Young Writers Society

Do you remember when I told you about my dreams? You remember, don’t you? Back in September, when I told you exactly what was wrong with me. I told you I was struggling to dream, that all of the dreams I did have turned quickly to nightmares. I told you:

“Last night I dreamt I lost my hair. I knew why it felt out. And it was because, in my dream, it was me who was sick. As I massaged shampoo into my scalp, I pulled my hand back to see wet strands clinging to my fingers. It slipped off my sore head in uneven clumps, sticking to the walls and the floor until the water pushed them toward the drain. The water rose to my knees. I knew I would drown. I ran crying to my mom, but the only comfort she could offer me was a razor to my scalp to remove the excess.”

I stopped dreaming after my dad died. I think that was a good thing. If I was dreaming about losing my hair after my dad lost his, I would have dreamt next about suffocating on my own blood filling my lungs while I lay in my bedroom. If I kept dreaming, I probably would have died too. Isn’t that what they say, that if you die in your dream, you die in real life?

Well, I’ve started dreaming again, and now I’m starting to wake up remembering them. I should probably write them down, so I don’t forget them. The dreams are more alive than ever before. They’re tangible now: a weight in my palm, a taste in my mouth. I wake up still suspended in that false reality my mind has created, thinking of my dreams as memories, something that had actually happened.

And maybe they would have.

I’ve been having a lot of dreams about being pregnant and having kids. I know for some people, that sounds more like a nightmare. But for me, I’ve always wanted to be a mother. I think that’s why it’s been so devastating to feel like I’m carrying another soul in my body, only to wake up and find myself empty. And I know there was never anything there, but I can’t help but feel hollowed out.

In my dreams, I’ve given birth and raised kids whose faces I can still see in the back of my mind. I fed them, bathed them, held their hand during their first steps. Their faces are so clear to me that it feels unnatural to remind myself that they aren’t real. I’ve had a girl, a girl, and a boy then a girl. And I don’t need you to tell me what the dreams mean because I already know. It’s like I said: I’ve always wanted to be a mother.

Last night I dreamt I had another little boy. He was perfectly formed: little hands and little feet, thick legs, a thimble for a nose, big, grey eyes that hadn’t quite developed their color, and a full head of wispy blonde hair as soft as velvet. And I didn’t dream of my mother, or my older brother, or even my husband. In my dream, my dad sat beside me in the hospital. I didn’t ask him where the others were; it didn’t matter.

My dad’s brown eyes were warm and his hair was dark and full. And he smiled at me, his teeth still yellowed from drinking too much coffee every day. He wore his red, plaid short-sleeved button-up. His Carhart jacket was draped over the back of his chair. And the window glowed behind him from the light shining in.

After me, my dad was the first one to hold my newborn son. I’m sure he said something to me, but I can’t recall it, or maybe I’ve already forgotten the sound of his voice and the way he strung together words. But I have the memory of him sitting in the light, of him holding my baby boy in his arms. I told him, finally, one of the things I had been meaning to tell him: that I would be naming my first son after him. He didn’t look up at me, he was preoccupied smiling at my little boy.

And then I woke up, greeted by the off-white ceiling of my apartment, childless and fatherless.

I don’t need you to tell me what the dream meant. I already know.