Dreams

Originally Posted May 14, 2023

In my dream I see you on a beach.  Orange bucket hat, blue safari animal swim trunks and matching shirt.  You are running and splashing in the surf, squealing and laughing, digging your hands into the wet sand, dodging my kisses because you are too busy to stop playing.  

I want to watch you forever, but I'm aware that you can't stay here.  I know your body won't keep working if you stay with me.  So I tell you to run, run as fast as you can, and you take off down the beach with your little arms and legs pumping.  You get farther and farther away, heading toward some people too far away for me to see.  You take the hand of a woman, and I see that she is the young version of my grandmother.  She looks at me, and I look at her.  And then she turns and walks away, with your little hand in hers, and there are others whose faces I can't see walking with you, and you disappear with them down the beach.  The emotions I feel are so real.  The longing for you, the wonder of watching you run and play, and the knowledge that being your mama and doing what is best means I have to let you go.  And as always, I wake to a world without you in it.

 Time is warped.  The world is off its axis.  You are as real to me as if I just held you moments ago, but at the same time my life with you feels so far away I wonder if it even really happened.  I don't know how we got here -- to the "after."  I blinked and now there is nothing left of you but a backyard memory garden and a closet full of things I can't bear to touch.  You are so present and yet so absent at the same time.  I don't know how else to explain it.

I love you, sweet boy. I miss you every day.