Do you ever feel as if your life has taken a dramatic turn, as if you are part of some cosmic shift? That’s the feeling I woke up with late this morning. My body felt as if I’d been hit by a wall of water. My eyes were heavy and my legs sluggish as I dragged myself to the living room to tell my husband about my bad dream. A dream that worked overtime to tell me all was not well.
My Black Bag
I dreamt I couldn’t find my black bag with all my identity in it, 
including my cell phone. There were a lot of black bags in the house I was in, as there had been a lot of visitors but mine was missing.
I knew that my mother and father were waiting to see me—in life, they are both deceased—and I was very late, but I didn’t want to leave without my bag. And then I saw my aunt, who in life has been dead for many decades, come down these stairs with her daughter but I didn’t get a chance to even say hello. I just stood there stunned that I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
The couple I was with were sitting in front of a bowl of something gelatinous with cherries in it. When I noticed the bowl overflowed on the table, I brought the mess to their attention but they didn’t care.
My Analysis
After I woke up, I realized I was still processing my grief over losing my mother, and perhaps still, my father. There is no time limit on grieving. It is what it is. And that is the way it is for all of us. Some move through it faster than others. For me, it’s been like wading through molasses to get to the other side.
The fact that my black bag figured large in my dream was related to the fact I’d left my bag at my daughter’s house the day before. But my dream wasn’t about that, it was more about identity. I hadn’t just lost a bag, I had lost a sense of myself. Part of me had gone with the death of my mother, not that we were alike, but in some ways we were cut from the same cloth. And the gelatinous mess in my dream? Well, it’s how I feel inside. My sub-conscious chose the perfect image.
Some New Joys
But it’s not like I’ve been sitting around moping. Actually, since my mother passed away, there have been some new joys. My daughter has completed her chemotherapy and radiation and her recent tests indicate the cancer is gone.
And I’ve finished writing a short screenplay with my grandson, and an excerpt from a work-in-progress will be published in an anthology, called ESCAPE, this October by Peregrin Publishing. So, despite my black night, there is a lot of good percolating. I just have to ride the waves as they come.
Have your dreams been working overtime? Any comments are always appreciated.
totally agree with you.Life goes on and we will always cherish the memories.Its always a learning experience and probably it never stops even after we are gone.Just a new chapter begins,I believe !!
Amit, you have phrased this very well. We do cherish our memories. We carry those who’ve gone before us in our hearts, and we are the richer for it.
Beautifully written! Yes, dream do talk a lot about what’s going on in our mind and bad dreams are just a way of telling us that we are worried too much!
It’s a good thing that you are able to see ta silver lining on the black clouds! 🙂
Keep Smiling!
Hisila, thank you for your thought and your image of “silver lining on the black clouds”.
nice sites great my friend
Thank you so much, Cary. I appreciate your visit and comments.
Nicely written and so true. No matter what life throws at us we still carry on and cherishing the memories and concentrating on the positives in our life is what helps. I try to stay focused on my goals and take one day at a time and like Winston Churchill said “Never, never, never give up”.
Amanda, I like your quote by Winston Churchill. We have that fight within all of us, even when life looks bleak. It’s part of the human condition we all face. The highway of life isn’t all smooth. There are bumps in the road and all kinds of twists and turns and detours that take us to new places. Places that challenge us and can renew us if we focus on the positives. Not easy, but that’s life. Thanks again for visiting my blog.
Dreams often provide me with insights that the waking world neglected. It looks as though your dreams are windows as well. Nice to meet you, I am glad to have stumbled upon your blog!
I love what you said about dreams being like windows. It’s true if we take the time to look through them, and make sense of what our unconscious is trying to tell us. Thanks for visiting and nice to meet you as well.
Beautiful. When my Grandmother died it left such and unexpected whole in my life. I then realized I’d never inquired enough about her life, who she was, what here dreams had been, and what she was proud of. Then one day in a conversation with my Mom she bluntly said and now I’m an orphan, referring to herself. That just broke my heart and in a sense is true. She said noone will ever love you like your Mother. It gave me a whole new respect and appreciation for loving her here and now and making sure she knows it.
Serena, thank you for sharing your thoughts. We are blessed to have loving family, ones who will always remain in our hearts even after they die. This is what joins us together as people, no matter what our backgrounds are. We all need love, and a mother’s love is boundless. It’s heartwarming to know that you took your loss and used it to strengthen your love for your mother.
i love this post regarding dreams ma’am but i felt the heaviness … grieving is not easy and may still take time.. but i know sooner or later with the help of prayers i know that you can surpass this..
“a mother’s love is boundless”..
I will tell my how much i love her… and thank her for loving me
i like the title of your new novel NO TIME FOR TEARS..
there a lot more reasons to be happy 🙂
Ron, thanks for your comments and for visiting my blog. I am not unhappy, but I miss her. In fact, I feel truly blessed to have had a mother as loving and giving as the one I had. She was ready to go and join my father. The ones we hold dear will always be with us. I will continue to chuckle and cry over my wonderful memories.
Wow, I REALLY like the way you write. What an analysis of a dream! I whole heartedly agree with you. You must grieve but cannot dwell on it.
Thank you, Kamika. I’m finding my grieving is taking another turn. I’m now remembering the precious moments I shared with my mother. It makes me smile. It’s a lengthy process, but One we all have to go through, as that is life.