strange dreams.

my Mom passed away in 2005, and it's strange I guess, but I still dream of her. I can smell her, I can touch her, and I can hear her sweet voice. "Kimberlyyyyyyy" over and over.

last night, I was asleep & it was the kind of dream that seems so real. We (my step Dad, my Mom and me) were going down the road in a van I've never seen before.

my step Dad is also gone. He passed away a couple of weeks after her. You aren't suppossed to speak ill of the dead, but this man gave my disabled Mom the beating of her life, and my brother & I had to rescue her from it...all this while she was fighting ALS. So, I have no sympathy, or no reason to want to hang with him either...

but there I was in this dream. My step Dad driving, of course, and my Mom in the front seat. I'm younger again, and my hair was long again, and my step Dad looked at me and said "don't forget this" and he & my Mom were laughing. I can still see so clearly the wind blowing their hair about & my Mom smiling & looking very much like she did when we were growing up...she reached out to me...and I see her Sugar Momma hands..nails all nice & long just like when she lived...and I look down at my hands & see how much our hands are alike........and I feel her no really.......I did. You know how touching someone you love feels so different than touching someone you really don't know that well? You KNOW that person....you know their touch, and the feel of their skin....and it was her. At least my conscious let me believe it was.

in my dream, it was summer time & it was so warm......it was the most beautiful day I think I've ever dreamed of. I don't know what my step Dad didn't want me to forget, it wasn't clear in my dream, and I don't remember this ever happening in real life......so it was a strange dream for sure.

when Mom passed away, there wasn't much for my brother & I to hold on to from her life. We rescued her from my step Dad's abuse & we had little but her........that was all that mattered & she died just over a month later.

I have her purse. Right after she passed I carried it to where I would feel close to her. Man, it stinks to loose someone that you've loved so...especially knowing how she suffered & died.....and I have her license, and social security card........on my dresser, I have them pressed under the glass top so that I can see her signature......it's "proof" she was here to my heart. Along side it I have her death certificate......it's proof she truly is gone from Earth forever.

these years later, I still have times I speak of her in present tense....I still start to pick up the phone & call her...and church really hasn't been the same since she left Earth. It hurts too much to go back to our old church because no matter where I sit, I seem to see her grave...no matter how many flowers I put out there, it feels so cold......because SHE isn't there.......she isn't there.

I can't count the times I dream of her. I can't count the times I say "oh if Mom were alive now..." or "I wish she could have been the Mom she was to me the last part of life for my whole life.."

whenever I'm sick, I crave her potato soup. Whenever I'm lonely I crave her Sugar Momma hugs, whenever I wonder what I should do........I long for her advice......man. I miss her.

when we were growing up, my Mom made these tapes of all of us. We were singing, acting silly, etc. and my Mom sang & talked on that tape.

when I was caring for her one day I found it again. She wrote she wanted me to play it. It played ONE TIME.....and it tore from the core. It's one of those little cassette tapes, you know? And I still have it just in case their comes a time I figure out how to re-attach it, or get it fixed....its her voice. On that tape. Oh what I'd give to hear it. But it's trapped. And I can't.

an online friend of mine is going thru a fresh grieving process, and it's brought back to me how truly alone I am...you feel very alone when one parent is gone. And man, I feel so sorry for her (my friend) because that first year is one that I don't envy anyone to have to live thru. It's painful & that first year of "firsts" are almost cruel. It took me a whole year to feel like I could even smile again. It's so hard to be the caregiver for years & then it all be gone.

I don't know why I have these strange dreams........but in a way, I'm glad I do because at least in my dreams I'm with her one more time. And I can touch her. And she speaks to me.