Mama,

Sometimes, I see you when I’m dreaming.

Your face is almost always blurred; sometimes, I can only piece together the color of your eyes or the small frame of your body.

Sometimes you are the ocean or a fairy. Other times, you are cigarette smoke blowing toward an open window or the couch of our old apartment.

But Mama, no matter the shape or form, I always know it’s you.

I like to entertain the thought that you visit me in my dreams. I pretend the dream world is a bridge between here and the afterlife. Pretending is hoping, rather than reality, but I’m not saddened by that. Perhaps that’s because your death and my dreams co-exist — helping me make sense of the most complicated parts of my grief. Dreaming highlights the importance of reliving what it’s like to be in the same space as you — reality or fiction.

Sometimes, I wake up from these dreams feeling an unexplainable dread. In the last dream I saw you in, you were not in your body. I stood in a field of daisies, and the smell of your perfume stung my nose. Still, I took a deep breath. In the distance, there was a small, white shed with a missing roof and open squares on the walls imitating windows. Even though I couldn’t see you, I knew you were in there, so I ran toward the shed.

You laid on top of the white flowers, and you smelt of death. Your body was decomposing, becoming one with the ground. I laid next to you and told you how pretty the blue sky above was, and how I could no longer remember the sound of you singing. It was dusk when I left the shed, and your presence filled the air. Comfort — that’s what I felt, but maybe it was closure.

When I woke up from the dream, I was alone. It took me a minute to make sense of everything. The feeling of you close to me was gone, and the bridge between our worlds disappeared. Now we were separate: dead and alive.

I went through my day feeling strange, thinking, “you were right next to me — I could’ve sworn — just a few hours ago.” But, you were gone, and I was left trying not to sob on my math notes.

Not every dream leaves me feeling that way. Sometimes you tell me things I need to hear — things I hold close to my heart. One time, you told me you will always be with me — just in a different way than before. You said that when I miss you, I could find you in my friends’ smiles, in a good book or in early spring when the sidewalks are flushed with clovers.

Mama, sometimes I wish I could dream about you every night, but I understand that the surprise makes every moment with you more precious. What I love most about my dreams with you is that you finally seem perfectly at ease, and I’m lucky to see you so peaceful.

I love you,

Avery