Last night I found Mom in a dream. Part memory. Part fantasy. Part wish fulfillment. It was that morning. All of us l sitting around the table talking through the details of her passing, next steps, and so on. Lisa was taking the edge off. Jill was taking control. Betsy was still taking it in. We were all grieving in our own way. You asked me to work on her eulogy, so I got up to take a walk.
The house was buzzing with activity. Kids and adults were everywhere. Everyone she ever knew was there to send her off. I looked into the room where she passed. The sun, still creeping up, cast long shadows across the floor, with beams of dusty light full of hope and potential. But Mom was not there. In her place were sleeping children stirring ever so slightly at my approach. I continued my way down the hall. It was long and dark in that exaggerated way only found in dreamscapes. I came to the second door, but before I could peer in, she was beside me, and with a hand on my shoulder, asked me what I was looking for. Startled from my reverie, I turned to face her. She was radiant and vital in her nightgown, smiling quizzically at me.
“I found it,” I said plainly, and began telling her why, just like the string art sign I made for her in 5th grade, she had been the “World’s Greatest Mom.” She listened patiently as I explained how the abundance of her maternal love had suffused our lives. This, I assured her, was her greatest gift and all that she ever needed to leave us.
The hallway was now awash in yellow as the momentum of gathering daylight spilled through every window. The din of the day was building as the footfalls of frolicking kids thundered all around. She smiled, looked at me, and asked what had changed. Why had she been the “World’s Greatest Mom”? I was momentarily shaken. Without even realizing it, I had used the past tense, but before I could explain myself, she pulled me into a deep embrace. It was one of those full-bodied hugs where you lose yourself completely in the other. I began to sob, and she whispered something that I couldn’t quite make out. The dream began to dissolve as the physical me began sobbing in bed. Blinking awake through tears, I lay there gently sobbing as the realization set in, and I knew what she was trying to tell me. She wasn’t gone.
She didn’t “used to be”.
She is everywhere.
In everything.
She is.
Mannino Acid 