Accelerated Adolescence

For in that sleep of Death what dreams may come

I had a dream last night that I went to my favorite high school teacher to tell her that my mother was dying. Her classroom seemed to switch back and forth between a cluttered office (which signified a college setting). I wept openly and my tears did not run spasmodically, making the corners of my eyes ache. They were the tears of the child who knows no restraint, and poured from me even as I told my teacher/professor that my mother was dying, was dead. The dream trailed off into a horror film. I was not the victim nor the victimizer, but the passerby who tried to help, to reach out a hand, inevitably too late. It was as though I was being made the victim by a malevolent force that was determined to ruin me by destroying those around me.

Then, today, I responded to my mother's post and had a cry that made my lymph nodes swell and my eyes ache and my chest burn and my nose run. And, I realized the meaning of my dream; it's as terrifying a meaning as a description.

I have had twenty-two years of relationship with my mother and father. Yet, I have spent so many of them fighting them and resisting them. I understand that a certain amount of this is normal and that I have had a healthy amount of it. Yet, I am frustrated because I have only just begun to understand that I need not struggle with my parents to define myself, I can collaborate. And, now, only when I just figure it out, I face the horrifying prospect of losing my mother, to whom I feel not only a familial bond but, also, a strong spiritual bond. My mother has been two people for me. She has always been my mother but she has also been the sole conduit that I have to my grandmother, my grandmother to whom I also feel a strong spiritual bond, and in that respect, my mother has also been my Mimi.

I am terrified because I feel as though I've drastically failed to meet the commandment, "honor thy father and mother." Not because I feel spiritually lacking, but because I so wish that I had better understood that having done so would mean so much to me. Furthermore, I am paralyzed because, now that I am faced with death, there is no material/physical way in which I can conceive of to display how much respect I have for all of the amazing gifts and qualities that my parents have striven to endow me with. I can't take back the time of my childhood and cannot gain more time in the future.

I am scared. My mother has always been there. When I went to Gambia, I knew that if I got into real trouble that, I might not get out of it, but that there was at least one person in the world who would, guns blazing and bombs exploding, crawl through the minefield to find me and be with me. I was secure. Now, my whole world is insecure, shaky, and meaningless.
And I'm scared.
I want to be small enough to curl up in my mother's lap again. I want to look my mother in the eyes with my teary eyes and say only, "mommy," and know that she knows exactly what I need. However long it's been since I grew into Clifford the big red pain in the ass, I can still distinctly remember the comfort of my mother's lap. She was always soothing and comforting and now I face the prospect that when I will need that most, she will be gone, and that will be the reason.
And I hurt inside.
There is a wound somewhere in me that I cannot locate. Sometimes I can forget about it and pretend that ANOVA is meaningful. I can imagine that maybe glazing over and watching Trigun will help me feel better or making something fabulous to eat will cure the wound. But it is a wound that is a part of me. It is a portion of my core that is changing and there is nothing I can do about it but hurt. It would be best for me to accept that it is changing instead of trying to force it into its old position, but I'm terrified that I'll never be able to remember what used to be like or that it will leave or shrink and leave a space that cannot be filled.

And, even as I cry as I write this and cannot look at the screen because my world is shaking and my head is spinning, I can't but worry about my siblings. Even though they've had more time with my mother, her mother's sin covering eyes hadn't developed the cataracts for them that she had with me. I am cursed to have the least amount of time with my parents but blessed to have the most unconditional love.

That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action —

Posted by Mendon at October 31, 2006 3:45 PM