Earlier this week marked the 11 year anniversary of losing my grandmother to Alzheimer. I really hate using the word "anniversary". It just calls to mind celebrating happy occasions. There's nothing celebratory about the death of one of the most influential women in my life. She meant the world to me. The same day would also have been my grandfather's 97th birthday. He passed away early in the New Year.
Naturally, I find myself thinking about my grandparents now and then. But this past month I've had an unusual number of dreams where their presence has been strangely recurring. I've always thought about keeping a notepad and pen close when I sleep in so I can quickly write down the details of my dreams while they're fresh in my mind but unfortunately never went through with it. I don't remember them clearly but the basic themes of family, betrayal and anger, although the betrayals aren't of my making nor is the anger ever from them. I can't help feeling like I'm missing a message or something. Like I'm being told something. Warned of something, perhaps. These just don't feel like usual random dreams. Especially since it seems an entire nights worth of dreams are either continued one from another with my waking up in between not stopping the storyline, or linked together somehow. And I can't be 100% sure but I don't recall having a dream where both my grandmother and grandfather both present together.
Two of the most clear in my mind with my grandfather both started with a party or a get together of some sort. One, a family get together where everyone except my grandfather and a police officer cousin where vocally angry at me for a reason not specified in the dream. Very angry.
In another, I was at what seemed like a get together in my backyard with "friends" I knew and was friendly with in my dream but no one I recognize from my real life. An older woman shows up and asks for my aunt's uncle by name, who is known to be a cheater. She tells me she's his sister in law and I snidely tell her how interesting that is since I'm his nephew and have never laid eyes on her before. She runs off and ignores my inquires to her identity and insults. Later, after I woke up, fell back asleep and continued dreaming again, I was relaying what happened with my uncle and the strange woman to my mother while we drove to pick up my grandfather from what looked like, once we arrived, a hospital but could have been a hotel room, maybe some kind of weird dream amalgamation of both. In other dreams that night I remember being angry and arguing with my mother about her inability to not keep what I told her between us. At the hospital/hotel, my grandfather was telling us he felt fine and didn't even need our help packing his things. Once awake I couldn't help remembering my guilt over the last words I ever spoke to my grandfather alive. Already in the hospital room, I told him I would see him when I got back from my trip with Dante. I never got the chance. I cried the first hour of our drive from the hospital and I cried the hour in when my sister told me all they were doing was waiting for it at the hospital.
It's odd that in the two most vivid in my head regarding my grandmother, Jaime was also there. It was almost as if she wasn't part of the actual events of the dreams but kinda just present. In one I was vocalizing my disappointment over seeing Jaime (in my dream) aggressively pursuing another man although he was in a supposed relationship with The Kid. Pretty much mirroring the turmoil I'm feeling in real life of whether or not my friendship with Jaime is worth going on with. This theme was repeated last night. Again, I don't remember much about my grandma's involvement besides her presence but again there was Jaime chasing me. It was playful, like a game and he caught up to me pretty quickly but before he did he knocked into a man holding a big tub of what I instantly recognized as BBQ sauce. But when I woke up the innocent dream managed to linger with me. I felt like there was something ominous about the BBQ sauce. For some reason although in the dream I knew it was BBQ sauce, when I woke up I knew it represented blood somehow.
I found myself holding on tightly to Trey's body and burying my head into his chest in fear of what I may see around the suddenly creepy darkness of the room. I reverted back to a scared child afraid of the dark. Who knows, maybe with the morbid "anniversary" now come and gone it's all just fresh in my mind. This can be my brain's way of processing guilt, stress, issues currently with my family. Maybe it's something else.
Naturally, I find myself thinking about my grandparents now and then. But this past month I've had an unusual number of dreams where their presence has been strangely recurring. I've always thought about keeping a notepad and pen close when I sleep in so I can quickly write down the details of my dreams while they're fresh in my mind but unfortunately never went through with it. I don't remember them clearly but the basic themes of family, betrayal and anger, although the betrayals aren't of my making nor is the anger ever from them. I can't help feeling like I'm missing a message or something. Like I'm being told something. Warned of something, perhaps. These just don't feel like usual random dreams. Especially since it seems an entire nights worth of dreams are either continued one from another with my waking up in between not stopping the storyline, or linked together somehow. And I can't be 100% sure but I don't recall having a dream where both my grandmother and grandfather both present together.
Two of the most clear in my mind with my grandfather both started with a party or a get together of some sort. One, a family get together where everyone except my grandfather and a police officer cousin where vocally angry at me for a reason not specified in the dream. Very angry.
In another, I was at what seemed like a get together in my backyard with "friends" I knew and was friendly with in my dream but no one I recognize from my real life. An older woman shows up and asks for my aunt's uncle by name, who is known to be a cheater. She tells me she's his sister in law and I snidely tell her how interesting that is since I'm his nephew and have never laid eyes on her before. She runs off and ignores my inquires to her identity and insults. Later, after I woke up, fell back asleep and continued dreaming again, I was relaying what happened with my uncle and the strange woman to my mother while we drove to pick up my grandfather from what looked like, once we arrived, a hospital but could have been a hotel room, maybe some kind of weird dream amalgamation of both. In other dreams that night I remember being angry and arguing with my mother about her inability to not keep what I told her between us. At the hospital/hotel, my grandfather was telling us he felt fine and didn't even need our help packing his things. Once awake I couldn't help remembering my guilt over the last words I ever spoke to my grandfather alive. Already in the hospital room, I told him I would see him when I got back from my trip with Dante. I never got the chance. I cried the first hour of our drive from the hospital and I cried the hour in when my sister told me all they were doing was waiting for it at the hospital.
It's odd that in the two most vivid in my head regarding my grandmother, Jaime was also there. It was almost as if she wasn't part of the actual events of the dreams but kinda just present. In one I was vocalizing my disappointment over seeing Jaime (in my dream) aggressively pursuing another man although he was in a supposed relationship with The Kid. Pretty much mirroring the turmoil I'm feeling in real life of whether or not my friendship with Jaime is worth going on with. This theme was repeated last night. Again, I don't remember much about my grandma's involvement besides her presence but again there was Jaime chasing me. It was playful, like a game and he caught up to me pretty quickly but before he did he knocked into a man holding a big tub of what I instantly recognized as BBQ sauce. But when I woke up the innocent dream managed to linger with me. I felt like there was something ominous about the BBQ sauce. For some reason although in the dream I knew it was BBQ sauce, when I woke up I knew it represented blood somehow.
I found myself holding on tightly to Trey's body and burying my head into his chest in fear of what I may see around the suddenly creepy darkness of the room. I reverted back to a scared child afraid of the dark. Who knows, maybe with the morbid "anniversary" now come and gone it's all just fresh in my mind. This can be my brain's way of processing guilt, stress, issues currently with my family. Maybe it's something else.
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