Monday, September 23, 2013

Happy in New Mexico

I always thought that I would start dreaming about Carroll shortly after she passed, but I didn’t. I thought maybe I was too depressed or grieving too hard and my brain didn’t want to overload me. I always figured that dreaming was the way that the mind helped grieve.

It wasn’t until about a month ago that Lillian started dreaming of Mama. She awoke one morning with a thoughtful look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said “nothing.” I pushed and asked if she was thinking about Mama. She replied, “yes.” I remember her talking in her sleep, so I asked if she had dreamed of Mama and again she gave me a quiet little yeah.

“Was it a bad dream?”

“No.”

“Was it a good one?”

“Yeah, it was a good one.”

This gave me a lot of relief. “Well, you know Lilly Bug, that’s Mama’s way of talking to us. She might make us remember a special time that we spent with her, or a place that we used to go. Is that what the dream was about?”

“Yeah.” Nothing more than that. She gave me a little hug and got up to start getting dressed.

She eventually told me about a week later that she had another one and it was good, too. I guess we’re doing okay.

Then I had one this last week. My first. From what I can remember of it, Carroll and I weren’t together, for whatever reason. I thought that we were getting back together and I get this letter. In the letter, it’s from someone else, I don’t know who. I get the gist from the letter that Carroll has either forgotten about me or never knew me, but she has moved to New Mexico and she’s very happy. Very strange, because we visited last New Mexico last May for the eclipse, but no mention of wanting to move there. It was always Ireland that she wanted to move to and I was 100% with her.

After thinking about it for a while and mentioning it to my sister-in-law, Maggie, we surmised this. The dream is my brain’s way of interpreting Carroll’s death. We were together, we’re not now. Carroll hasn’t forgotten me, she’s gone to heaven and by happy, it means that she doesn’t hurt anymore. And if that’s how my brain interprets it, then I’m fine with her being happy in New Mexico.