Suburban Diva
by Tracey Henry

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Clean your room

 I’ve managed to make it over 3 decades without suffering from a recurring nightmare. In fact, I’ve sort of prided myself on being able to subconsciously control the outcomes of my dreams if I don’t like the direction they are taking. I might have even held some secret disdain for those who are plagued by a recurring nightmare--suspecting a lack of nighttime creativity.

Unfortunately, that attitude has changed, as well as the lack of the nightmare reruns. And it has become more than a little unsettling.

In various forms, it’s a dream about my Mom coming back. Although she’s been gone close to nine years, I still miss her terribly. The grief is fresh, as it always is no matter how many morbid markers we pass, and this week it’s her birthday. She would have been 62.

“Who do I look like?” My oldest son asks.

“Exactly like my mother,” I answer. Because it’s true.

I’ve been missing her a lot lately--as the kids get older I still catch myself turning to make sure she’s seen that particular smile or heard that baby giggle. She’s never there though, and I go through an instantaneous and brutal reminder of her illness, her death and then our grief. Every day.

But in the dream she is there. She shows up one day as if she had just been out for milk for the last nine years, but nothing is how she left it. All of her clothes are gone. Her house isn’t recognizable, and she can’t find things she knows were there when she left. There are new people here that she doesn’t know. She’s not angry at all of this; just confused. My sister and I scramble. We make excuses and try to put things back to the way they were, but the changes are too big, too obvious. I am ashamed that all of this life went on without her while she was gone.

My Grandpa calls. “You sound just like her,” he says sadly.

“I’m sorry,” I say because it‘s true.

I wake up. I know immediately that it was a dream, and yet, I wonder why this scene is the one that plays out over and over and over without ever resolving itself. I spend the next day out of sorts, rearranging my memories so that she can find them. I know that this is supposed to be the dawn of an epiphany; but I am still in the dark.

I’ve tried to figure out what this dream means. I know she’s not coming back now matter how much I want her to. And I can’t figure why she’s never mad--just confused. Why doesn’t she understand that had we known she was coming back, there would have been a plate in the refrigerator for her, and we would have saved her place in line?

Sometimes when I wake up from this dream in the middle of the night, my daughter is attached to me as she sleeps. She wraps her arms around my neck so tightly, I feel as though she is trying to crawl back into the womb through my spinal cord. Maybe she misses it there.

Maybe the dream means I feel guilty on some level. I feel guilty that life has gone on reluctantly. But that’s not being honest. I don’t really feel that even if I should.

Maybe I’m angry at her for leaving too soon. But, again, I’m not. I know that it wasn’t her choice to die. Her last words to me were her realization of what was happening. She was lying in that hospital bed and said, “It can’t be true.” And then she cried. And there was no one to protect either of us from that horrible doom. Hopelessness isn’t wistful or merely downtrodden. It’s violent. Piercing and bone-crushing. And relentless.

My middle son keeps finding her charm bracelet around the house. I told him the pennies from heaven theory. He is enchanted by this and shows me every place the bracelet turns up proudly.

When we lose someone we love, it’s like losing a member of the team of people who love you. The team becomes unbalanced in a game against the universe. But when you lose a parent, it’s like losing the star player, coach, captain and cheerleader all at once. I should just forfeit now, because without her, I don’t stand a chance.

Maybe it’s my grief itself I’m angry with. I’m a grown-up. Sort of. I should be equipped with better coping skills than a child who has lost their mother. Children should be indulged; adults should be martyrs. I should be rational. I should understand and accept. I should stop dwelling, and clean up after myself. I should put it all away.

But I don’t know where to put it.

The sun shines, awakening a thought. Maybe I’ve got this wrong. She’s not the one who is dazed and confused. She knows perfectly well where things are. She always did. It’s me who is lost.

I’m lost because I don’t know where to put it all.

There’s a spot over there in Stevie’s eyes. Matty found a corner next to the bracelet I keep taking out. Amy is trying to make a path to that stubborn heart of yours, but you just keep moving her back to the middle of the bed. And you know what? I couldn’t carry a note in a bucket either, but Jessica needs to hear us sing anyway. There’s plenty of room for everything if you just cleaned up your room every once in a while.