Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone

Dreams

(2002 to 2013)

Every now and then my mother visits me. Somehow, she comes back.

She's not a zombie, but she's also not quite herself. It's as though she has outlasted (outsmarted?) the rules of Nature and is simply back in our lives.

This scenario is, of course, only possible in dreams. Because of the curious half-reality of the dream state, the improbable-or, in this case the impossible-can occur simply because it's a dream. The ones where I'm vaguely aware-even during the dream-that something is obviously askew are always unsettling, even if the dreams feature my dearly departed pulling a Lazarus, that ultimate miracle. Perhaps it's disconcerting in the same way that the story of Lazarus, like so many stories from the bible, is probably lost in translation.

How can we really describe dreams accurately, honestly? It's as though the metaphors aren't commenting on reality; they are reality. It isn't that these scenarios aren't literal enough; they're too literal, too real.

So how do we all react when we see her?

In the maddening fashion of dreams, we're always joining the action already in progress. So she's just among us, sort of like an unspoken acknowledgement: Oops, we made a mistake! (Lucky us.) She's not dead after all! (Lucky her.) Naturally, everyone is delighted. Still, we feel a nagging comprehension, suppressed but still unavoidable, that she was dead...she has been in the ground.

Somehow this is sensible, but not in that surreal legitimacy of dreams. She's not a ghost or an avenging angel; she's simply around us once again. And she doesn't have much to say (this is the most difficult part). She's always a bit defiant, even distant (who could blame her?), as though she doesn't expect us to understand (who could blame us?). There's never an overriding relief that spills over into uncontainable joy, as there should be (She lives!); it's as though she is, in spite of her good fortune, a bit put out by the struggle. It almost seems as if she resents the lost time and all the turmoil this drama entailed: I was dead, but now I am alive forever. II have the keys to death and eternity.

Worse, the more mundane but disturbing dreams where we quarrel, something we did very little of, especially all through the last years of her life. It's typically over something trivial (just like real life), forgettable, which is a relief. Yet, the question then follows: This is worthy of a dream?

Worst of all, the dreams where nothing of consequence occurs. Not memories or relived events with alternate endings; just her presence. She's there, among us again. These are the dreams where I awaken with a start, half hopeful and full of unimagined alternatives, only to realize (once again) that waking up brings me back and she's still gone.