Dreaming Man

I'm sitting in a Starbucks, of all places, in Pigeon Forge, TN, not too long after it opened for the day.  I despise Starbucks' coffee and tend to avoid it like the plague.  Given that this is Pigeon Forge, however, there isn't an independent coffee shop, with real coffee, anywhere nearby.  I can't wait to get home tomorrow and have my first real cup of coffee in almost a week.

I woke up from a dream at 5:30 a.m. this morning.  It was a dream I needed to have and one I had hoped to have at some point.  I was wide awake and I wanted to write about the dream while it was fresh in my mind.

The dream was, of course, about my mom.  It was the first one I've had - at least the first vivid dream about her I've had - since here death.  I tend to dream a lot, so I felt, and hoped, that it was only a matter of time before I dreamed of her.

In the dream, I was moving out of a room - maybe a room at my fraternity house of my dormitory room - where I had either lived for a quite a while or, more likely, where I used to live, now the I think about it.  It was like I was going back for a weekend or for a short period of time, for a visit, and I tried to find my old room.  No one I knew was there and, initially, I used my key to enter the wrong room, down the hall from where I was.  Strangely, the key looked like the key we used to enter our dormitory room at Reese Hall my freshman or sophomore year in college.

Eventually, I entered the right room.  The room had not been lived in for quite some time.  I noticed there were a few boxes that had been packed, seemingly long ago, sitting in the middle of the floor.  There was one large box that had some of my old stuff in it.  I wish I had looked in the box, in my dream, but I didn't.  I just knew what was in there belonged to me.

Somehow, I went outside, and rather than my room in the dormitory, I was outside a room at my fraternity house, in a grassy area.  I looked around and then, it was like I was inside a larger area again, almost like a lobby or something.

I looked up and there was my mom, standing on a balcony a couple of stories above me, looking down into the lobby area of a hotel.  She was dressed nicely and wearing her glasses.  She was standing on her own, clearly herself, and appeared to be in her mid-50's.  As I gazed up at her, I could tell she wasn't confused, not at all.  That, of course, made me happy.

She didn't appear to be worried or concerned.  She wasn't looking for anyone in particular.  It was like she was just taking in her surroundings.  As I think of it now, it was like she traveling and had stopped somewhere for a brief stay.

I began calling to her - trying to get her attention - and waving.  Initially, I was concerned that others in the lobby would hear me and think I was strange, but I didn't care, so I kept calling and waving.  Not desperately, but just to try to get her attention.  I also was starting to wake up, I think, so I fought hard to stay asleep and stay in the dream long enough for her to see me.

My mom looked down, saw me, and started waving to me.  She recognized me.  I'm sure of that.  She didn't smile broadly at me or try to say anything to me.  She just waved back to me.  I was working so hard to stay in the dream for as long as I could that I didn't really have any time to try an interact with her from afar.  We waved at each other, then, finally, I woke up.

A few minutes later, Jude stirred, then got up to go to the bathroom.  When she returned, I told her about the dream.  "Good," she murmured quietly.  "That's nice."  I lay in bed, thinking, trying to decide what the dream meant.

Now, a little bit about dreams, at least my take on my dreams.  I dream a lot.  Vividly, sometimes.  I always have.

I believe in dreams and the power of dreams.  I think dreams - some dreams, anyway - have a deeper meaning.  I think dreams can contain messages.  From whom?  My subconscious?  Another person?  God?  That part, I'm not so sure about, but I think some dreams are sent to me for a reason, kind of like an e-mail or a letter, only in dream form.

Maybe a dream is a form of healing or a part of healing, as my mind processes grief or tries to make sense of a great loss in my life.  

Maybe a dream - a certain kind of vivid dream - is a kind of Rorschach test that allows me to see what I want or need to see in it - something totally different than what someone else would see.

So, how do I interpret last night's dream?  That's the question of the morning, isn't it?

I know I'll ponder that question throughout the day, and probably for the next few days, but for now, this morning, here's what I think.

In my dream, my mom was on the way somewhere.  She knew where she was going and she had a brief layover.  She was in no hurry.  For sure, she didn't have Alzheimer's disease.  She was in peak form, confident, self-assured, and not worried or afraid.  She wasn't sad.

She saw me and recognized me.  I'm stretching here, a bit, I know, but I think when she waved to me, she wanted me to know that she was okay.  I want to believe that, of course, so I'm going to.

It's my dream, after all.



        

Aftermath

Earlier this week, I called Jude before I left the office for the day to check in.  In our conversation, she mentioned that J.P. had gotten in trouble at aftercare at school but that he could tell me about it when I got home.  That's kind of our deal with the boys.  If there is a problem at school or if they get in trouble, it's their responsibility to talk to us about it that night, at home.  I didn't press the issue with Jude and figured J.P. and I would talk about it later.

We had an uneventful dinner and, truthfully, I had forgotten about it, until right before the boys were to go up and get ready for bed, Jude reminded J.P. to tell me what had happened at aftercare.  He sat down in the chair next the couch and began talking quietly, not making much eye contact with me.  Clearly, he knew he had done something wrong.  I listened.

The long and short of it was that J.P. and three buddies initially had gotten into trouble for running through a hall in the school to get outside to play, when they were supposed to be walking.  The director of middle school aftercare saw them, told them to come back inside and walk in the hall like they were supposed to do.  For some reason, three of the four boys - including J.P. - decided to run again.  She saw them, confronted them about why they were running again when she had just told them not to, and J.P. lied about it.  He said he had been walking, which was obviously not true.

I queried J.P. - cross examined him, actually - and quickly determined he had been third in line.  I know him and he would not have started running a second time if he had been first in line.  My problem, of course, was that he had followed his two buddies as they ran in the hall.  In other words, he was being a follower, not a leader.  

As an aside, leading and leadership is a big thing - maybe the biggest thing for me - when it comes to the boys.  When he was at Children's House, J.P. had a tendency to follow one boy in particular who had a dominant personality.  Occasionally, he made poor choices and did things he normally wouldn't do simply because he was following someone else.  A large part of the reason we decided to start J.P. in school late was so he would be one of the older boys in his class and, hopefully, be a leader.  I didn't want him getting into a car, for example, with a drunk 16 or 17 year old in high school because he didn't have a strong enough personality to tell him or others that he wasn't getting in the car.

So, I told J.P. that I saw two problems with what had happened at aftercare.  

First, he had been a follower.  Followers don't think for themselves.  Followers often follow those who have made bad decisions.  

Second, he lied about what he had done, which was stupid.  His two buddies immediately owned up to it but he, for some reason, lied when the aftercare director had seen them running.  Why?  Because he was scared he would get into trouble.  I told him the lying - or the coverup - was always worse than the offense.  Always.  When you make a mistake, own it, take your punishment like a man, and move on.  

What I learned next, however, broke my heart.  

"Tell Dad the rest of the story, J.P.," Jude said.  "There's more?" I asked.

After he got caught and lied to the aftercare director, she told him she didn't believe him and that she had seen him running.  For some reason, he was stunned the she didn't believe him and had a complete meltdown.  He started crying and when she told him to go back inside, he slammed open the double doors leading into the school and slapped his hands on the table when she told him to sit down.  He was crying harder at this point.  

All very, very unlike J.P.  Really, the entire episode was unlike J.P.  Nothing like this had ever happened at school before.

He cried for five or ten minutes while she watched him.  Then, he caught his breath, leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head and started talking.  

"Ok," he said.  "This is what's going on.  I miss Meemaw - my grandmother.  I haven't been able to talk about it, not really.  My dad has been busy at work, so he hasn't been around as much.  And I don't want to talk to him about how I feel because I'm afraid it will make him sad."

I sat in stunned silence, tears in my eyes, as Jude recounted what J.P. had told the aftercare director, word for word.  J.P. sat across from me, staring at me, crying quietly.  

J.P. got up and walked over to me, then sat down on the couch beside me.  I put my arm around him as he cried and comforted him.  I had tears in my eyes, too. 

He told me how much he missed my mom.  He said he'd been thinking about all of the times when he was little, when he stayed with her and she took him to the Brentwood Public Library and all of the things they did together at her house.  He said he'd just been so sad.

My memory of what I said to him is a blur.  I struggled to find the right words - the perfect words - to comfort my 10 year old son who was carrying such heavy load in his heart.  

I apologized for not checking in on him more to see how he was doing, like I had done the first couple of weeks after my mom died.  He had told me he was fine and that he didn't have any questions or need to talk about it.  I should have been more persistent, more aware of him and how he was feeling.  Instead, I think I was so caught up in my own grief that I assumed he was fine.

I also apologized for having to work so much recently.  I felt terrible about that.  I work in such a demanding profession and missing almost three weeks from work had put me way behind.  Still, I should have found a way to get home earlier.  

We cried together, as Jude watched us.  I told him how much Meemaw loved him and how lucky he was to have spent the times he did with her, because he always would have those memories of her to sustain him.  I told him I was sad, too, but that I was a better person - as was he - for having had her in my life.  

I also told him that I took comfort in knowing my mom was in heaven, that where she was, now, she could walk, laugh and, most importantly, that she had her memory back.  She can remember all of the happy times from her life.  And that's she's watching over us and waiting for us to join her someday.

I'm trying hard, so very hard, to believe that.  It's part of what sustains me, I think, but it's hard.  So damn hard.  

Jude and I took J.P. upstairs and put him to bed.  He was exhausted.  

So was I.

Hope Springs Eternal

I'm coming off a stretch of 5 mediations, a day of depositions and a half day in Court.  That's the price I had to pay, I guess, for the time off work I took in late January and early February when my mom got sick, then died.  

The good news?  I didn't have much time to think about what I had lost.  To grieve, really.  The bad news?  I didn't have much time to think about what I had lost.  To grieve, really.  

Now, I have the time.  And it hurts.  But I'm dealing with it - stoically, I think, as my mom probably would.  I don't talk about it to others, as much.  When I'm asked how I'm doing, like I was when I had coffee with an old friend yesterday, I smile and say, "I'm all right," then quickly change the subject or steer the conversation in a different direction. 

The heart always heals.

So, last night, we had our first baseball practice for the Dodgers, J.P.'s 11 - 12 year old WNSL baseball team.  We've added a few new boys to our roster this spring, so I'm actually running two teams with 19 total boys.  It will be a challenge but one that I'm really looking forward to, for sure.  

I'll also be coaching the Junior Dodgers, Joe's 7 - 8 year old WNSL team.  Their first practice is this weekend.

I needed last night, at practice, in a big, big way.  Shaking hands and introducing myself to the new dads last night before practice - as they leaned on the fence down the right field line; introducing myself to the group and having each boy tell me and our coaches his name and favorite baseball team, as at the boys stood in a circle around me; talking quietly to my assistant coaches; joking with the boys during practice; hitting infield to the boys; throwing with Joe; and hoping into a drill and sprinting to first base with a stopwatch on me as the boys cheered.  

All of those things, and more, helped restore a sense of normalcy to my life that had been missing.  Yes, my mom's gone and that makes me terribly sad.  I miss her every day.  I ache for what has been lost.  But, still, it's baseball season.  And last night, for a little more than an hour, I found myself back where I belong - on a baseball field in the waning light of an early spring evening, coaching a bunch of 10, 11 and 12 year old boys. 

I smiled the whole time.       

Missing Mom

I was the first one in the door at Frothy Monkey in 12South, like the Sunday mornings so often in the last couple of years, when I stopped in here first then went to see my mom.  I'm having a cup of coffee then I've got to head into the office to do some work and for a meeting.

This was a tough week for me.  I was absolutely swamped at work, then had to work at home at night to try to get ready for the next day.  Depositions and mediations all week long.  In the middle of that, I found myself really, really sad - an aching sadness.  Sadness for what I've lost, what my boys lost and what my mom lost.  

I'm told by many, virtually everyone, that it will get better with time and that there are good days and bad days.  It seems like it's going in the opposite direction right now for me.

I miss my mom terribly.  I miss the person she was in the last couple of years so much more than I thought was humanly possible.  I miss her smile and her happiness when I walked into the Courtyard.   I miss reading poetry from the New Yorker to her during my visits.  I miss watching her eat a donut on Sunday morning, when I brought a dozen and left them for the staff.  I miss the sense of purpose I had in working time into my schedule to see her.  I miss the sense of peace I often got when I was with her.  I miss watching my boys - my gentle, loving boys - read to her and to Ms. Carol.

The finality of it all is so heavy on my heart.  Life goes on all around me and I have to go on with it.  But it's hard, damn hard to find the energy to do all I need to do at work and be all I need to be at home, with the boys and Jude.

A couple of nights ago, I watched a video from about a year ago of my mom in the library at NHC Place, reading a poem to me.  Watching her read and hearing her voice stopped my heart.

I miss you, mom.