I Had a Dream

I don't often remember my dreams. Sometimes a snippet will stay with me. Sometimes I will remember a feeling from my dream later during the day. But I don't often have dreams with much detail stay with me come morning. This morning I awoke at 4:30 with a dream of intensity burning within me. A dream so intense I knew I needed to record it.

I know during the dream I was with my daughter. We were doing things together which I remember included taking pictures, going places. At the end, just before I woke up, I was shutting a door, a front door of a house and I believe it was the house my children grew up in. It was night. The house was empty. The street was quiet. And as I shut this door, just as my daughter and I were about to leave, I could hear the sound of my son's voice, the sound of his voice at about age 8, talking in his chirpy little boy voice, out there on the street. It struck me in that moment as I shut the door that it was the voice of a ghost.

And then I woke up, and felt an incredible sadness. I lay there pondering the meaning of the dream and why that voice, lilting over the street with the wind, should feel so sad. I thought of their childhoods -- my daughter and son, now 23 and 25. I asked - what are you telling me dream? What message is here for me to unravel? My mind went to pieces of their growing up years, arguments, assigning of chores, but also rides in the car with one of them, and oh yes, thank you for this memory -- laying in bed at night with each of them, reading a story and talking about things that mattered to them in that moment. My heart broke remembering these, and I started to cry, and then I started sobbing.

This would appear to be even more of this endless journey of letting go. I know I cannot bring back their childhoods, or create a happier childhood for them now. Oh the things I wish I could of, would have done. I do believe I was and am a good mom and that I did the best I could. I am not an empty nester mom who has no life, who has lived through her children vicariously and now has no existence outside of them. No, I have a full life and yet this part remains ever painful -- it truly was over in the blink of an eye. And now I miss them.

I think this dream is especially poignant as I wrestle with my children's grownup issues and try to distance myself from their issues and trust them to travel on their journeys the best they can. I was reminded of a saying I heard that sometimes you have to jump off a cliff and learn to build wings on the way down. At the bottom will be enough love to cushion the fall and loved ones who will bring bandaids, tissue and love. Well dear ones, this morning I know that I must let my children jump off those cliffs, and trust and know that they will build wings on the way down and I will be there at the bottom, always with bandaids, tissue and plenty of love.