"Moonlight Sonata"--Beethoven

8 17 2010
My love for music was transferred to my daughter, not surprisingly, and she is napping now to classical music. But any music is enjoyable for her, I suppose. She likes it when we listen to the radio, or when I sing along to my favorite CDs. The classical CD I put on for her now begins with Moonlight Sonata, and for some reason it reminded me of the strange dreams I have been having the past few nights. That, and Interview with the Vampire. Either way, for me it creates a haunting feeling that is both disturbing and beautiful.


In my dreams Mom is always alive. It is as if, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the truths that we hold to be our reality had all been shattered and death did not separate us. In the first dream she was seated on a beautiful turquoise sofa, wearing a shirt of a similar shade. She told me that she loved me more than anything in the whole world. I hugged her and she was real and solid and the fabric of the shirt on my face felt like the turquoise sweatshirt that she had once given me. But I knew these things had to be impossible, and yet, seated before me was my mother, telling me that she loved me. And I screamed. I was terrified suddenly, for reasons not apparent to my dream self. All around us was mist, like my imagination of the heavens, fluffy clouds and things appearing seemingly out of nothingness. Rather than feeling blissful, thankful, or hopeful at seeing my mother, hugging her, and hearing her voice, I felt only terror. Now I don’t know a lot about dream interpretation, but maybe I was afraid that she was still dead and that I was dead too, coming to heaven to finally see her again. That was what terrified me.

Last night my dreams were confusing. First I dreamed that we were at home—at my parent’s house, and that all my clothes were spread out on the sofa bed in the living room and I was flitting around in only my underwear, which was fine until someone who wasn’t family came in suddenly. So I ended up digging for my favorite pair of jeans and a shirt, any shirt, while modestly covering my breasts with one arm. And then the scene changed, we were having dinner—Thanksgiving or some other such holiday in which lots of relatives are present—at what appeared to be an apartment, rented by one sibling or another. The table was low and narrow, I remarked that the place made me feel like a giant (and a 5’2”, that’s saying something), but there seemed to be enough room for everyone. We were circling the kitchen, which was sunny and yellow, and my aunts were there. We were missing my mother, but she was there, too. A line had formed along the counter and we filled our plates. And suddenly Mom was saying something, something I didn’t like or appreciate and I was arguing with her. I was telling her that they would think I was crazy. And they did. Everyone had stopped to look at me from their seats at the table, and I was standing, plate in hand, arguing with my dead mother, whom they could not see or hear. She wanted me to tell them something, and the refusal that had started the argument had revealed my greatest fear. That they would think I was crazy for seeing and talking to my dead mother.

When that terrifying scene ended as suddenly as it had begun I was whisked away to some beach. It was a lake rather than an ocean, and though the beach was sand, it was a muddy dirty sort of sandy substance that in no way resembled the white sand beaches of my childhood vacations. And Mom was gone again. No feeling of her, no apprehension of her ghostly presence. But things were going very wrong. The water was rising, there was some sort of flood and Hugh Laurie, as House, was floating face down in the water. I was close, and helped some men fish him out, only to be completely submerged in a never before televised scene of House. His colleagues were arguing about his brushes with death, whether they should be concerned with losing him, especially after this latest near drowning incident. From behind his desk, one hand clutching his cane as he was about to rise, he said, “Don’t worry about it, this is only season three. If I die now, there won’t be another season. We all know how this ends.”

I exploded into awareness from this last bizarre dreamscape and tried to shake off the feeling of dread that came with seeing and hugging my mother in the turquoise sweatshirt. I have often wondered what happens to people when they die. Is it nothingness, do you get a chance to hang around and haunt people or places, or is there really a heaven and hell? Now more than ever I would like to know the answer to these questions, and yet, finding out the answers for myself terrifies me. I want my mother back. I want her to be here with me. I don’t want her to be dead. I don’t want to die.