Dreams of My Mother....

I had another dream about my Mom this morning just before my alarm went off. I did what I always do when I'm having a dream and I don't want to wake up: I hit the snooze and tried to fall back asleep and pick up the dream where it left off.

May 19, 1995, She gave me away at my wedding.

In the dream, I was in the band room at 17's high school and I was chaperoning a band trip (as one does). The band director surprised me by telling me that my Mom was also going on the trip with us. I was so excited! I hadn't seen her in awhile and when I saw her in the room, wearing her black coat and looking very much alive I went to give her a hug and my alarm went off.

Stupid alarm clock. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not fall back to sleep and see how the dream ended. But I already know. She was alive and happy in the dream. She was looking forward to hearing hear granddaughter perform.

Sadly, she never did get to see either of my children perform in their respective ensembles. The closest she ever got was watching a video of them from the comfort of her apartment in Atlantic City. She didn't travel much, she gave up her drivers license several years back when she was diagnosed with Complex Partial Seizure Disorder. Taking the bus was too hard because in her later years she was on oxygen 24/7. One of my biggest regrets was not trying harder to convince her to come to WV to spend time with us and see her girls perform. But again, she was in her 70's and pretty much set in her ways, so really there was no 'convincing' her of anything.

This isn't the first dream I've had of my Mom since she died in November. There have been a few others but they aren't enough. My Mom is just out of reach, and I guess that's normal, but God it's hard. I used to call her every day from the car on my way here or there. I get in the car now and I feel like something is missing. It's hard to explain, but it's like a hole that I can't fill. An emptiness.

When I think back on her life, I don't want to remember the struggles to breathe, the time she spent in the nursing home. I want to remember her as she was when she was younger and the COPD hadn't ravaged her lungs and taken away her freedom. I want my girls to remember how vibrant and funny she was. There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting with my girls and reacting to something one of them says and hearing "Mom, that face you just made, that's TOTALLY a Mom-mom face". That makes me smile. I want them to see the "Mom-mom" in things. I want them to remember how life was with her, how she made people feel, how sarcastic she was, and I want them to emulate her.

She was my role model, our role model and I wish she'd come to me in my dreams every night.

Mom's always with me...

I've been seeing a lot of signs from my dearly departed Mother lately. All good, of course. I know she's letting me know that she's doing okay over there on the other side. She's also making her presence known to my Brother as well. He had a dream a few weeks ago where he was at her funeral (we didn't actually have a funeral with a casket, we had a funeral mass with her ashes). Anyhow, in his dream she was lying in a casket in a funeral parlor, and when he went to say goodbye, Mom opened her eyes and yelled "SURPRISE!!" then she was gone again.

Totally freaked him out but in a good way. That was my Mom's sense of humor.

3 generations of us.

I actually had a dream of her around that same time. She was sitting crossed legged on the floor in her apartment, no oxygen tube, healthy as a horse. She and I were having a conversation as we always did when, in the dream, I remembered that she had died. "OMG, I just realized Mom, we thought you died!" "What?" dream-Mom replied, "well I'm here to tell you, I'm just fine." And I have to believe she is.

Yesterday morning I was listening to my Patsy Cline station on Pandora while I was at my desk, and Brenda Lee's version of "I'm Sorry" came on. Oh my God, you guys, I literally started cracking up! Here's why:

My Mom was seeing an alcoholic assbag for years, beginning in the mid-70's until my freshman year of high school. I could write a book on those years but that's a story for another time. I'm writing now about a specific time that he did some boneheaded dumbass thing that pissed off Mom in a major way. The following day after the offending incident, Mom was at work at the Wildwood Water Department back in New Jersey and she was in her office with 3 other women, her boss, some customers and about a dozen water department employees in the back of the shop.

In walked a middle aged woman who asked if my Mom was Jane. "Yes, I'm Jane, how can I help you?" she replied. All of a sudden, this woman, in front of God and everyone in the office, began belting out "I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool."  But she didn't stop there. She sang the entire song from start to finish.

The alcoholic assbag hired a singing telegram to go to my Mom's office and apologize for him in grand, musical fashion. This woman really laid it on thick with the most dramatic rendition of "I'm Sorry", complete with hand to heart motions and almost tears. My Mom nearly died of embarrassment that day. She said she was mortified. She wanted nothing more than to crawl under her desk until everyone left the building. I believe she was angrier at him for embarrassing her in front of so many people than she was for the actual infraction that originally inspired her ire.

It's funny how you forget things, and then when something is triggered, those things hit you like a Mack truck. I hadn't thought about that memory in ages, probably because it's been so long since I've actually heard that song but man, when I heard it, it really brought that memory back like it was yesterday, and I thought of Mom and smiled so hard. Yeah, I know she's with me. She reminds me often, and for that, I'm so very thankful.