Sand/ashes

I had this dream last night (my head has been full of dreams this past week--my subconscious already busy organizing, prioritizing, reflecting, understanding) in which I was talking to my Austen students about my absence. What I told them was that my mom was still hanging on. I said it proudly, though with some worry that I would have to leave to see her again, soon.

"Hanging on" didn't mean that she was still alive, though. It was a dream, after all, and Sandman doesn't make my dream life so simple (the other night, I had a dream in which I was getting the planned tattoo of my mom's name, only it was embellished with other images [a scene from The Simpsons--Homer's bald head shining--and long lines and weird symbols that ran up and down my arm]).

She had passed as she had in real life--only that hadn't meant she was gone. My dream world could not register her as not. So I was simply waiting to see her again, waiting to be with her again, waiting for her to get well, again. Waking up to a reality in which that dream vision is impossible was cruel, painful, and unfair. I knew this impossibility in the dream (I tend to dream lucidly), but I clung--believing, maybe, maybe, maybe. Just around the corner. Alive.

I was speaking with one of our family friends yesterday. She was telling us about the death of one of her close relatives--how hard it was for her when she was cremated (my mom will be cremated today). The body, no longer. No sign of physical existence--or, I guess, only sign and symbol of physical existence.