looked out of a large picture window and saw redwood trees. At first, I thought that we were in California and then I remembered that there was no California. That this was like a large moving picture. Soon, the photo changed to a green forest, then a living ocean, then a bumble bee perched on a daisy. I knew that these things no longer existed, that they were gone now. I felt a pang of regret and waited for the I told you so feeling to come, the feeling that some of us had tried so hard to prevent this but it had all happened anyway. No one had listened to our warnings.
The feeling never came. I was above that feeling now. So, I simply sat close and put love from me into her. I could tell that she felt it and it pleased me. I felt sadness that this disease was still attacking my family. I tried hard to bring peace. I looked into her body and saw the cancer. It looked like a slim dark marble. One, two, three of them.
I woke up abruptly and it took me a second to realize that I had been dreaming. That California and bees were still here on earth. I wondered who the woman in my dream belonged to. But, did it matter? And seriously? If I were to tell her great great grandmother, would my words even hold salt? I didn't think so.
I got up and walked slowly to the bathroom to get a drink. I thought about Trump's budget cut of 12% to cut breast cancer research and wondered if that would have even mattered. Maybe. But, not enough to change anyone's vote.
And what could I say? Hey, I had this chemo dream. It was so real.
Even I don't know what to make of these dreams. I went back to bed and thought of holding my mother's foot in my arms, cradling it next to me for protection.
It had felt so real.
I often dream of people who have passed who come back to speak to me. Sometimes they convey messages. Sometimes not. I jump through time in my dreams, going from childhood to the future to back to the present, sometimes in one dream. Yet, they are so vivid that I often remember them for days and have this strong feeling in my heart that....I am meant to remember them. Checking in with my cancer support group, I find that this is commonplace. Some take the dreams seriously. Some do not. I fall in the middle.
Last night, I dreamed that I was in the home that I grew up in as a child. It was chasing me. I have no idea who it is, only that it wants to hurt me and I am trying to elude it. I was upstairs in the big bedroom and knew that I had to make it to the middle bedroom to find my mother. I somehow did this and found her sleeping in a heap of blankets on the floor next to the bed. I asked her why she wasn't sleeping in the bed. She said, "Your Dad just died and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to sleep in that bed. T will understand after you die."
I was somehow laying head to toe with her and I grabbed her foot and held it against my heart. I was blathering on about how It almost got me, how I hated it when it got so close. Her foot and leg smelled like her, like Jergens lotion and some talc from Avon. I held on tightly. I noticed that she was holding my baby sister in her arms. I felt my older sister, C, crawl in with us. We all huddled under the blanket together.
The dream shifted. I was floating somewhere and I felt incredibly at peace. I heard someone who carried my blood calling to me. I could hear her voice so clearly. She was crying. I touched down next to a young woman who was sitting in a rocking chair weeping. She was whispering, "To any of my ancestors who fought this horrible disease, please come to help me. Please help me find courage."
I was an ancestor. I knew this woman. She was my great great great niece. And she had breast cancer. I touched her shoulder, stroked her hair. We looked out of a large picture window and saw redwood trees. At first, I thought that we were in California and then I remembered that there was no California. That this was like a large moving picture. Soon, the photo changed to a green forest, then a living ocean, then a bumble bee perched on a daisy. I knew that these things no longer existed, that they were gone now. I felt a pang of regret and waited for the I told you so feeling to come, the feeling that some of us had tried so hard to prevent this but it had all happened anyway. No one had listened to our warnings.
The feeling never came. I was above that feeling now. So, I simply sat close and put love from me into her. I could tell that she felt it and it pleased me. I felt sadness that this disease was still attacking my family. I tried hard to bring peace. I looked into her body and saw the cancer. It looked like a slim dark marble. One, two, three of them.
I woke up abruptly and it took me a second to realize that I had been dreaming. That California and bees were still here on earth. I wondered who the woman in my dream belonged to. But, did it matter? And seriously? If I were to tell her great great grandmother, would my words even hold salt? I didn't think so.
I got up and walked slowly to the bathroom to get a drink. I thought about Trump's budget cut of 12% to cut breast cancer research and wondered if that would have even mattered. Maybe. But, not enough to change anyone's vote.
And what could I say? Hey, I had this chemo dream. It was so real.
Even I don't know what to make of these dreams. I went back to bed and thought of holding my mother's foot in my arms, cradling it next to me for protection.
It had felt so real.
I think that's the most tender thing I've ever read about your mother.
ReplyDelete