Dream

 I dreamed about Mama last night. It wasn't the first time but it felt so real. Not like most of the other dreams I've had. I don't really remember much about the other dreams but this one is still in my head so I want to get it "on paper" before I lose it, too.

I ran into the SuperWalmart to pick up some groceries for my dad and myself after work and when I walked in, she was there. I remember being surprised--my dream self didn't remember/realize she was dead but remembered that she wasn't able to get around and I wondered to myself how she was there and looked so good. She already had a buggy and was in the produce section shopping. And she looked like her healthy self. When she saw me she told me to come on and we'd share a buggy. It was something we used to do back when we commuted to work together...anytime we had to stop at the store after work, we'd share a buggy if neither of us had a lot to get. So I ran over and we started walking over the store together, chatting and talking about what we were buying. I remember thinking how odd it felt to be shopping with her again since she hadn't been able to get out of the house in so long but I never asked her how she was there. I just accepted it and let myself enjoy it. At some point, though, I had to run to the dogfood section and she stayed behind in the aisle we'd just been in. As I walked away, I felt this overwhelming sadness and I remember thinking to myself, don't let these people see you cry. They wouldn't understand. It was as though I knew she wasn't really okay but was trying not to give into the knowledge and was afraid others would point it out to me. I grabbed what I needed from the dog section--some treats for Daddy's dog, Chrissy--and headed back to where I left her, the overwhelming sadness growing more and more. And as I spotted her, standing in the center aisle with the buggy, I saw someone walking towards her and my heart both sank and rejoiced when I saw who it was--it was Paw-Paw Joe! He was wearing the brown button-down shirt and brown pants he used to wear to work when he worked at the canning factory and he looked like he did when he was younger--like when I was a kid. He walked up to Mama and her face lit up and they hugged and then poof! They were both gone. I never got to talk to him and I didn't get to say goodbye to her, he just came and took her. I woke up after that, sad because it hadn't been real but happy because maybe it really had been her, visiting me in a way that felt so familiar and comforting to me--us doing something we'd frequently done. Maybe she wasn't supposed to stay that long and Paw-Paw came to bring her back to Heaven.  Or maybe they've just both been on my mind so much lately and that dream was supposed to help me process it.

But dag-gummit! I wanted so bad to go back to sleep and fall back into that dream and have her there. For that brief amount of time I had felt more normal than I have in two years. In spite of the sadness tinging everything I can still hear her, still picture her pushing the buggy and me following her like I had so many times. I can still feel how good it felt to just be with her doing something as mundane as grocery shopping. 

It is kinda funny to me, though, looking back, that it was Paw-Paw Joe that came to bring her back and not her own dad, my Paw-Paw Hudson. Though I suppose it does make sense if it was just me processing things. I was always closer to Paw-Paw Joe and his death was the first REAL sense of grief I ever experienced. And Mama is buried next to him. When Paw-Paw Joe died I had dreams about him all the time and in all those dreams my dream self knew he was dead and wasn't supposed to be there. With Mama, though, my dream self never realizes she's dead. The ones I vaguely remember, we're just doing routine life things together and then she just disappears. Like, I'm never really shocked to see her. I guess last night's dream is as close as I've come to realizing it. Perhaps that's my subconscious slowing coming to accept that she's really, truly gone. 

If it was really her, though, that came to see me, I wish there was a way I could really talk to her. Hug her. I still just miss her so damn much.