Nightmares and Illusions

It is always the same dream. The circumstances change and set up changes, but the events never do. Over and over. It used to be traumatic, but now I just roll over with a sigh and go back to sleep.

In the dream, she is alive again, but still ill. Deathly ill. I desperately try to get a hold of my brother—to tell him that she’s back and that she’s still dying and that he needs to come and be there.  She never speaks, and she always does the kinds of things she did before she died…

She is confined to a wheel chair or bed. If she has her mobility, she uses it to stumble endlessly around a kitchen island claiming that she just needs to walk (as if she could walk off the cancer—I hated watching her do that, watching her struggle). She does not understand that she is dying. She can’t breathe. Sometimes, my brain likes to mix it up and make it her heart which is failing instead of her lungs, but the end result is always the same: the wide eyes…the fear…that haunting look of surprise and terror…

 She was not ready to go. I don’t care what she said or what anyone else said about what happened that night. I was the one who was there when it started. Death surprised her. She was terrified and all I did was tell her it was going to be okay when I knew damn well that it wasn’t. Her death was not peaceful and no matter how many people tell me it was “for the best”, in my dreams the horrible truth is ever present and gruesomely clear.

This time, I called 911.

That was new. Usually, I just stand there and watch like I did when it happened. Or at most, try to get my brother to come. This time, he was already there in the dream, using a defibrillator to try and restart the heart that was failing in her chest. Her eyes were wide like my last memory of her and I couldn’t take it anymore. I called 911.

The operator answered and with a small pause said, “My records show that the last time you called this number it was because your mother had died, is that correct?”

“Yes,” I said, “She’s alive again, but she’s having a heart attack.”

“That’s to be expected, ma’am. It’s probably for the best. This is much better than respiratory failure.”

I look over where she is arching off the bed, her eyes bulging. It doesn’t look better to me. But I can’t think of anything to say and the operator hangs up. My brother kept trying to save her.

I wake once again left with the image of her eyes showing pain and fear….

I don’t dwell on it for more than a few seconds. I have a life to live—I can’t spend it remembering her eyes.

It isn’t on my mind as I drift through my day. But later I am driving to Wal-mart and suddenly realize I am thinking casually about how different the world is without her, and yet, how nothing seems to have changed.  I don’t push the thought away, and a moment later my mind has continued the train of thought and arrived at musing about how I now know exactly which songs on my mp3 player will make me cry with the memory of her because they are the ones I never play. I am surprised at the next revelation: I could use those songs to make myself cry. I now have the strange ability to feel deep, genuine pain whenever I want to. It’s a strange thought to have, I realize, and I let it pass, returning to the normal order of my day.

I spend the evening practicing card illusions and wondering at my choice of activity. Shouldn’t I be beading? Writing? Meditating? Anything other than practicing silly card tricks… I am suddenly seized by guilt. I haven’t made any offerings to Netjer or Akhu in a while. I haven’t been in the shrine room formally in days due to purity, but I don’t have that limitation anymore. I should go. Surely I am shirking my duties to the Names and to the faith. I even missed the Dua on Wednesday because I was practicing illusions and lost track of time.

It was not required of you to go, says a small still voice from beyond my conscious mind.

 But I should have gone. Failing that, I should have gone to the fellowship chat the next night. There is no answer from the quiet part of me which is watching the cards tumble deftly through my hands. But I cannot leave it alone. I am ignoring terrifying dreams about my mother, I think, and I am the only one still honoring her so late in the wake of her death. Shouldn’t I make an offering at the Akhu altar tonight? Shouldn’t I be focusing on her?

You will attend the Dua on Sunday and honor her there.

 There is no arguing with that: I fully intend to make sure I am at that gathering. As well as the other gatherings scheduled for the weekend. I start for the second time on a flourish I am having trouble with. I am engaged in the task, but I still feel guilty. I still feel like I’m just goofing off. Shouldn’t I be doing something productive?

This is productive, the voice reminds me, it is part of our work. The answers we seek lie within. Now focus. 

I do.