The storm was present in my consciousness all night. Ebbing and flowing, the wind blowing throughout my sleep.
I was dreaming of snow- a snowstorm to be exact. The wind whistling through the cracks in the window, the sound of the snow drifting up against the house, and the knowledge that the world would look different when we woke up.
I was cozy in my bed, warm and snug, knowing my parents would keep me that way- safe and comfortable while they slept across the hallway.
I woke up- not in the snow, but to the rain. And I achingly missed my parents as I hadn't in years.
To explain, I have always felt pulled in two directions - between the life I have here in California and the one I could have lead in Wisconsin, with my parents and siblings.
We were in our twenties and blithley got in our little car and drove to California, breaking my parents' hearts.
We saw them once or twice a year, but it wasn't the same as living in the same town or even the same state.
I remember once I called my mom. She said, " It's snowing. The first snowfall of the year."
"Is it sticking? " I asked.
"Oh yes. It's so pretty."
"Oh," I said. She knew by the tone in my voice how I missed seeing that layer of soft white muffling the sound and turning everything into beauty.
The last time I talked to her, there was no snow. I said, " You have to eat." She said, " I ate a strawberry. When are you coming?"
"July fifteenth."
" That's not soon enough."
"Well, that's when we have our reservations."
And she was right, as she was so many times when I only half listened.
Upon landing, the pilot said, " It is four o'clock in Wisconsin."
When we got to the house, my Dad said, "She died at four o'clock.
Indeed, it wasn't soon enough.
In a dream quite a few years ago, my grandmother and I were standing in the back garden, the one my mother had created, with lilac bushes, snapdragons, phlox and lilies of the valley. We were looking at the full moon.
My grandmother said, "Look at the moons."
And then there were many moons, one above the other in its own strip of sky, each a different shade of color. Silver, pink, orange, blue and more.
I looked and thought, " Parallel moons, parallel lives, each one a possible life, a constellation of a turning point, I could have chosen."
And now I am about the age my mother was when I last spoke to her. And I look at the "Grandmother Moon" dream a little differently. The moons seem to me to be the stages in a woman's life. Infant, child, maiden, mother, and grandmother.
And so, I say to my mother," Thank you for bearing me, even though I caused you pain. Thank you for giving me this remembrance full of joy and pain."
I know you experienced happiness, for I have a memory and a picture of you as a young mother, doing a cartwheel on our grass, laughing and full of joy.
I know you showed me the for-get-me-nots that were your mother's favorite flower, so I would remember her and you.
And I do remember.
I was looking for you after dinner. You were lying on your bed, tired after feeding and looking after a family of five. You moved over to let me lie next to you. And we listened to the crickets through the screen in the summer night.
Namaste, Lia
