What Moves Us Forward

Maggie was twenty-one and often woke in the night to dreams of chocolate cake, tapioca pudding, doughnuts with heavy, vanilla icing, cotton candy, and her mother’s raspberry cream-filled macaroons. She didn’t wake with energy or a happy disposition. Instead, she felt disoriented, alone, and sad. Her neighbor, Mrs. Carter told her once that dreams like this weren’t about sweet cravings but rather about conflict and sometimes, grief. 

Other nights, after Maggie went to check on her three-year-old daughter and rock her back to sleep, she would return to bed, and dreams of traveling to faraway countries made their appearance. In each dream though, she was in torn clothes. Embarrassed, she would try to hide and then give up, resigned to walking along with unstitched hemlines, frayed blouses, and sometimes, an apron that was cut in half, with only two long ribbons tied around her waist and keeping the garment on her delicate frame.

Anna was a delightful child most days. She was quiet, napped easily, and enjoyed walks outside in the sunshine. Often, they would sit under the branches of a cherry tree and sing songs or repeat nursery rhymes. When Anna’s asthma flared though, strolls in the parks and along river banks took a toll and so it was best to confine her imagination and curiosity to the living room, kitchen or play area. 

“Torn clothes in a dream means that you are conflicted. Maybe feeling as if someone is clinging to you too tightly. A relationship you might want to end.” Mrs. Carter had baked a small cake and gifted it to Maggie on the Monday morning before she checked herself into the local hospital. The smell of the warm, sweet cake and the words of Mrs. Carter washed over Maggie and left her near tears.

Maggie and Rich had already endured much in their young marriage. Maggie found herself pregnant at eighteen and although she was worried what her mother would say, Maggie felt comfort and joy in Rich’s response. He loved her and promised they would be “okay”. Maggie would tell Anna over and over again, that she loved her from the first moment she knew about her. It was true. Love for the child growing in her belly both astounded and surprised her. 

Dreams, however, even those not born in sleep, can change from season to season, moment to moment, and throughout a lifetime. Sometimes a dream fades away when it cannot be nurtured and then it ceases to exist. When this happens, a longing will remain and if the longing isn’t called out by name and settled, it will rise up, swelling in the heart and mind until it unleashes its burdened self.  

Maggie had goals before she fell in love, before marriage, before pregnancy, before a child. She had goals and dreams that she thought couldn’t co-exist with the demands of motherhood and so she fell deeply into the trance of sadness that overwhelmed her. It was the pied piper strolling into her thoughts demanding to be followed, that left her hollowed out and crying at the drop of a heart. Yes, heart.

The love for her young daughter was true, it was real, but perhaps it wasn’t enough. This realization spun her further not only into sadness but into guilt as well. On a Thursday morning, she packed a suitcase, asked her best friend to care for Anna, left a note for her husband, and walked into the hospital's mental health unit. A respite, a reprieve for ten days; a chance to do battle with her dreams and the reality of who she was and where life had taken her.

When Anna was fifty-four, Maggie passed away from acute respiratory distress. Anna had been there to sit bedside, to hold Maggie’s hand, to stroke her forehead, and to kiss her goodbye when Maggie’s heart quit beating. A few weeks after the funeral, Anna found a letter in a shoebox, in the closet of her parent’s bedroom. It was addressed to her mother’s good friend Jean and was handwritten in black, cursive ink. As Anna read the letter, she quickly realized that it was part thank you note, for years of friendship, and the gratitude that comes with having a friend that understands so much of your history, and your past but loves you the same. As Anna’s eyes tracked the words written by her mother, there appeared a paragraph that seemed to stand alone and had gone unfinished. It read, “Thank you for taking care of Anna while I was in the “crazy” unit. I don’t know how I would have gotten through those ten days without you. I know that it was hard for Anna and for Rich, but it was what I needed to do.”

“Hey Dad,” Anna called out, “Was mom in the hospital when I was a kid?” 

“I don’t think so,” he mumbled.

“Well in this letter to Jean, she writes that she was. For ten days.” 

Her father was fixing an old tape recorder, a distraction from grief.

“Are you sure that’s what it says?” He punctuated the question as if there was an error in Anna’s understanding.

“Daaad, yes, that’s what it says.” Silence filled up the space, as the tape recorder began to whirl and play ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley.

A phone call to Jean reveals little else; at least little else she wants to share. “Honey, I don’t think it will change anything if you know.”

Despite curiosity, Anna lets the conversation end. She knows Jean well enough, that if she says she isn’t talking, well, she isn’t talking. In her head, Anna assumes it must have been something to do with her. 

Anna knows her mother’s story; how she got pregnant at seventeen and that her own mother had kicked her out of the house, disappointed and embarrassed by the prospect of a grandchild. Anna knew that she had been a somewhat sickly child with asthma but her mother had often told her how cute she had been and how much she and her dad liked to show off their sweet girl. Anna knew too that her mother had gone to nursing school and that nearly ten years into the marriage, her parents had separated for nearly eight months although they considered it romantic because they spent nearly every night together in Maggie’s apartment.

Anna’s history ran deep in her veins just as the cherry tree roots in her parent’s backyard lay deep in the earth. History feeds who we are, and it waters our days. Anna could still recall moments with her mother under that tree. Her mother loved the smell of the blossoms and when the wind picked up, wrapping itself around branches and twigs, the petals would fall like snow on a winter day. Sometimes, if the timing were just right, Anna and Maggie twirled round and round as falling petals drifted into their hair and onto the ground below.

Maggie had left the inpatient mental health unit on a spring day. She was ready to step back into her life, with her daughter and husband. She discovered that within her were dreams that still burned and that with enough care could be nurtured and achieved. She allowed herself to grieve the loss of her young freedom, the fractured relationship with her own mother, and the ways in which she felt she could never be enough for her young daughter. But through the grieving, came a renewed hope and purpose. As she descended the hospital steps that day, she smiled brightly into the spring morning.

After talking with Jean, Anna left her parent’s home with the letter to Jean in hand, and another small box of letters that she promised to look through for her father. Too much in one day, called up sorrow that threatened to overwhelm.

Anna gave into sleep easily that night and rested deeply. In her dreams, she saw a cherry tree with soft pink petals that turned to a deep shade of red. She saw herself there, standing at the base of the tree, her eyes looking upward. In the morning, that was all that Anna could remember of her dream. She felt an ache of sadness as if she had forgotten a detail that might comfort her or an ending that explained all she had ever wondered about.

Anna pushed the dream aside and after a shower, a date with the washing machine, a video call to her grandchildren, and a quick game of fetch with her dog, she set her sights on the box of letters.

There were letters addressed to Maggie's youngest sister, to the priest at their local church, to a lady from the Red Hat group, and even to Mrs. Carter, a neighbor from fifty years ago. The words and sentiments in each made Anna smile, as if she could hear her mother saying the words out loud.

A notebook near the bottom of the box had Anna’s name on it, written in her mother’s familiar cursive style with interlocking branches and delicate capital letters.

“Anna, I’m looking out the window today and the cherry tree is in bloom. You may not believe it, but the blossoms on the cherry tree spring open each year with new delights and I think their fragrance grows stronger because of what came before. Stories my dear, are like that, they repeat themselves. I cannot think of a time or situation, that hasn’t already been told or lived out by someone, somewhere else in this big world. And so I wish to share with you, some of the truths, disappointments, sorrows, and joys that as your mom, I kept to myself for many, many years. The lessons of these stories are, what I have discovered, what moves us forward. This is the history that you and I share, and the story I wish you to know about. I hope it will help you, guide you, and perhaps make you feel less alone when things seem off-balance and hard to understand. Above all, I hope history and faith will be something you hold close. My darling girl, you should always know that I loved you from the first moment I knew about you….”