A Chance Meeting

I recently met up with my deceased mother in my dreams. We were standing together in the kitchen of the house where I grew up. I asked her if she would trade in her life for another. She scoffed. “Never,” she said. “Things might not have always been great but I would never give up what I had.” And that was the dream.

That dream left me thinking. I wonder if that is what my mother would say in waking life? She was 8 years old when the Great Depression dropped on the country. Times were rough but the family stayed intact and they always had enough to eat. My grandmother died unexpectedly in 1940, leaving my 18 year old mother to guide her younger siblings. And then WW2 came along. With several brothers and a sweetheart serving in the military, the war loomed large for my mother. Those must have been hard years. My father returned from the Pacific Theater in late 1945 and they immediately married. They wanted what people wanted after that war: normality and home.

My parents raised nine children on a shoestring budget. They had their parish community and their families for support but I know the years were demanding for her. My dad especially longed for a life away from the working class neighborhood and the daily grind of blue collar work. In the mid 1970’s, my parents pulled up roots and moved to a 20 acre parcel of undeveloped land in Mendocino County. This wasn’t exactly what she was looking for at that point but it was what my dad wanted/needed. She adjusted to that life and outlived my dad by 18 years. I had the sense that, once she got over the shock of this transition, she was happy enough in that chapter of her life.

The message in that dream made me wonder. Was it true? On balance, was she happy with the life she lived? I know she valued her faith and her family (both the family of origin and the one she and my dad created). I know she loved to read, to write, to tend to her flowers and her many interests in life. I hope she knew that she was respected and treasured by her family and her closest friends. I think she did mean what she said in the dream. She would not trade in her life for a different life.

Why did she tell me this in the dream? Of course, I wonder if there is meaning for me there. I am closer to an appearance among the obituaries than among the birth announcements. Would I trade my life for a different one? I have been gifted a charmed life but one thing I know for sure is that no life is perfect. No life is free of loss, regret, disappointment, frustration. You can exchange hardship for a different brand of hardship but you can’t dismiss all adversity from your life. Lives seem to unfold as they will. It’s a lucky person who can be grateful for their life just the way it is. I think that was the intent behind that dream. The Universe is telling me,”Be happy. Love your life as it is. Stay curious. Stay open. Trust me, the Universe, to take care of you.” The question is: am I listening?