These Dreams

In the past few weeks, I've had several very bizarre dreams. Because this is not a dream journal, and I don't really think blurting out the contents of my subconscious is a good thing to do in an online arena, I avoid sharing the images of the night with you, dear reader. But the dream I had last night brings some thoughts to mind, which are things I should think about and wonder during the daylight hours. Plus, I'm at a loss as to what to write about today.

Many of you know my mom. Swirlie is a good nickname for her, bestowed upon her by my dear friend Wob from High School. Swirlie is a great grandma, a fun person. She lets me and my sister make fun of her all the time, and she can dish it out as well as she takes it. I credit her fully for my sense of humor (dark and sinister as it may be) and thank her wholeheartedly for supporting me, helping with our stupid weiner kids when she can, and for just being the best mom she could be.

The one thing I have a problem with is her smoking. My whole entire life she has smoked. I had horrible allergies. Mom took me to several ENTs who said "she's allergic to smoke." But no one in the house quit smoking. I went through a bottle of actifed a week instead.

I locked myself in my bedroom for four years and didn't come out because I just couldn't stand smelling smoke anymore. I'd go to youth group meetings, and the holier than thou kids would wrinkle their noses at me, thinking I was the smoker when I really just carried the stench from the car ride, which my mother was gracious enough to provide for me. I felt judged because of her habit. I really hated that.

She quit for a while in 2003/2004. For quite a while as a matter of fact. And then she started up again. It really bothered me when she did. I mean, she was in the hospital for like a week one winter, and quit out of necessity... and did a great job of staying smoke free for a good long time. But with any addiction, there is the backslide. And she didn't maintain her "sobriety" as it were.

She gets defensive about her smoking habit, and often times says "It's my only vice. I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't do a lot of bad things. This is all I've got as a vice so lay off..." While it is true that video games are her only REAL vice, dude -- she's such an addict -- she does the smoking thing, and I guess there's nothing I can do to change it.

A long time ago, I asked her if she realized what she was doing to herself. Again -- the defensiveness, and she brought up that I'm overweight and turned the tables asking me if I'd considered what I'm doing to myself. Touché. She doesn't seem concerned or worried that she'll end up like Auntie H who passed away in February, refusing to use an oxygen tank or any other COPD breathing assistance when she is horribly emphyzemic and suffering.

This all brings me to my dream. In my dream, she finds out she's got advanced lung cancer and it has spread to her bones. And that two years ago when she was sick and in the hospital, the cancer had started and they didn't detect it at the time... and so she's gone untreated for two years.

And she is crying.

She is crying, weeping and sobbing, which in and of itself surprises me... for someone who has always been "Ces't La Vie" about her smoking. Whatever will be will be. But now, faced with the undeniable truth that she is going to die a very painful and horrible death... much sooner than later, she's devastated.

And she is ranting. She is SCREAMING... not taking this very well. She is blaming the doctors, the nurses, the entire hospital system for not catching it when she was in there. She is blaming off-shoring, "some goddamn Indian in some backwater lab reading her chest X-rays in 2003 didn't catch it" and it's all their fault. She's blaming my father for quitting in 1993... because he continues to stress her out and MAKE her want to smoke. Stress is more to blame than the doctors now. And now the neighborhood in which they live is to blame. It's a horrible place and so it stresses her out even more and she smokes to deal with it.

And I'm sitting there in the dream, growing more and more furious...

... because what I don't hear her saying is what I expected. That "Whatever will be will be" attitude that she wore so well for so long.

"Oh well. I guess it is all my fault for smoking in the first place and continuing to do so for 50 years."

I hear everyone else on the planet is to blame except for her.

And I lose it.

I start SCREAMING back at her. I am shocked as I'm sitting here just recalling this dream and the fury that I unleash upon her as she's reduced to crying and tears and pain... and I'm screaming at her that it is all her own fault. She cannot have the unmitigated gaul to blame an X-ray technician for misreading her film. She needs to own this. She needs to embrace it... it's her creation, not some sort of "Call Attorney Jim Sokolove and get all the money humanly possible out of the medical malpractice suit that you can!" situation.

I call her a stupid selfish bitch. And I leave her there.

I wake up. I'm deeply aware... of how horrible I was in this dream. That I am not the person I play myself to be. Where the hell did this absolutely violent freak-out against my mom come from?

More often than not, I believe very strongly that I am a giving, supportive and kind soul.

I'll hold your hand when you stub your toe or your house burns down. I'll donate money to your kid's Big Box Of Words fund. I'll give you money for your cat to have surgery. I'll write about your problem and send you all the mojo and prayer I can. I'll hand your resume to everyone I know when you lose your job. I will listen to you bitch about your boss, and try and add humor to lighten the situation. I sit in incredibly busy and stressful office situations and always try and be the one who steps up, takes jobs, helps out -- take one for the team.

I do so not out of some sort of "I feel so much cooler about myself when I help people!" deal -- but because I believe so deeply that God wants us to love and support one another at every possible turn. As much as he wants us to praise him in thanks when things are going wrong, he wants us to be his vessel of love and lift one another up. That is how God works miracles. That is love. That is what makes the world go round.

And there's my mother.

How do I treat her in my dream? Like filth. When she needs me to put my arm around her and say "oh, honey..." I verbally rape her heart and soul with the most vile emotional beating that I can give out. It's beyond "Hey, I told you so." It's outright damnation.

I don't doubt for a minute that in the next 20 years I'll truly face this situation. How will I handle it? We joke around, my sister and I, that Tree is the one who will get to deal with Swirlie when the time comes to pick a home... and then Doug says "But I work for a nursing home chain, so I get a 10% discount if you put her in one of ours." As always, we deal with what may be the harsh reality with a lot of inappropriate humor. When the time really comes though... I hope I will handle the situation with a bit more kindness and dignity.

But really -- am I wrong in my dream? My position is the truth. Did I just deliver the truth with a bit too much loud, angry honesty and not enough gentle, political aplomb? "Gee honey, sorry you have such a rotten and horrible disease but... you yourself should have seen it coming and it's no one's fault but your own. There, there. Have a tissue."

Because it is a dream, I don't know where it leaves off. It's not a movie, a DVD that I can pick a scene and watch over again to spot the flaw in my action. It is a leak in my true feelings towards my mom, and what I may be left to deal with because of choices she made in the 1950s... and continues to make today. I'm afraid I may not like the ending... but will try and do better in playing my role when the time comes.

I love my mother. I truly and honestly do. I want the best for her... not the easiest out for me when her time to shed the mortal coil comes. And really, who knows -- I could die before her, and even though she smokes up until her dying day she could be an 90 year old grumpy old lady yelling at people in Doug's nursing home (10% discount! Woo hoo!) when I'm dead and in the ground 10 years from some fat lady disease.

And she'll be able to say "I told you so."