mom | bookbabie

Dear Mom:

Today would have been your 80th birthday. I was wondering what I would say to you if you could be here for just one more birthday, one more Mother’s Day. Then I remembered a dream I had after you passed. I was at a family gathering looking for you. Disappointed I couldn’t find you I sat down at a table and when I looked up you were sitting right across from me. You looked so young and so healthy, you smiled and we got up and embraced. As we hugged I actually felt your hair brush gently against my cheek and it suddenly seemed I was no longer just dreaming, this was an opportunity. I quietly said, “You were a good mom” and I woke with tears in my eyes. I know what I would say to you now if you could somehow magically appear like that for just a few moments today. I would give you a big hug, and then, as I felt your hair brush gently against my cheek I would simply whisper in your ear, “You’re a good mom. Happy birthday, happy Mother’s Day.”

A few nights ago I was dreaming that I was in strange apartment at some kind of family get-together. There were small round tables set up and I was scanning the people at the tables, looking for my mom. I walked over and peered around a half wall and saw her. She appeared how I remember her at the end of her life when she was very ill and I didn’t want to see her that way so I went back and sat down at another table. When I looked up she was sitting across from me, healthy and young, younger than I have conscious memory of her. She tried to say something but I couldn’t understand her so we got up and moved toward each other and we embraced.

I was going to tell her that I wanted her to give me a sign or come to me in my dreams so that I would know that she was okay. But as I wrapped my arms around her and felt the softness of her short curly hair against my left cheek, I suddenly understood what seemed to be happening so instead I simply said, “I just wanted to tell you that you were a great mom.” I woke up with my lips moving and I heard my own whispered voice speaking out loud, “…a great mom.”