MY MOTHER RETURNED from the dead in a dream the other night. She appeared at the door and told me she needed a place to sleep and asked to come inside. I told her we thought she had died. I panicked. We got rid of your bed, I told her. We gave away all your things.
It didn’t matter, she said, and pushed her way through the door and into the hallway of the home she’d made her own with wild wallpaper featuring flowers and birds. I need a place to sleep, she said, having returned from the dead, the Arcadia home was of course the obvious choice.
But I’d already been living there for about six years and the rooms of this home she’d made for her daughters had shifted slowly like the dunes—rearrangements had led to a feeling of derangement—and nothing was recognizable to the version of her who slipped out of time-space eight years prior.
So I made a proposal that I thought made sense. You can sleep in the basement, I said. The basement? She repeated with incredulous disdain. Yes, the basement—the dark, dank and dusty dungeon with asbestos tiles and abandoned bar—where we did our laundry and dried it but otherwise avoided it! It was scary.
I’m not sleeping in the basement, she told me. But I tried to convince her it was a good option—lots of space to make it her own, and a table down there to continue with her crafts, if she so chose—to no avail.
When we report back on our dreams, let’s be honest—a lot gets improvised. We fill in the blanks where the unconscious dream state left us lacking essential information. The dream really came to me in only four beats: 1. the knock at the door, 2. the request for refuge, 3. the basement discussion 4. the conclusion, that she would not, after all, be staying at the house on her tour back to the land of the living.
But what she said to me at the end of the dream, I remember clearly:
“We all need a nice place to land [when we return from the dead],” her exact words.
When I woke up, I cobbled together the puzzle pieces of the dream so I could tell it to my sisters, who I knew would appreciate the way our bold, dead mother still speaks through us. Every so often, one of us will hear her voice emerge in a phrase that was uniquely hers, and we'll say it aloud to the others for confirmation: "Isn't that neat?" "Over my dead body." "You know what this is?" Stuff like that.
The dream startled me. What did it all mean? Sometimes I’m self-conscious about the way I’ve assumed many aspects of my mother’s life after she died. I drive her Black Honda—one of the last remaining stick shifts on the planet—and I cook her recipes in her kitchen. I picked up where she left off with her obsession with vintage and antiques. I love Michigan because she loved Michigan. We’re still collecting Victorian teacups. (Help!)
The dream made me wonder if she was trying to nudge me out of the nest, so to speak, to remind me that this place was made by her, and I was living out her vision, that I should try to work on my own.
Many of the details disappeared as the days wore on, but that last statement she made in the dream stuck with me. How we all need a nice place to land when we return from long journeys to other worlds—other times, spaces, places, phases in our lives—we all need to feel that when we return from somewhere else—be it the land of the dead or the land of the unfamiliar—we know where we can rest our weary bodies.
I only hope that if and when she returns home next time, I’ll be more gracious and mature as an adult daughter greeting her dead mother at the door, and tell her she’s welcome to stay here for as long as she needs or desires before she heads out again, as I know she will.
Our mother was always very busy—out and about—and headed for the open road.
It didn’t matter, she said, and pushed her way through the door and into the hallway of the home she’d made her own with wild wallpaper featuring flowers and birds. I need a place to sleep, she said, having returned from the dead, the Arcadia home was of course the obvious choice.
But I’d already been living there for about six years and the rooms of this home she’d made for her daughters had shifted slowly like the dunes—rearrangements had led to a feeling of derangement—and nothing was recognizable to the version of her who slipped out of time-space eight years prior.
So I made a proposal that I thought made sense. You can sleep in the basement, I said. The basement? She repeated with incredulous disdain. Yes, the basement—the dark, dank and dusty dungeon with asbestos tiles and abandoned bar—where we did our laundry and dried it but otherwise avoided it! It was scary.
I’m not sleeping in the basement, she told me. But I tried to convince her it was a good option—lots of space to make it her own, and a table down there to continue with her crafts, if she so chose—to no avail.
When we report back on our dreams, let’s be honest—a lot gets improvised. We fill in the blanks where the unconscious dream state left us lacking essential information. The dream really came to me in only four beats: 1. the knock at the door, 2. the request for refuge, 3. the basement discussion 4. the conclusion, that she would not, after all, be staying at the house on her tour back to the land of the living.
But what she said to me at the end of the dream, I remember clearly:
“We all need a nice place to land [when we return from the dead],” her exact words.
When I woke up, I cobbled together the puzzle pieces of the dream so I could tell it to my sisters, who I knew would appreciate the way our bold, dead mother still speaks through us. Every so often, one of us will hear her voice emerge in a phrase that was uniquely hers, and we'll say it aloud to the others for confirmation: "Isn't that neat?" "Over my dead body." "You know what this is?" Stuff like that.
The dream startled me. What did it all mean? Sometimes I’m self-conscious about the way I’ve assumed many aspects of my mother’s life after she died. I drive her Black Honda—one of the last remaining stick shifts on the planet—and I cook her recipes in her kitchen. I picked up where she left off with her obsession with vintage and antiques. I love Michigan because she loved Michigan. We’re still collecting Victorian teacups. (Help!)
The dream made me wonder if she was trying to nudge me out of the nest, so to speak, to remind me that this place was made by her, and I was living out her vision, that I should try to work on my own.
Many of the details disappeared as the days wore on, but that last statement she made in the dream stuck with me. How we all need a nice place to land when we return from long journeys to other worlds—other times, spaces, places, phases in our lives—we all need to feel that when we return from somewhere else—be it the land of the dead or the land of the unfamiliar—we know where we can rest our weary bodies.
I only hope that if and when she returns home next time, I’ll be more gracious and mature as an adult daughter greeting her dead mother at the door, and tell her she’s welcome to stay here for as long as she needs or desires before she heads out again, as I know she will.
Our mother was always very busy—out and about—and headed for the open road.
