No Sudden Movements

Note to reader: This recounts a dream I had last night and might creep you out.  As it did me.  I needed to write about it asap, though.  So thanks for being my early-morning sounding board. 

I am walking home, home being the variety store my parents had when I was 10 to 14 years old or so.  I’m the age I am now, 41.  In real life, there’s a school across the street from where our store was.  In my dream, the school has been replaced by houses going up vertically from the store, rather than horizontally.  So that as I’m walking down, I see 6 or seven houses on my right, then at the end of the street, I see my parents’ store. 

The houses that I pass are  two-storey run down places, junk out in the yards, broken windows.  They’re eerily quiet.  From one of them, a young guy comes out, tall & heavy-set, maybe in his early twenties.  He’s wearing dark pants & a white hoodie zipped up with maybe some red design on the front, but nothing I can decipher.  He talks to me but I don’t know what he’s saying except that I get the feeling that he wants me to come in.  He seems a little strange, and because I don’t want to agitate him, I follow him in.  We pass through another door to a room with no windows.  There are high pieces of furniture in the room, and in the corner there’s an old TV set playing.  I can’t see the TV from where I stand, and at this point, I’m just standing in this darkened room with this guy who’s just looking at me kind of weird.  I slowly walk over to the corner where the TV is, and across from it is an empty chair.  I was half-expecting something else, like discovering a dead old woman’s body sitting there,  but that’s all it was, just an empty chair.  I’m uneasy the whole time and I feel I’m moving like Woody in Cheers when he walks in the bar covered in bees, saying “No sudden movements…..no sudden movements.” 

I slowly make my way to a door as he follows me.  I go to leave down the stairs, and he gets close enough to touch my hair and says: “Your hair smells like your mother, wounded.”  After he says this, I realize that he’s been saying the words “wound” and “wounded” while we were standing in that room, except I wasn’t hearing him then.

I walk down the stairs, slowly, feeling fear grip my chest.  I walk past two cars parked on the lawn, and not wanting to  cause him alarm or set him off after me, I kind of toss a smile over my shoulder in his direction and say something stupid like “Nice car”.   Fighting the urge to run, I make my way to my parents’ store, which in my dream looks nothing at all like it did in real life.  When I get through the door, I lock it, panicking and trying to kick my shoes off.  My father is old, sitting in a rocking chair in the living room, which has a picture window overlooking the houses.  I’m scared and I scream ”All those houses are f*cked!”  In real life, I never ever would have used foul language when speaking to my father.  In the dream, he turned to look at me in his quiet way, but didn’t say anything.   During this time, I have this feeling of needing to tell my father what happened, it was actually more like an urge, a deep need.  I took myself to the bathroom and ran a bath.  While soaking, I was trying to figure out how I would tell my father that I entered this person’s house for no good reason.  Surely he would say what an idiot I was, and how stupid can you be, it’s asking for trouble.   I could hear my mother stirring from her nap and she too was old in my dream.  I could hear them talking to each other about me, my father telling her I got home all upset.  It was as if they had aged, and I had too, but we were still living as we were when I was a kid. 

I had this dream last night between 1am & 3am, and I woke up from it feeling upset and scared about that guy.  He had dead eyes, you know?   And his facial expressions were either stone-faced or some weird creepy smile.   But it was what he said to me, about my hair like my mother, wounded.  It’s like some bizarre code, or a secret that can unlock something else.  Like a Pandora’s box. 

Stay tuned for my thoughts on this.  I’ll let it ruminate for a little while, but not for long.  I can already sense some meaning from it. 

Til then, I wish YOU, dear reader, sweeter dreams,

Love, Chantal xoxooxxo

None Shall Sleep Tonight

I know my dreams may be of interest only to myself, but I had to write about something soon before I completely lost my courage to write. 

On the night before Christmas Eve, I dreamt I gave birth to a baby, in a strange house, with a midwife.  In my real life, I actually did give birth to my children at home with midwives.  But in my dream, I was at the age I am now (almost 42), re-married like I am now, and I was telling the midwife that this experience of giving birth was different from my other two (yeah, no kidding).  First, I told her, I didn’t have the people there that I wanted; I was alone with the midwife, no children, no husband….I didn’t dream  the actual giving birth part,  just afterwards.  I didn’t see my baby, it was taken somewhere, and I was waiting for it, in the room I gave birth in.  I was straightening out the bed, the things on the dresser….the midwife seemed distracted, worried about getting back to her family in time, she was mostly packing up her gear, not really taking care of me.  At one point, there was a woman from my work who was there, then she left.   Then alot of drunk people were in my room,  and I was shooing them away, they were trying to sit on my bed and I was moving them out the patio doors into the early evening, telling them I couldn’t have them being here, drunk and lighting up cigarettes, when my baby was going to be brought back any minute.  I found myself walking outside, with the idea of going to get my baby, but there was water water water everywhere, as if there had just been a flood or a huge rainstorm.  I was acutely aware of the colour yellow, as if everything was yellow.   A woman with short blond hair told me to wait, she was going to get her car and help me.  But I didn’t wait, I turned back and returned to the room, where the midwife was.  I didn’t know why I was waiting for my baby, why I didn’t have it with me.   When I returned, my son, P was sitting there with his father (my ex-husband), and apparently they had seen the baby and spent time with it.  I thought it would have been a girl, and I wanted to name her Maria, but they said it was a boy, and I was glad, but couldn’t think up a name for him. 

Throughout the dream, I was waiting for my baby, who wasn’t coming….I never saw the baby.  I don’t know what this means.  I was disturbed when I woke, I didn’t tell my husband (who loves to hear about my dreams, as he seems to think I have such vivid recollections), and I felt strange all morning, until I got home on Christmas Eve day after work, and my husband  and I spent the afternoon preparing to welcome the kids for Christmas Eve.

I know the obvious reasons for dreaming this dream right before  Christmas Eve, on the night we celebrate Christ’s birth.  Also, I know how sometimes, things that happen during the day serve as triggers for what you dream about at night.  On the day before Christmas Eve, I was driving around, doing last-minute errands, and was overcome with these strong feelings of  wanting to have a child with my husband, and burst into this weird, hormonal tear-fest in the car.    Before you jump to any conclusions, I am very happy with my two children, and will not be having any more.  I know that these are normal feelings to have for someone you love, to want to create a life with them.  Except holy mack, in that moment, I REALLY felt this surge of complete & pure love, it was this primal need and deep desire to have a child with this wonderful, generous man who has fearlessly taken me on to be his true companion. 

So it’s no wonder I dreamed what I did….except it’s the baby part I’m not getting, why was the baby taken away, why didn’t I get to see it, why was I waiting waiting waiting, why wasn’t it returned to me?   Maybe the baby was a symbol for something else in my life, something that’s gone now, some vulnerability that I’ve lost.    If you lose your vulnerability, it stands to reason that you gain strength of some sort.  Being vulnerable like a baby is being unprotected, open to being wounded and hurt, physically or emotionally.   It’s interesting that the verb vuln comes from vulnerable, and means to wound oneself by biting at the breast, and that the pelican (of whom it was believed to  feed its young with its blood by vulning itself) is a symbol of Christ. 

This is not making alot of sense, I know, but the more I think, the more I reflect, the more these ideas take shape in my heart….in my faith….. in my attempts at trying to translate my love into actions…. in trying to capture or re-capture my essence, which I feel has been knocked off its kilter.   

The past few months, I’ve been adjusting  to life with my new husband, to life with my children with my new husband, to parenting a pre-teen-going-on-25,  to finding the confidence I need to fit into this world once I’ve figured out where I fit into this world.

None Shall Sleep Tonight is the English translation of  Nessun Dorma, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Sx5lbVlQA),  Puccini’s aria in Turandot, which is my favourite.  It never fails to thrill  and inspire me everytime I hear it.  (For more inspiration and making dreams come true, see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA&feature=related ).  As I’m writing this, I have my iTunes on shuffle, and Chris Botti is playing a beautiful rendition of Nessun Dorma on his trumpet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exfNMsUm7Nk).  I reflect on my baby dream and these lyrics from an opera written nearly 80 years ago, a reminder that nighttime thoughts and dreams are revealed at daybreak, when the light shines.

 

Love,

Chantal xoxox

Waiting For Ballast

It’s 4am.  I should be sleeping.  But I’m not.  I’m here, with you, dear Blogfriend.   

I feel stuck.  Some parts of my life are on hold, waiting patiently for the days of glory to finally arrive; I know they will, it’s the waiting part that gets a little hard sometimes.    Some parts are stuck in this adjustment and adaptation of trying to have a normal life, when in fact it’s only myself that I feel I’m fooling in this adjust/adapt dance (I know, I know, who has a normal life, eh?).  Some parts are making me feel irrelevant, like I’ve  overstayed my welcome, which kind of hurts when I’ve come to see those parts as forming my friendship base.  Some parts are sorrow-filled cups of melancholy of not being able to be with those I love; we all live that to a certain extent, I know this.  Some parts are frustrating me with their chronic unfulfilling agendas, in an environment that I look forward to being away from more and more.  Some parts are lying dormant,  they’ve fallen to slaves of Master Time,  they’re censored by outside factors or by my own over-developed sense of thinking too much and second-guessing myself.  Spinning my wheels instead of just doing it, whatever “it” is.   Some parts are waiting for me to let them go, some parts I wish would let ME go, with their tentacles of guilt and regret. 

And I’m crying all the time.  Even as I type out those words, tears come to my eyes, and now I have to pause to blow my nose.    I realize that, at this time of my cycle, I cry easily.  But this just feels like more than your regular emotional pre-menstrual run-up.  It often comes out of nowhere, unheeded, triggered by the slightest things that I won’t enumerate here because I’ll just start crying again.  It’s affecting my work, my life with my family, my driving, my own sense of self-control (I don’t seem to have any).  It prevents me from talking with others if I happen to feel I’m in that crying-zone, I refrain from stating my opinion for fear that my passion about something will only cause me to start crying, I’ve become a pro at changing the subject and refocusing the attention on the other person, away from something that I might find too emotional.  It’s frustrating and I’m tired of it.   I wake up (when I get some sleep) with puffy eyelids from crying the night before, which makes me cry again, because putting mascara on eyelashes that jut out from puffy eyelids results in smears, no matter how careful you are. 

So if anyone knows of anyone who suffers from crying jags like this, please please hold them and tell them it will be ok.  It will probably make them cry even more, but crying when you’re being hugged feels much better than trying to suppress your sobs alone at your desk,  or alone at the kitchen counter while you try to make alot of noise in the sink in an effort to channel your tears into something productive, or alone in the bathtub, or alone in your bed with the covers pulled tight around you like you did when you were little and scared of the dark.

And my dreams, I dream all the time, sometimes several dreams in one night.  I remember most of them vividly, like the one I had before waking you up, dear Blogfriend…….In my dream, I had slept in the same bedroom as my children, but I had gone to bed before them, for some reason.  In my dream, I woke up early, before dawn, (like I do in my waking life), and saw them sleeping in the dark.  I quietly walked out, into the bathroom, and discovered I had started my period.  And I seemed happy about this.  In my dream, I was only on day 22 of my cycle, just like I am in my waking life.  But in my dream, I was thinking to myself that I must be pre-menopausal, if my period is beginning to be erratic.   And I seemed happy about this, too.  It was a calm dream, even towards the end when my son was crying because he had an accident outside the bathroom door, where he had been knocking & knocking with urgency, but I couldn’t hear him. 

Then I woke up, saw it was 3am, and couldn’t get back to sleep.   I could make alot out of this dream…..my children are at their father’s this week, so I’m dreaming of them because I miss them.  The part about starting my period early is probably related to all this crying and me trying to find a sane explanation for it, hoping that it’s hormonal.  The last part, about my son crying at the door just makes me feel sad, and that when divorce is a part of your life, just like most losses,  you feel incapable of being the complete parent that you want to be. 

And the calmness throughout the dream?   I think it has alot to do with how I feel when my children are away:  when they’re with me, life is busy and fraught with laughter and arguing and shouting, going to school, going to work, and getting on with the joy of being together even if we often have “episodes”.   When my children are away, I turn inwards and think about how much I love being their mother, despite our difficulties, which I don’t always think about when we’re right in the trenches, so to speak.  It’s like when you watch your children sleeping before turning in at night, after a full day of family living: you feel that calmness come over you, you’re grateful for having had one more day as a parent, for having lived through joys and tears and frustrations.

You know how sometimes, in life, you’re faced with situations that all seem to be going nowhere, all at the same time?   And then something happens, a door cracks open, and the rest falls into place?  Maybe that’s why all these parts in my life seem stuck, maybe that calm feeling in my dream was there to show me to trust in what I’ve been given, that all those stuck parts are gifts, and that ballast is on its way…. 

Excuse me while I blow my nose again……sheesh.

Love,

Chantal xoxoxoxo

Spring Cleaning, Anyone?

Sleeping dreams are very strange, and I’m sure you can give them any meaning that you want if you think about it long enough.   But I think dreams are necessary to help us sort out our waking lives.  If we pay attention, it’s interesting what we dream about….. 

 A little over a month ago, I had this dream:

I was in my old house, the one I shared with my ex.   It was a two-storey semi-detached house that we had built, with the bedrooms upstairs.  In my dream,  I was sleeping in the back room, which was G’s room in reality, but in my dream it was just a bedroom.  The bedroom next to it was P’s room, and in my dream he was a baby, although the dream was actually taking place in the present.  P was in a playpen in his room.  He fell out and hugged the floor, saying “maison”, which is French for house.  My father (who died 4 years ago) was in the master bedroom, and he was at the age he was when he passed away, around 73.   In the dream, my dad was lying in the bed, but the bedframe was not as it had been in real life.  In real life, it was a maple sleigh bed (I miss that bed).  In the dream it was just an ordinary bedframe, nothing special.  I was still in the back room, but I could see my father in the master bedroom down the hall, sort of like if I was floating around, yet remaining in one place.  I remember thinking in my dream “They must have taken the sleigh bed to the new house.”  The “they” who must’ve taken my the sleigh bed away was my ex-husband and his soon-to-be-wife (or the movers).   This helped me to put my dream in a time sequence:  I was in the house, which was no longer mine, at the time that my ex-husband and his soon-to-be-wife were moving into their newly-built home, an event which happened over a year ago now.   Back to the dream:  I’m still upstairs in the back bedroom, I can hear my ex-husband downstairs.  The children were very young in my dream, P was a baby, and G was about 2 or 3 years old.  I don’t recall seeing G in my dream, just hearing her chattering away.   In my dream, I can “see” my son, P, and my father, I can only hear my ex-husband and my daughter, G. 

This is not a recurring dream, I’ve only dreamt it once, on February 3rd of this year (I write my dreams down in my journal sometimes, that’s how I know when I dreamt it…..it’s not because I have this incredible memory).  Personally, I think this dream is LOADED with metaphors and significance about my divorce, and about the guilt I will probably always feel at leaving.  It’s also about loss, loss of special people, loss of heart (because home is where your heart is), loss of special objects.   I’m sure you can add your own analysis of my dream……

I do often dream of my old house, of my old life transposed over my present life, but I think this is my psyche helping me to let go of situations and events that no longer exist.  It’s my soul’s way of preparing me for a new life, which not by chance, happens to coincide with Spring and rebirth, during the season of Passion….(ok I just reread that and it sounds like I’m telling you I’m pregnant, but I’m not.  Just so you know. )  The new life that I’ve embarked on involves taking the hand of my true companion, and keeping what I need from the past as I let go of an old life that no longer sustains. 

Maybe it’s not so much about the losses themselves, maybe it’s more about how much room you have in your house to store them.    

Love,

Chantal xoxo

Finding the Exit in the Twilight Zone

The following may not make any sense, unless you’re a parent with sick children and are sleep-deprived. 

 Cue Helen Reddy:

I am tired (tired)

I am uninspired (uninspired). 

I am WOMAN.   Or more precisely, I am MOTHER. 

Last Sunday, P missed his first hockey tournament championship game (which they won! Go Wolverines Go!) because he spiked a fever and couldn’t get out of bed.  That Sunday night, G came down with a fever of her very own, so Monday was a home-sick day because I played Florence Nightingale most of the night.  Tuesday, G bounded out of bed coughing but feeling better, so off to school they went, and I heigh-hoed to work.  11:15am, the school called: P was not feeling well.  Heigh-hoed it back home.  Wednesday and Thursday P was still coughing, but he went to school because he was really worried about missing homework and having to catch up (that’s a whole other post for a whole other day), I went to work.  G was with her dad (P is now living with me all the time on a trial basis, spending every other weekend with his father…..I know, I haven’t mentioned it before because there’s just TOO MUCH GOING ON!  But I’m mentioning it now).  So Friday morning, P still wasn’t feeling well, so we stayed home.    The kids spent the weekend with their father, I got a chance to rest up (little did I know I was going to need it!), and I woke this morning with all the good intentions one has on a Monday morning….. a new day, a new week, this week will be good I thought.  No missed work, no missed school,  I have hot water again, I want to get back into walking in the morning, I’ve switched the bedroom arrangements (G & I share the master bedroom now and P has his own room…….see I TOLD you lots was going on!) and the bulk of that transition is just about done; at least we’re not camping out in the living room surrounded by dressers and bookcases….although that was fun. 

Ok, where was I?  Oh yeah, so this morning, I got to work, started my day, looked forward to accomplishing more than I did last week, and was thinking about the kids and what we were going to do this week, especially on Friday, which is a professional development day for teachers, which means no school for kids.  I decided I’d take a vacation day with them rather than enrol them in a day camp….so I was thinking of what we could do on that day that would be fun. 

Then my phone rings.  It’s the school.  Great……

I picked up G at school, she’s coughing her head off, her ears & throat hurt, and her nose is all red, she’s pale and tired.  I called the doctor’s office before leaving my place of work, and explained the whole scenario, and to my great surprise, the receptionist said “Sure, bring her in.”  Just like that.  (I am woman, hear me roar).   The usual response is “He can see her in two weeks, or you can take her to the clinic.“  So we zipped to the doctor’s office & waited patiently for an hour,  to be told she has a mild lung infection which we received a prescription for.  

Meanwhile, back home, as G rested  in bed with orange juice and High School Musical 2 playing on my laptop (those songs drive me crazy, they stick in your brain like glue), I sat writing out lists of things I needed to remember, or maybe I wanted to forget……anyhow, my stream of consciousness sort of looked like this:

get licence plates stickers will have to go to the actual office sometime before March because the self-service kiosk that they have set up in the mall for just this purpose doesn’t issue stickers for vehicles like mine (wtf?  It’s a little Hyundai Accent…..good grief)/confirm dental appointments for the kids I’ll have to take time off again to take them and plus I have to reschedule G’s chiropractic appointment cause it’s on the same day and I don’t have time to bring them to the dentist at 4:30 and then drive halfway across town to the chiropractor’s on time for the 5:45 appointment/my left eyelid is forever twitching….I need to sleep/call the car dealership to bring the car in for an oil change which they can do next week on payday because they want to change the fluids and that’ll cost me/call the dealership back tomorrow because the 8am appointment won’t work as I have P with me now, try and reschedule it for 8:45, that way I can drive P to school, bring the car in & they can shuttle me to work; why did I make that appointment at 8?/remember to bring P to the family therapist (see I TOLD you lots was going on…..this therapy is a good thing, though, we’re all going P, G, me & their dad, but for this next appointment she only wants to see P) & remember to ask for time off from work…..again/the Roman Catholic Church has now succeeded in getting on my last nerve/when I go back to work, which I don’t think I’ll be doing tomorrow, but when I go back, remember to check how much family-related time I have because I think I used up whatever I had left last week when the kids were sick…./what is it with the weird dreams lately?  Men walking baby hippopotamus’ on a leash, a man from work wearing a cape made of black crow feathers……my dreams look like something from the Beatles in their psychedelic phase/think of something more nutritious to serve the kids other than frozen pizza/get back on the treadmill asap (well, not right this minute, but soon) and look into pre-menopause because I might be there, my period was early again and I can’t eat an apple without my stomache feeling like I’ve eaten a ten-course meal/did I remember to pay the bills I needed to this month?  I’m sure I did, I don’t think anything’s outstanding…..well, if I missed one, I’m sure they’ll let me know and maybe I should shuffle some money around just so I don’t find myself on the short end of the stick with an unforseeable expense on my hands like needing new tires/nine more days until Sweet Man’s visit! Good grief I need me a pedicure…….and colour my hair…./I read today that the kids’ backpacks should weigh less than 10% of each child’s weight…..must check on that, weigh their bags tomorrow morning, just to make sure/I really need to write to blog to create and the well seems dry or the writer is tired or she feels anything she has to say is redundant and boring and who the heck really cares if I talk AGAIN about Gardasil or how my family doctor today says to me as he’s writing out G’s prescription: “So did you get my letter on HPV?” “No”, I say, “it might’ve went to their father’s address…..”  He keeps writing, then I clue in to what the letter is about…”Oooohhhh, the vaccine? Gardasil?”  He nods, and smiles, pleased that I knew what he was talking about without him saying much (you kind of have to do that sometimes with doctors, know what they’re talking about without them saying much), keeps writing.  “No I didn’t receive the letter, and the answer would be no anyways.”  He stops writing, looks at me, now he’s frowning and gets that look on his face that lets me know he’s more educated than I am………”Really?  Do you know what it’s for?”  Yes, I say.  I REALLY feel like telling him: I probably know more about it than most of the parents who AGREE to this vaccine for their daughters. http://crrz07.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/gardasil-2/   But I just say “Yes, I know what it’s for and my answer is still no.”   He looks dumbfounded and puzzled and keeps cocking his head to one side and frowning and looking at me like I’m an oddity….ahhh these medical people.  I thanked him for seeing us on such short notice,  and as G and I walked out, I felt like singing:   If I have to, I can do anything I am strong (strong) I am invincible (invincible) I am woman!

The kids are asleep now, it’s nearly 11pm, I’m coming to the end of this post, and I know it’s all going to be ok……after I’ve had a glass of wine and given thanks for the food in the cupboard, the gas in the car, the roof over our heads, the friends who listen to my woes, the soulmate who sustains me across the miles (and who loves me, gray hairs & unpedicured feet and all).  And even for the sickie twilight zone days.  I’m thankful it’s only fevers and colds……    

Love, Chantal x0×0

 

As my old Pappy used to say….

My father passed away in September, 2003.    A year or so ago, I had a dream about my dad.  This was a good dream, and it was the first dream of him that I remember having after he died.   In the dream, my sisters, their children, and myself are gathered in a house I’ve never been in.  We are all in the living room.   I see someone in the kitchen and walk from the living room to the kitchen, which is this old-fashioned looking kind of kitchen, with  tall cupboards painted ugly dark green colours, and this ceiling light that gives off a sickish yellow tinge.  The someone in the kitchen is a man, dressed like James Gardner in Maverick, with a white shirt & black tie thingie….

This is exactly what he looked like, except he had his hat on, and no gun.  And no badge.   And the best part was that it was my Dad, not James Garner.   First he was sitting at the kitchen table, and he was smiling.  My dad had a great smile.  Some people, when they smile, their faces hardly move or change.  Not my dad.  When he smiled his brown eyes lit up, and he had these great smile-wrinkles around his eyes, deep ones so that you could tell that he was smiling.  So anyways, my dad dressed as James Garner in Maverick is sitting at the table smiling at me.  I turn towards the living room, to see what the others are doing, but they’re busy talking about my dad.   I want to tell them that Dad is here, but I’m too happy and don’t want to break the magic.     I realize no one can see my dad, except for me, because some family members look at me and I know they can see the kitchen table, and that if they could see my dad, they would be coming into the kitchen, too.   

I don’t remember my father speaking in this dream, just smiling.   He gets up from his chair, stands up and walks out, tall & proud in his Maverick look.  And he’s not limping.  My father had a very pronounced limp, as he had broken his leg in too many places during a construction accident when he was about 45 years old.  But in my dream, he walked without his tell-tale limp.  He walked out the back kitchen door, and I watched him go.  In my dream I returned to my family in the living room, but as I’m talking to them, it’s as if they can’t hear me.  They see me, they’re smiling at me as they carry on their conversations, but they can’t hear what I’m saying.  I don’t remember what I’m telling them, just this feeling that I wanted to share this most incredible sighting of my father. 

I don’t remember what was going on in my life at the time that I had that dream.  But I do know that the dream made me feel peaceful, and reminded me of watching the Rockford Files with my dad when I was a kid.   

But last night, I had another Dad dream.   I woke up around 1:3oam and tossed and turned til about 5am, trying not to worry about the things I was worrying about, but not doing too good a job of it.   Anyhow, I finally slept a little in the early morning hours and had THIS dream:

I’m sitting at my desk at work, and I’ve got my telephone receiver held to my ear, except I’m not talking.  Then I can hear my father’s voice on the phone, but he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to someone in English, telling them that he can’t handle this anymore, that he’s too lonely, and that he needs to get out of the nursing home that he’s in.   He doesn’t say so, but I come to know that he’s too lonely because he misses my mother (in reality, my father passed away six months before my mother did).  My heart breaks as I hear my father plead with a total stranger to rescue him from his despair.  As I’m listening, I’m berating myself for not visiting my father more often, and when was the last time that I had called him?  I couldn’t remember and berated myself for THAT as I frantically leafed through my address book to find my father’s phone number so that I could call him and reassure him that it would be ok, I would come by & visit.   As I’m going through my address book, I see that I don’t have a phone number for him and I berate myself for THAT, I mean come on!  Your father has been in a nursing home for several months and you don’t even have his phone number?!?  (In reality, my father did not live in a nursing home).  As I dumbly stare at the little blank space where my father’s phone number should be, a voice tells me, You can’t call your father, he’s dead.  At this point, my dream propels me into a kitchen where my ex-husband is sitting there with me & the kids, and I’m telling him this strange occurrence of hearing my father on the phone & when I tell him that I couldn’t call my father anyways because he’s dead, my ex-husband gets up from the table a little green around the gills.  

Today, in the real world, I had a semi-confrontation with my ex-husband, which was resolved and everyone’s happy again.   But this latest dream of my father left me feeling bereft and missing him very much.    I’m not sure if I’m dealing with feelings of guilt about my dad, about not having done enough to help him, especially in the last years of his life.  I know that my sisters and I all did our best to be the daughters our parents needed us to be, I have no doubt about that.    I don’t know if it has anything to do with the last month of his life, when he was in severe pain, and one night, when I was visiting him in hospital, he told me to bring my truck up the front & take him out of there…..he was obviously delusional, but it was hard seeing him that way.   I could probably be analyzing this forwards and backwards &  come up with many explanations.   I don’t know if the fact that my ex was in there indicates that I still have guilty feelings to work through because of the divorce, as I separated a few months after my dad died.   

Then again, maybe this dream wasn’t about me, maybe it was about my Dad’s painful experiences that are stuck somewhere and need to be acknowledged.  I don’t know.  I’m not a dream interpreter, but I do think that we receive important information through our dreams.   And I think that our grief is expressed in our dream life as much as in our waking life.   I’m just not sure if this is supposed to be a sign of some sort.  I’m paying attention, so I’m guessing that it will reveal itself in time……

Peace,  Chantal   xoxox