From over the edge of a steep embankment she appears, my mother does, in my dream. She doesn’t claw or crawl. Her body rises – hair, nose, chin, shoulders, knees – smoothly elevating until she steps onto level ground and moves slowly past me as if I am not there.
She wears a nightie – her word – light blue with creamy trim, filmy and ethereal. I watch her walk away. She is barefoot and her hair is bed-mussed, and the dream me becomes the dreamer me, and I am intimately familiar with this vision of my mother.
Her nighties, more lingerie than nightgown, are not sexy. They are made of synthetic materials, nylon, acetate, never silk or cotton. Decidedly feminine, but never frilly, they are always muted in color. Not bright red or deep blue, they’re soft peachish or other frothy sherbet hues. Her robes are terrycloth.
Our cat, Visitor, can dominate her terryclothed lap, but not me, not my brother or my sister. We are too heavy.
Her personality is strong, but her body is weak. Her softness is reserved for animals. Humans receive her sharp words and pointed opinions. Through us she vents her pain.
When the dreaming me realizes I’m dreaming I remember that my mother is dead, and then I know why she is here.
She has come for forgiveness. Her timing impresses me. I am away from home, on a vacation from my children, grateful to my core to be free of the demands of mothering. I sleep in late to spend long hours following myself through dreams, traveling away from my life. I change out of my PJ’s only when it’s necessary to go outside.
I am the nightied mom walking past her invisible offspring. I forgive my mother immediately, wholeheartedly. “I get it!” I want to tell her.
But forgiveness turns out not to be so simple.
I’m not always a reclusive, exhausted mother. I am in second grade and my mother sleeps while I get myself ready for school. She doesn’t get out of bed for my mornings, having spent her own at 1, 2, 3 AM moving proprietarily through her home, uninterrupted by its inhabitants. I fix, as always, my own breakfast. I buy lunch at school. I envy my classmates’ home-made sackfuls. Limp green beans slump in a pool of greenish liquid on my cafeteria tray while I study a tuna salad sandwich across the table. Cut in half with perky, crisp lettuce edges peeking out, the loving creation emerges from crinkly tin foil, a present being unwrapped. A second foil bundle unfolds to reveal a chocolate frosting mess, bright yellow layer cake hidden within.
My mother’s attempt at home-made lunches becomes a family joke. She slathers with mayonnaise every other slice of two huge loaves of cheap, square, white bread. Into the slathered sections she inserts a slice of budget bologna, then fills a dozen plastic sandwich bags with her home-made fare which she places in the freezer. For my dream-come-true lunches, I am instructed to grab a sandwich from the freezer, a single-serving bag of chips from the panty and an apple from the fridge.
I turn thirteen just before chronic back pain keeps my mom in bed, in her nightie full time. To her, I am a fetched glass of water, an adjustment on the volume of a television.
I hate myself for hating her.
My children are 12 and 14 when my mother rises into, then walks through my dream. For weeks afterward, I work to forgive. I fix lunches and fuss over outfits, kiss cheeks and listen to wishes.
I know I’ll be successful at forgiving. I know I can do it. I picture my success.
With so much love that it singes my skin, I set my mother free. “Go, mama, go,” I say, “Be free.” As she moves away from me her nightie catches light. It floats halo-like around her.
“Come back, someday,” I whisper, “Please come back to see me.” |
