Ghosts

I’ve been dreaming about my mother lately, or sometimes about being in her old apartment. In the most dramatic dream I was sitting on her old couch (the one which my grandfather died on) when my mother walked into her living room. I jumped up to greet her, but she evaporated under the white robe she was wearing, sort of like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. In the dream I thought, “At least I still have her couch,” though in waking life I do not. As longtime readers will remember, my mother died just over two years ago. Her couch was one of her many possessions that I gave away because I didn’t have room to keep it, and it wasn’t valuable to anyone but her.

When my mother was dying, I wrote about her regularly on this blog, but since her passing, I haven’t mentioned her much. Life moved on, and the children and my work regained my attention. I was efficient in settling her estate and I thought in settling my grief. I figured I’d had a year to grieve while I was watching her slowly waste away from lung disease. I figured that made it easier when the end finally came. Her prayers were finally answered. She was at peace.

So I’m not sure what it means that I’ve been dreaming about my mother. In many of the dreams I’m just in her apartment. (In one of them I was checking to see if there was enough toilet paper.) All I know is that they are a reminder that she is still part of my life, though usually out of sight, like in the apartment dreams. The dreams also bring a taste of grief, a reminder that I can’t dispose of my feelings as efficiently as I disposed of her furniture. I have to be open to whatever these dreams and feelings are trying to teach me, though I’m still not quite sure what that is.

Yesterday I learned that a good friend’s mother may be dying. It was a reminder of how universal this experience is, the loss of parents. It made me think of all my friends who have lost parents or loved ones in the past few years and how infrequently those losses come up after the initial mourning period where people say things like, “How are you doing?” without needing to explain why they are asking. It makes me want to check in with these friends long after the loss to see how it has changed them, to see if they are haunted, as I sometimes feel, by a loved one’s spirit.

There’s no neat conclusion here, but I guess that is part of the message. I like clear endings, concluding sentences that sum everything up (which is why I labor with such frustration of concluding sentences). But there is no neat end to one’s relationship to a parent. The past is woven into the present and future, albeit in sometimes invisible threads.