My dream tonight was very strange.It took place where we used to live almost twenty years ago.I was driving the car I had then, and going right down the street where we used to live.For some reason, the car stopped running,and I walked down to the bar at the end of the block, which I never did when we lived there.I went in, and sat at a booth, with a cup of coffee, knowing that this was all wrong,and wondering what I was doing here, when all at once, I heard a very familiar voice...it was MOM! Someone who sounded just like my mother was sitting at the bar, talking to the bartender about her husband, and I raised up, and saw the back of a small woman, with bright red hair,done up beautifully,just as my mother did her hair,and when she spoke, she gestured in the air, with those lovely artistic, expressive hands that I knew so well.I looked harder, scarcely daring to believe my eyes, and sure enough, those were the well-manicured nails she filed into perfect ovals,with glistening polish without a chip or a smudge,and I saw again the skin of those tender hands,every wrinkle and freckle just as I remembered them, when she would sooth my fevered brow when I had scarlet fever,or tonsillitis, or any of a dozen other illnesses she nursed me through.This woman even held her cigarette the same way my mother did,and used it to punctuate the air during her conversation. "Mother?" I said it without thinking,questioningly, but I knew it had to be her.But it couldn't be her.She passed away over ten years ago! I held my breath then, for the woman was turning towards me, And there was that dear oval face, with the ivory complexion, those high-arched auburn brows, those shining clear blue-green eyes,that classic noble nose, and that curvy mouth which as soon as she saw me broke into a wide white smile! She called me by name,and then sighed,and held out her arms to me, "my little pigeon!" she called, it's so good to see you here! I ran to her, and hugged her and held her by her little shoulders,and kissed her, and laughed and cried, and did what I always did upon meeting her after a long separation. I put my lips close to her ear as I held her close and softly said, " My little mommy." Then as we broke from our embrace, things shifted,and I was no longer taller than she,and I wasn't up walking or running any more, I was back in my wheelchair.She leaned over and looked at me,and smoothed my hair back behind my ears the way she used to, and looked very serious.Oh, honey, she said, what has happened to you? I tried to tell her that this is the progression of my disease, and tried to remind her that I told her about it back in '93 just before Al died, and she snorted. "Oh, but he's not dead, but I'm going to make him wish he were!" She said," Wait till I tell you what that dirty dog did to me!"She said, I was just telling...(whatever the bartenders name was, I can't recall) all about it,and she is going to help me.Then the scene shifted again,and we were in this woman's kitchen, and it was a wondrous large place, with all the earmarks of a chef's kitchen.It was a huge island kitchen, with all the gleaming metal counter space you can imagine,and pans hanging overhead,and banks of dozens of stove burners,and all of them seemed to be occupied with skillets of frying fish,and saucepans.we were all chopping onions and other vegetables and slicing lemons and limes,and fish stock and spices were being combined in the saucepans, with the onions being thrown into a pan to be caramelized with big chunks of butter and this strange woman/bartender was explaining that it is traditional for women to use poison to punish wayward husbands.I remember looking into those pans,and seeing two browned whole fish sizzling in butter in each one,and the sauce being assembled, and then I heard;
"Mom? Honey. It's time to get up and take your nighttime meds. Here, give me your hand,and I'll help you out of bed."I raised up and wiped the tears from my cheeks and eyes,and gave him my hand. As he pulled me from the bed, and I got my feet under me, I remember thinking, how odd that dream had been, and how each of them, my father, and both step-fathers had passed away, under a doctor's care, without any question as to the cause.Dad died at home, of uremic poisoning, because his kidneys had shut down,and he had requested going home, because he didn't want to die in a hospital. He wanted to be home, in his own bed, sitting up for a while every day in his own chair, looking out the picture window at the woods across the street,having home cooked meals,and listening to mother playing the piano for him.It was all very quiet and serene,and the doc came every day to give him pain shots,and right up to the last day, he was lucid and comfortable, unencumbered by wires and hoses and things.
Tony died of cancer, in the hospital, and Al died of pneumonia, in the hospital,and in Al's case, mother wasn't even at the hospital.
It was after all, just a silly dream...Oh,but say, it was wonderful seeing mom again!
OUI?
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