A Visit From Mom!
Well, it couldn't have come at a better time. I have been gloomy and morbid ever since the night she died, busily processing every bit of data from those last scary days in Room 251. I wasn't really done letting go of them until I had recorded every saline solution, every steroid packet ("to give her strength") every plastic bag hanging from her fluids rack, every drip of the nebulizer bottle beneath her face mask, every count of every number on every machine she was hooked to via her nose and swollen arms and hands.
She arrived between 5:30 and 7:30 this morning, on the heels of a double bill of "Burns and Allen" and "The Jack Benny Program" on the geezer channel. I'd consumed about half a bottle of Blue Moon beer (left over from Crosby's Intersection homily) before I fell asleep.
Things started out as a Wesleyan dream. I visited the college at some point and was very pleased with a hooded windbreaker I discovered in my knapsack; it was light and handsome with an orange caste to it and a kind of burnt orange cross that covered the back and extended over the hood. It wasn't until after I woke up that I realized it was slightly analogous to a pajama top that Jack Benny had been wearing in one of his gags. Gracie Allen would also wind up as part of Mom's visit later on.
I made it back from Middletown without any escapades. It was not a transportation dream per se. Nor was there any problem locating any item of clothing upon leaving. On the contrary, the dream seemed to go out of its way to emphasize how easy and convenient the pathway was between Middletown and wherever it was I was returning to. As is so common with these dreams, it was an amalgam of different places I consider "home". It could have been the Brooklyn apartment - there were a lot of white walls. But, I had the distinct impression that there were a lot of other people around, which led me to believe that I could have been at St. Michael's. There was a lot of food being served.
Finally, I realized I was back at Mommyland. But, a superannuated Mommyland. Someone had purchased the house next door and turned it into one property. Money had been put into landscaping the front (and presumably the back) yard. I stared in wonderment from what would have been Mom's old bedroom window at the young saplings and bushes that occupied the street side of the house. Seemingly gone was the old water-hungry lawn and in its place were gently raked woodchips.
I was ready to go back to Middletown for some reason (maybe because I could so easily) and had donned a completely different windbreaker, a black one. And, like Jack Benny, in the show I had fallen asleep watching, I had forgotten I was already wearing the nicer, orange-colored one from the trip before. That was when Mom arrived.
I was so happy to see her. She was as the undertaker had made her appear in her casket, a retired, middle-class matron of about sixty-five.
I was glad that she was back at Mommyland and could see it in all its glory. Without actually using words, she seemed to be making a statement: That Mommyland was where she wanted to be. It wasn't Down South (though, she enjoyed the funeral - obviously), and it certainly wasn't the nursing home or anyplace in or around Flushing (that was clear.) But, that this was her home, the place that she had purchased half a century ago with my Dad.
Which raises the question, where was Dad? I don't know. It's hard enough to get a visitation from one deceased person at a time. I have very rarely received one from two at a time.
Evidently, the television was on, as it so often was in Mom's bedroom and it was tuned to - you guessed it - the geezer channel. Mom was about to leave the room and do something else in the house when she glanced at the screen and recognized Gracie Allen whom she had not seen, with anything approaching good eyesight, in possibly ten years. She was fascinated by the petite comedienne with impeccably good taste in clothing and hair and made a beeline to the t.v. screen.
In this version of her brand new bedroom, the television set was against the wall that faced the far side of her bed. There was a window (I would almost call it a corner window) to one side of it and room for all of us to sit in comfortable chairs with our legs stretched and plenty of wood flooring in front of us. I couldn't help but notice how much bigger the room seemed and said so.
Mom just smiled.
She arrived between 5:30 and 7:30 this morning, on the heels of a double bill of "Burns and Allen" and "The Jack Benny Program" on the geezer channel. I'd consumed about half a bottle of Blue Moon beer (left over from Crosby's Intersection homily) before I fell asleep.
Things started out as a Wesleyan dream. I visited the college at some point and was very pleased with a hooded windbreaker I discovered in my knapsack; it was light and handsome with an orange caste to it and a kind of burnt orange cross that covered the back and extended over the hood. It wasn't until after I woke up that I realized it was slightly analogous to a pajama top that Jack Benny had been wearing in one of his gags. Gracie Allen would also wind up as part of Mom's visit later on.
I made it back from Middletown without any escapades. It was not a transportation dream per se. Nor was there any problem locating any item of clothing upon leaving. On the contrary, the dream seemed to go out of its way to emphasize how easy and convenient the pathway was between Middletown and wherever it was I was returning to. As is so common with these dreams, it was an amalgam of different places I consider "home". It could have been the Brooklyn apartment - there were a lot of white walls. But, I had the distinct impression that there were a lot of other people around, which led me to believe that I could have been at St. Michael's. There was a lot of food being served.
Finally, I realized I was back at Mommyland. But, a superannuated Mommyland. Someone had purchased the house next door and turned it into one property. Money had been put into landscaping the front (and presumably the back) yard. I stared in wonderment from what would have been Mom's old bedroom window at the young saplings and bushes that occupied the street side of the house. Seemingly gone was the old water-hungry lawn and in its place were gently raked woodchips.
I was ready to go back to Middletown for some reason (maybe because I could so easily) and had donned a completely different windbreaker, a black one. And, like Jack Benny, in the show I had fallen asleep watching, I had forgotten I was already wearing the nicer, orange-colored one from the trip before. That was when Mom arrived.
I was so happy to see her. She was as the undertaker had made her appear in her casket, a retired, middle-class matron of about sixty-five.
I was glad that she was back at Mommyland and could see it in all its glory. Without actually using words, she seemed to be making a statement: That Mommyland was where she wanted to be. It wasn't Down South (though, she enjoyed the funeral - obviously), and it certainly wasn't the nursing home or anyplace in or around Flushing (that was clear.) But, that this was her home, the place that she had purchased half a century ago with my Dad.
Which raises the question, where was Dad? I don't know. It's hard enough to get a visitation from one deceased person at a time. I have very rarely received one from two at a time.
Evidently, the television was on, as it so often was in Mom's bedroom and it was tuned to - you guessed it - the geezer channel. Mom was about to leave the room and do something else in the house when she glanced at the screen and recognized Gracie Allen whom she had not seen, with anything approaching good eyesight, in possibly ten years. She was fascinated by the petite comedienne with impeccably good taste in clothing and hair and made a beeline to the t.v. screen.
In this version of her brand new bedroom, the television set was against the wall that faced the far side of her bed. There was a window (I would almost call it a corner window) to one side of it and room for all of us to sit in comfortable chairs with our legs stretched and plenty of wood flooring in front of us. I couldn't help but notice how much bigger the room seemed and said so.
Mom just smiled.