Momento Mori

No one close to me died until I was 16. My Nana, surprised everyone by living more than 44 years, which was the average for the women in her weak heart family, dying at 66. The age I am now.

It didn't quite hit me then - I was an immature kid - but over the next year, when we would travel the 100 miles to visit my father's family, going into her house, seeing things change, watching the family slowly drift apart -- for she was the glue that held everyone together, the awful reality sank in. I told myself that she wasn't gone, she just wasn't here. I began to beg off the family trips to western Massachusetts. Until about a decade ago (40 years) I only went there for other funerals.

By then I'd learned how to sequester my feelings. I learned how to go on - as if nothing had really happened.

But I could not fully remove the feelings. I have had a dream, the same dream, for years - I have it every so often. It is always the same, each time a few variations.

I am walking through the woods. I walk past ponds, some are blue and some are green and one is almost purple. I want to swim in them but I am late. I don't know what I am late for. I keep walking and find a sign that reads "Lodge" with an arrow pointing in the direction I am headed. I keep walking. I see the same sign over and over again; as if I were hiking in Acadia National Park. At one sign I find someone I know who is taking a rest. We talk, that person is headed to the Lodge as well. We walk together past several more signs. Then we encounter someone I know who is also walking to the Lodge. I introduce the two and we continue walking. Again we find another person, always someone I know but not always someone my fellow walkers know.

We are climbing up a hill. The air is moist and there is no sign. We are in the clouds. We cannot see any valleys or views, although the path is perfectly clear. Eventually there is a group of about a dozen of us. We are all talking as we find another sign in front a set of stairs, of log, built into the mountain. We all walk up the steps, helping each other. I realize that we are all different ages, but that no one has trouble walking and no one is concerned that we don't actually know what we will find in the Lodge. The dream continues and continues, there is a lot of walking and climbing- endless steps. Eventually we come to a sweeping lawn, and on top of a hill is a massive white building, it looks like an old hotel, but it seems to shine it's whiteness. The windows are all the color of the sky. We walk up the hill on the grass past flowers and lawn chairs and a croquet court and a bocce court and a fountain and we come to a gravel path. We follow the path to the stairs leading to the porch and front door of the Lodge.

We pause and we hear music. The sort of music you hear at cocktail parties. Now we can smell some sort of food - and lilacs. The air is filled with the scent of lilacs. There are no lilac trees around us. We enter the lobby and many people are milling around. We walk toward the music and enter a large room with windows overlooking what we now see as a valley. There are no houses or other buildings. A waiter comes to me with food and another with drink. The room is crowded with people all talking to one another.

Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn and an elderly lady with white hair and wearing a blue dress is smiling at me. We kiss and she says, "We've been waiting forever! It's wonderful to see you." She takes me by the hand and introduces me to her sisters. I've seen photos of them, they had all died.. She then introduce me to her brother and her parents. We talk and then the lady says, "Oh, we're monopolizing you, I'm certain you want to see your Michigan relatives.' She walks me to a different part of the room and seated around a table are a half dozen people. A very old lady, very small, holds out her hand. "You look just like my son," she says. I am introduced to her husband and three sons; one of them is my grandfather. The lady has a slight Scottish accent.

I look around and everyone looks very familiar and I seem to know who they are, or feel that I have met them at some point. Suddenly I wake up. This happens every time. I wake up and my heart is beating and I feel cold. I realize that every person I walked up the mountain with and then saw in the Lodge was known to me - and that each of them had died.The lady I met first was my Nana. She introduced me to her sisters and parents and then took me to my great-grandparents and their sons - my grandfather's brothers. They were all dead. Everyone around me was dead.

When I awaken I always think that I am dead as well. Then I realize I'm not. I feel a little sad that I am, in fact, alive. "Not quite yet," I tell myself and start the first day of the rest of my life (my least favorite cliche).

The variations involve new people that I meet. People who have died. Sometimes I meet the same people again; but there is always someone I haven't met. Some people I never see - my parents, my Michigan grandmother, But, I have seen and spoken with many. I forget who they are until the next dream. I tell myself to write their names down, but of course I forget. The last person I spoke with was Mary, the Director of my senior residence in college. This woman had a profound influence, no impact, on my life. It is not an exaggeration to say that she saved my life.

I keep looking for people. The crowd is immense and dense. Someone taps me on the shoulder and we begin to talk. The conversations aren't memorable - I carry no words of wisdom back with me when I awaken.

This is the only dream I have had that keeps coming back. I can't control when it reoccurs. I've tried by thinking of it for days and then when I fall asleep I am re-imagining it in my mind. The dream comes on it's own accord.

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