Dream Log: Beth's Dreams

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Coretta Scott King, 78, Dies 

Coretta Scott King, 78, Dies

This is the first sad thing about today.

posted 2:23 PM

Sunday, July 27, 2003

unfinished business... 

First there is Pop Pop’s funeral. Except his death is after MomMom’s.
And I’m angry and depressed and ambivalent about the whole thing. It’s
not a pure feeling as it was with MomMom. It’s dark and mean in
places. Like there’s unfinished business that can never be resolved now. I
gave a talk at MomMom’s funeral and wore a yellow dress, and I cried
but the crying was clear and logical, if emotion can be that. It was
more out of appreciation for who she had been than sadness and anger that
she is gone. This PopPop death is not so clean. Why? I sit in the
back of the chapel and glower at people. I’m probably wearing gray.

On the way home, Mom is driving 60 in the left hand lane, and I’m
yelling at her to get over. You can’t go that slow in the fast lane. But
she doesn’t want to move. Finally, she does, but then she keeps weaving
into other lanes. She straightens out the curves way too much. There
is something wrong with her. At home, she is speaking gibberish. Real
words, but the sentences don’t make any sense. And she keeps going
back to this blue towel that she wants to buy, even though she already has
a million towels in the bathroom. But they are not blue. When my dad
comes home, I tell him about her behavior. I tell him she was speaking
“word salad.” When he hears that, his face drops. “I want to kill
myself,” he says. I don’t know if it’s because he is sad that her brain
is gone and he misses the Betty she used to be, or if it’s because he
blames himself for her condition – since he refused to let her go on
anti-Alzheimer’s drugs until it was too late.

Ruby and Simone come to pick me up. We are going to Mark’s house.
When we get there, the door is ajar and they just walk right in without
knocking or announcing themselves. Mark doesn’t come out to greet us.
I think this is a little odd. They lead me over to his dining table,
where there is a package with my name on it. It’s some kind of
hand-made book or folder covered in hand-made green/blue paper. Inside, there
is a note. “If you are reading this, then I am gone.” Gone? Gone
where? Gone in what way? Then something else about no one missing him if he
were dead and something… something about making it all permanent.
Fuck! How could he think no one would miss him? Why didn’t you guys tell me
about this before you brought me here? “Because we didn’t think you
would come if you knew.”

Mark! You idiot! How could you do this without calling me first? How
could you just kill yourself? Damn you! Of course I miss you already! I’m
screaming at the walls of his apartment. I want to break things. I
want to steal things from his apartment before anyone else gets them.
Mark! I know you are here! I know you can see all this! I hope you feel
really awful. I hope you realize what a stupid fucking thing you did.
I know you can here me! Why? Why? Then, he is there next to me. Well,
not him exactly, but a ghost. For a minute. Mark! What about
meditation? What about the presence? The energy? (I sound like my Mom when she
caught me smoking – What about the Church? What about Heavenly Father?
Yeesh!) He says that if the presence is real, then death is the
ultimate expression of it. That there is no point in living. I tell him he’s
soooo wrong. I say that it means there is every reason to live. That
life is exactly the point. Feeling, sensing, until the end. I ask him
how he decided to do it – was he really unhappy for a long time? Did we
just not know? He said, no. He really hadn’t thought about it until
last night. He was making gifts for people… or cards or something… and
this feeling came over him that no one would really care or miss him if
he weren’t around. So why not just do it now? I can’t believe what I’m
hearing. I can’t believe it is so easy to take your own life just for
something to do. Just because you think it wouldn’t matter if you did
or not. I’m so angry that he didn’t call to ask me first. Ask me if
it would matter. He just made the assumption that it wouldn’t and did
it. So I’m screaming some more and yelling at the walls and at people.

These are dreams in which I cannot fly. In which flying is never even
an option.

posted 10:58 AM

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