When I Was Dreaming

I don't dream often, or I don't remember them. A common theme in the dreams I do remember is frustration. Making out with someone while being constantly interrupted, or trying to run and feeling like I am stuck in slow motion. So, I'm ok with my dream amnesia. In fact, I'm wishing for it more and more these days.
A few weeks ago I had a dream that continued even after I woke up and went back to sleep. I know somewhere in my head this serves a purpose, but to my conscious mind it is torture. I dreamt that you all lied to me, every one of you. My mom showed up very much alive. I couldn't even spare a moment of relief as the wound of betrayal opened and my body filled with rage. It was like she wasn't even there, all I could feel was anger. I proceeded to kick and punch each of you in turn, but my punches were lame and weak. I'd wind up and swing with all my might only to feel my arm travel through air the consistency of jelly. I was completely unable to revenge this terrible pain you had all caused by lying to me. All of this and she was just there, watching, silent. When I finally woke up for good I was left feeling only disappointment. I was so mad at myself for not spending those precious dreaming moments hugging her. Even a few seconds spent dreaming up that embrace, that relief, would be heaven, but instead I was violent and impotent. It's left a lasting scar inside me. I go to sleep with apprehension, I dread waking to another impossible regret.
This morning I had a series of shitty dreams between presses of the snooze button. If mom shows up I am always inclined to try to fall back into the dream, even though the dreams are never pleasant. This was no different. This wasn't nearly as vivid as the previous nightmare, but it followed me through this day anyway. Traveling somewhere with sick mom. Facing impossible delays that threaten her comfort and health. Loud crackling noises keep her from sleeping while we are delayed in what I think was an airport control tower. Some sort of storm blows buildings over and eventually blows the tower over. I woke up shortly after picking my mom up while running Wile E. Coyote style down the walls as the tower crumbled. Only there was nothing in my arms when I looked back down.
See, shitty frustrating dreams. I'm never fast or strong enough to affect real changes to these dreamscapes. Hopeless even just in my own head.
In general though, I'm feeling closer to normal. It's easier to get out of bed and I enjoy getting out more even though I have to put on pants.

1

I wept a strange potpourri of emotions after you’d drifted off. There in that bed was the most profound and painful gift of my life. I felt so grateful for you and what you meant to me. 

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. ~ George Eliot

A year. 1/31st of my life already passed without you. 365 days of past tenses. A thousand heartbreaks, one for each time I had to refer to you as an abstraction… a used to be… a no longer… a forever gone…..

Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Watching someone die changes you. Everything about living becomes exaggerated, pronounced and strangely surreal. All of the functions that keep the human body moving, even ones that are automatic, become very obvious. I remember spending the evening after you died on my side wondering how I would ever get up again. How could I possibly just go on living? How were my lungs still filtering oxygen? How was my stomach still hungry? How was my brain still racing? All sensations were new and foreign. The feeling of my tongue on the roof on my mouth, the sheets against my skin, the heat of tears on my face… the livingness of my body and mind was all so new and intense.

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~ Winston Churchill

The truth is grief comes in massive waves … almost instantly ….without consideration or apology and between the agony of the inevitable return of active grief and moments of calm, I sometimes feel a panicked rush ... the horrific feeling that I need to race to do something else for you. Oh ... how my heart wants to.... I yearn to save you from being dead (or, rather, to save me from you being dead). My mind understands what happened and why. But my heart sometimes desperately searches for a way out … some other reality.

We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there. - Harold Kushner 

While navigating the never-ending labyrinth of pain and sorrow I often think about finding joy … and I want believe it is possible, even now. I want to believe that there are tender mercies all around us, every day. I try to wring every drop of joy out of the tiny places I manage to find it. For a lot of this year (and the year before it) I felt like I was hiding my grief behind a wall of fake strength, like I was wearing a fake face that projected the image of the person I used to be. I’ve tried to imagine myself wearing my grief out in public, spending time with friends in quiet contemplation, crying on the shoulders of my dear ones …but that’s simply not me. I know everyone around me would accept and occupy this place of sadness with me, but I’d honestly rather spend my time with them finding the next punch line, then next joy. I’m not hiding, or faking it …I’m choosing to be happy in the moment because I know, like everything else, it’s temporary and fleeting and I try to carry that knowledge into the dark hours when life is quiet and the heartbreak settles in. When my face is all scrunched up and my lungs wracked with sobs I do my best to remember that this bout of despondency is temporary too, and in a little while I will get up and find another distraction, another salvation, maybe even another tiny joy.

“I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size.”
~ Emily Dickinson

I had dinner with friends a few days after you died and I felt awkward and more isolated than I ever have before or since. No one else on earth lost you the way I just had. There is not a single soul who can wholly understand. I was and am a singularity in this world. I am completely alone and uniquely forlorn. Lots of people lost you. Lots of people lose their moms, but I am the only daughter who lost my only mom. I don’t mean to be all emo about it. I’m not saying my grief is bigger or more special than anyone else’s, but this particular sad belongs to only me. But…..

“Ah. I smiled. I'm not really here to keep you from freaking out. I'm here to be with you while you freak out, or grieve or laugh or suffer or sing. It is a ministry of presence. It is showing up with a loving heart.”― Kate Braestrup

I’ve had a lot of time for contemplation. I’ve thought a lot about the friends (and family) who didn’t show up to the grief party. Some surprised me, others not so much, but I’ve left my disappointment behind. If you are reading this and thinking to yourself that you should have shown up, feeling shitty for your absence… don’t. I understand. I know my pain is an uncomfortable reminder of your own vulnerability. I know my grief is an unpleasant preview of the grief you will all suffer someday or an unwanted reminder of some horror you have experienced. I know I have also been absent when I should have been present. I know how much it hurts to watch someone you love grapple with so much pain. I know it is maddening to not know what to say, to have NOTHING to say because there is nothing in this world to cure that hurt. On the other end there are the friends who showed up more than I could have asked for, friends who overcame their own discomfort and came to sit with me in hell. I’m pretty much only referring to Julia. She never really tried to find words; she just existed by my side as a reminder of the good that still existed. I know none of this has been easy or comfortable for her, but she’s been an example of grace and compassion anyway.

"Courage is being afraid and going on the journey anyhow". -- John Wayne

That’s the last year in a nutshell. Long stretches of depression punctuated by moments of unimaginable pain, but also littered with moments of laughter and gratitude. I hope the next 365 days of past tenses will be easier, with less punctuation and more litter. I hope to spend more time smiling at remembered joys and less time pressed into my mattress by the weight of watching you die. I want so badly to think of you without crying, without seeing your wasted face. I want to remember something good without lamenting the loss of it. I want to burn the image of your smile and your light over the image of your death.


What Sara Said – DeathCabForCutie

And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say good-bye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the T.V. entertained itself

Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes 'round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who's gonna watch you die?