May 12, 2019
Dear Darkened Rose,
Happy Mother’s Day, you beautiful woman!
I am here writing to you when I probably shouldn’t be. I most certainly should be focusing my attention on schoolwork until Wednesday, but I have just really felt that I needed to open this window today. So let’s chat.
A while back, my brain finally ended it’s dreadfully long hiatus of not having a dream about you. It was the simplest dream, but I picked apart every detail so as to save it.
With that, I wrote down what I could remember—
I was walking through the garage-to-kitchen door of an unfamiliar, warm, quaint home. I knew I was walking into a party that was celebrating me for some reason (that was not really clarified, and only now feels reasonably unrealistic). I was walking in and preparing my oh-so-humbled face. A few females greeted me at the door (Janie being the most memorable), and pushed you forward—presenting you like a gift to me. As if “hey, look, we found her!!”
[I know I have heard this before, so I think it is a characteristic of grief-related dreams, but it always seems to be that every dream you are in, you have been off in the world hiding somewhere (maybe in another dimension). You are always returning to me, and we usually have to spend a brief period of time discussing where the hell you’ve been for so long]
In this dream, I was able to step back and notice that I was dreaming. So we didn’t have the conversation about where you have been. I just recognized that I needed to be grateful, immediately, and to soak up EVERYTHING I possibly could. When that hit me, I felt the hard wave of emotions (try to imagine a lingering feeling of that inability to really do anything with the onset of the moment you start to hardcore cry—your body just kind of tenses up and tears fall—I was stuck there). AND YOU GRABBED ME!! You held me. You comforted me.
I GOT TO HUG YOU TIGHTLY!!!
You were oddly short, for some reason.
I was able to move my arms up above your shoulders and I seemed to be absent of a left collar bone as I cuddled and coddled your head deep into my chest close to my heart, and I can only compare it to how I seem to hug Mawmaw. With her (and you in my dream) being just the right height to fit into that exact spot without leaning too heavily forward and down.
You whispered the only thing that I now recognize that I really, really needed to hear in the very, very small amount of conversation I was granted in this dream— “It’s ok. I’m right here, Oie, I’m right here…I always have been and I always will be.”
So, like I said, I was stuck, and just kind of paralyzed in that hug.
That’s all that I remember.
That was my dream.
So with the song today (yes, I’m lame enough to use a P!nk song), I keep randomly recalling and focusing on it’s chorus. “Just beam me up, [if given] a minute, I don’t know what I’d say in it. I’d probably just stare, happy just to be there, holding your face.”
I think I discovered that song pretty soon before having had the dream, so maybe that’s what sparked the inspiration for how that moment played out. But since the dream, I keep asking myself:
What would I do if I had another moment with you?
And, certainly, we’d have to start by finding an operational definition of “moment.” But I think that dream gave a fleeting glimpse of what I would do. I would just go silent, paralyzed, and soak in the comfort. I would recognize that nothing really had to be said, especially as I have tried to fill in the blanks here with these letters.
On that note, I want to lightly (and hopefully gracefully) address some critical critique of this blog that I received over time. I have heard:
- “I just really don’t feel like that is the way your voice would be with your mom.”
- Fair assessment. You and I were crude, occasionally ruthless, and really didn’t need to discuss the small details of things in day-to-day conversations. BUT I recently found old cards that you had kept in your belonging (that we now have at Janie’s) where I wrote long notes to you. As embarrassing as those were, I recognize that I have always written to you in this tone.
- Using unwarranted-ly, complex words (that are, admittedly, usually beyond my full comprehension, but used in order to start building them into my vocabulary).
- Occasionally poetic, so as to express a part of me that will always be needing to feel a bit idiosyncratically allusive to some degree (I’m just going to drop the link to my occasionally visited poetry platform here, shamelessly).
- Talking excessively about things that interest me, because I knew that somehow they interested you (maybe solely because they interested me). As Brad reminded me last weekend, you really had a way of doing that—being interested in what your kids were/are interested in. You invested that pride in us, and I see now just how important that was for me and my confidence as a child (that was often solidly lacking).
- Fair assessment. You and I were crude, occasionally ruthless, and really didn’t need to discuss the small details of things in day-to-day conversations. BUT I recently found old cards that you had kept in your belonging (that we now have at Janie’s) where I wrote long notes to you. As embarrassing as those were, I recognize that I have always written to you in this tone.
- “You curse too much on the internet.”
- Indeed.
- “What’s the ultimate motive, catharsis?”
- NOTTTHHHIIIINGGGG. I don’t know. But if I walk out of the room after having finished my final letter to you one day, and can solidly recognize that I’ve made some pretty awesome strides towards bettering myself over the years with this—I bet that will feel absolutely fantastic! This has really helped me learn to grieve in a reliable way, and I can reflect on just how much I am moving forward.
I need to really get back to studying for what I have left of this semester. I promise to be back very, very soon. I have a lot I want to catch up with you on.
I also need to get ready to go celebrate our Seesa on this fine Mother’s Day!
The weather is taking a break from being a total pain in the [neck], and it’s beautiful today in Austin!!! I don’t think it’s right to not being grateful for that, and I plan on spending a small, small chunk of time soaking that in.
For the first time, in almost 10 years, I’m NOT bitter today. I haven’t even been a little bit bitter today. Nope, not an ounce, nothing! No bitterness!!!!
I LOVE YOU!!!! I mish you!
-Oie
Enclosed is a P!nk song (for better or worse).
The Song: Beam Me Up by P!nk
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