Dreams of the Departed

This morning I talked to my mother in a dream. We were shopping in a Disney store (one of her favorite activities in her later years, until the Disney Company closed down the stores). She was walking on her own two legs, and looked better than she had for some months. This was an idealized Disney store, they had just about anything anyone could want. I found an animated movie on DVD about the adventures of a Steampunked-up Mickey Mouse. Mom wasn't interested in that.

(When I went to find an image for this post, I Googled "Steampunk Mickey Mouse" and look what I found. Apparently the Disney Company really is doing something along this line. How odd, on so many levels, that I knew nothing about this, and dreamed it, and it's real. Here's a link to prove it.)

We didn't talk about anything serious. We never did. Our life was all about escaping from serious things. Mom was in her element and enjoying her newfound freedom to buy anything she wanted. She had loaded up the checkout counter with a pile of things (I've actually seen her do that in real life). But then something happened. The scene was suddenly colored with a deep sadness. It was almost as if she knew that she could not take any of these things home with her.

She disappeared, and my dream went in a different direction. I woke feeling sad, anxious, and with a bad case of the shakes.

This is not the first time I have had this kind of a dream. The first time was years ago. As with today, it was early morning and I was on the way to waking up. Then Sandy P_____, a former co-worker and a friend, entered my dream. I knew that she had been suffering from cancer for a long time. The last time I had seen her (in real life) she was in a wheelchair, bald from chemo, horribly diminished, but her spirits were, remarkably, still high.

Now, in my dream, she looked great, just like her old self. I asked, "How are you?" and she said, "I'm great, I'm completely recovered! They were getting ready to put me in a pine box, but I showed them!"

We sat down at a picnic table and talked a while. Then suddenly the scene was colored with the same sense of sadness that I recognized last night. Something was making me understand that I had to go. I said good-bye, walked away from the picnic table, and woke up -- remembering everything clearly.

Half an hour later the telephone rang. It was my former boss, Ellen R________. She told me that Sandy had died during the night.