It is late.  Around 3 in the morning.  Or maybe it is 4 or 5.  I don’t know.  I am in the grips of a horrific night mare!  I, along with my family, am at a trusted friends house helping her prepare for a big project.

Suddenly I realize that my mother is nearby!  What’s worse is that her husband is actually in this same house!  Enraged, I panic and begin gathering my things trying to escape before she shows up!  I can not find my keys, my other possessions seem to be strewn about the messy house, the children are no where to be found and my husband seems to be gay (that’s happy not homo) and high and useless!  I know I’ll never get away in time, my mother is almost done with her haircut (which is strange since she has dreads) and that prick she married is pleading with me to speak to her!

But I refuse forcefully while still trying to find my damn keys!  He says she really wants to speak to me that she has something important she wants to tell me that she’s changed and I should hear her out!  But I don’t buy it!  A woman like that doesn’t change only finds better excuses on why she does the things she does to the people she claims to love.  And I have a family now, or at least I used to…somewhere.

But scratching at the back of my mind is a fear that what she really wants to tell me is that she is dying.

The pain I feel from that possibility is deep and desperate.

Then the unthinkable happens and she is suddenly THERE!  Like a shadow in the background looking on over my helpless and anxious scramblings with the most forlorn face!  By now I am too far invested in my own anger and fear and when someone hands me a set of keys (mine?) I grab them swoop up my DD and rush out the door!  What happens next in the dream may be inconsequential really.  I awoke still gripped in fear, intense anger, and sadness.  For awhile I couldn’t move, could only focus on

…breath…

  My mother betrayed me…again…and her mother probably betrayed her.  I could call her, try to get in touch with her, try to rekindle what we once had.  She is not the perfect mommy, never was!  I LOVED that about her!  She was smart, into palmistry, astrology, tarot, organic gardening, conservation and she was self taught!  Most people who met her, whether young or old, enjoyed her company immensely!  Until they were unlucky enough to experience her dark side.  I was her child, and I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about that woman! But I was always secure in the knowledge that she loved me and cherished me which meant she would never stuff me under the bus or ever be really cruel, callous, spiteful, vindictive and heartless like she can be with people who are not her children.

My older brother always tried to warn me, just a little.  Maybe, out of pure love, he always hoped she would change. Maybe he believed I could change her so he only warned me a little.

But I failed.  And I miss her.

  I know I could go back and apologize but it would be a little like returning to Nazi death camps proclaiming her superiority and offering my self up for public sacrifice.  And she would sacrifice me!  Then resuscitate me, invite me to tea, elaborate dinners and big fancy parties etcetera, and as soon as it suited her…

I don’t know what to do…

Will she ever soften up?