Last night I dreamed about Mom. It was a good dream. She was sitting in a place that wasn’t specifically familiar to me, but for some reason it felt like home. It looked very much like “her space”: a little cluttered with too much stuff, dimly lit, and very cozy. She was young, perhaps 30 at the most, with her gorgeous black hair pulled back loosely, swept to one side over her right eyebrow. She was slender, too. I asked her, “Mom, how much weight have you lost?” She answered, “About 45 pounds.” I said, “Well, you look great.” She smiled hugely and said something in response, but upon waking, I lost the rest of our conversation. I woke up feeling very good, and the feeling has pretty much stayed with me all day.
I’m sure it sounds like a strange dream, as most dreams are. I didn’t perceive it as strange though. I saw her much as I would expect to see her, and in an environment that seemed right. Her surroundings bore her unique stamp: comfy, dark, and overflowing with dainty knick-knacks. You see, Mom could never say no to anything pretty and sparkly if she had the money to buy it, and because she loved yard sales and second hand shops, her home was full of things that made her smile, just a few too many of them! And her house was always dark because she was forever hot-natured. She kept the blinds closed to keep out the heat of the sun, plus she eschewed overhead lights, preferring small, fancy lamps instead. So in the dream, her environment was as it should be.
The conversation about her weight is not surprising either. Mom’s beauty had been a part of her identity since she was a little girl; people often remarked about the pretty, petite girl with the mane of dark curls. She grew into a striking young woman with a feminine figure that she kept well into middle age. She wasn’t unpleasant about it, as some beautiful women are; her beauty was simply a part of her. She was often frustrated with the aging process. Recently, it became more difficult to keep her weight down, and for the past few years, she weighed – look at this; I just counted it out so I could write it down – almost exactly 45 pounds more than she had in her youth. She said to me many times over the past year or so, “If I could just get rid of this belly!” And so, in the dream she finally has, hasn’t she?
It’s no surprise this dream makes me happy. I don’t know how much is actual reality and how much are just my thoughts of her. I do know that she is young and beautiful again, like she was; of that I am certain. Gone is the grey hair, and also the bleach blonde she loved so much in her later years; her black, native American locks are back, and they are gorgeous against her unlined, olive skin. She is petite and pretty, and comfortable in her skin, if I can say that about her now. This is how I remember her best.
A few weeks after Mom died, one of my friends told me of her mother-in-law’s death at 55. Apparently she was a beautiful woman; my friend even pulled out an old yearbook and showed me a picture of her to prove it. She always used to say that she would die young, my friend said. In fact, she predicted her own death at 55. It seems she knew she didn’t want to become old, elderly, even, and perhaps infirm. She wanted to be always beautiful, always young, always happy to look in the mirror. The story is double-edged. It is sad to be willing to die rather than become wrinkled and old-looking. But it is happy because this Christ-follower is, indeed, beautiful again. As is my mom.
I hope your home There is full of mirrors, Mom.
What Living Feels Like 