I dreamed of my mother two nights ago. The following day I held on to the memory of seeing her like a lover remembers the sensations and sounds the hours and days following a night of love-making. I found myself sitting in stillness and quiet each time my remembrance of her stirred, as if any movement or sound would push it away. I had a dreamy and nonproductive morning, alternating between gentle tears and violent sobs.
In my dream I was attending a Tupperware party that my sister-in-law, Christina, was throwing. She was hosting it at the book store at the Ava Maria Grotto. I entered the party, spoke to my older sister, Joy, and then made my way to the second room of the book store. In reality the second room is filled with racks of book marks, statues, religious collectibles and shelves of literature. Those items were there in my dream but in the middle of the room was a table of clearance items that looked amazingly like the clearance section at the Kmart on Greensprings Highway where I recently purchased fall tablecloths at 90% off. The stack of storage bowls and cooking utensils was tall and I sorted them by size and pattern as if I were an employee. Incidentally I was a Kmart employee in the mid 1980's but I was never an employee at the Grotto book store nor a Tupperware rep.
While organizing the wares, several items fell to the floor. I was struggling to get behind the table in the crowded space when someone started to help me pick them up. She offered them to me and as I took them and intended to express gratitude, I looked into her face. It was Mother! She was smiling from ear to ear and had the pleased look of a successfully delivered surprise. We embraced. I smelled her Chantilly Lace perfume. I felt her touch. Her hug was familiar and warm. I leaned back from our embrace to look into her face and then sank again into her arms. She whispered, "Hey, baby. I'm here."
I looked over her shoulder and saw my sister, Joy, seated in the first room near the door where the tour of the Grotto ends and visitors return into the gift shop near the restrooms. She was smiling too, and her smile looked just like Mother's. She communicated with me and I with her without spoken words.
"Did you know she was here? I asked Joy.
"Yes, I did. We wanted to surprise you," she replied.
"Well, you certainly did that! She looks so modern. She's healthy and strong! She has naturally dark, thick and beautiful hair! Look at her skin. She looks younger than I do! She hasn't aged. She is so beautiful!"
"I know. I know." Joy responded, in agreement and in the way an older sister is a step ahead of the younger in life and experience.
I absorbed Mother's scent, her touch and especially her voice. As I enjoyed her presence I consciously renewed and sharpened my stored memories of her. Then I woke. I sat up in bed and said to Brian, "I dreamed of Mother." But that statement wasn't strong enough; it didn't convey the absolute filling of togetherness that I had experienced in the dream. Words failed me or I failed them.
I dreamed of Mother.
Mother came to see me.
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Mother, Joy, Joan 1984
At Stella Uptain's kitchen table |
