We Talk in My Dreams

My grandmother communicates with me through dreams. She died 8 years ago, but we still talk. I don’t know what I believe in, but I believe in that.

Growing up my grandparents house was my safe place. I didn’t have many of those. Before the divorce my parents fought all the time. After the divorce too. I would sit in my room, trying to ignore their yelling. That became easier once I got my first iPod. Headphones saved me. Not perfect at drowning them out but better than nothing.

My grandparents were not perfect either. They were alcoholics. Something I didn’t realize until both of them were gone. I just thought all old people drank from the time they woke up to the time they went to sleep. My grandmother most likely had an eating disorder. Neither that or the alcoholism was not openly talked about in my family. Just whispers of things I overheard but never really understood. I got praise from her when I was skinnier. I’m working on releasing myself from this idea, but I still think I am worth when I weigh less.

She wasn’t a great cook. Probably from a life of not wanting to eat too much. She did make elbows with butter whenever we would come visit her. I know that’s not “cooking,” but sometimes it was the best thing I had ever eaten. I still eat it now when I feel lonely or sad or weird and want to feel held.

When my parents were still married, we’d drive to my grandparents house in New Jersey from Brooklyn. The drive was long enough that it created distance from home, but not so long that we couldn’t go there for a weekend. After the divorce we took the train. Something about those train rides created a place where we all got along. My mother, my siblings, and I. We’d laugh the whole way there. The four of us all having fun together was not something that never happened in any other setting. At least two people always seemed to be in a fight.

Relief flooded my body when we walked through the door of my grandparents’ house. Knowing that there were adults other than my parents who had stake in my wellbeing. Who loved me unconditionally.

My parents’ love was not unconditional. It did not feel that way in my tiny human brain. They loved me until I spilled something on the carpet. Until I forgot to wash my dishes. Until I broke rules whose existence I wasn’t even aware of until I was getting yelled at for breaking them. When my laugh would pierce through “quiet time” that no one told me had began.

There were no rules at my grandparents’ house other than “don’t drink from grandma’s containers in the fridge.” A rule that only existed so children wouldn’t accidentally find themselves drunk at 10am.

On the nights I stayed there, my grandmother and I would watch late night television while she scratched my back. My never touched me. I also wasn’t allowed to stay up late. But again, those rules didn’t apply at my grandparents’.

My siblings and I would spend the days looking for golf balls in the stream behind their house. Their house was directly behind a golf course. In New York we couldn’t roam around by ourselves, so even this small activity was freedom. We were gold miners. Our grandfather would pay us a dollar for every golfball we found. 

He passed away when I was 17. I was supposed to leave for a college tour the night I found out. For some reason that detail feels significant even all these years later. Before he passed away he’d think my brother was in the other room and just didn’t want to come spend time with him. My brother would have to call him to explain that he was at home in Brooklyn.

He also saw a figure standing next to his bed. He never said it was scary. It just was. I like to think that figure, whoever or whatever it was, helped him when it came time to finally let go. I don’t know what I believe in, but I believe in that.

After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother moved out of their house and into my aunt’s. No more weekends away there. No more hunting for golf balls. No more elbows and butter. But she still would scratch my back. Even when I got to be bigger than her. She got smaller and I grew taller. Her spine shrinking every year.

When I moved away for college, I couldn’t see her as often. I was farther away, in Boston now. We would still talk on the phone. I’m glad that there were times I couldn’t pick up when she called because even now I have all the voicemails she left. I listen to them when it’s been a while since she visited me in my dreams.

I would visit her whenever I went home to New York on school breaks. The day she passed away, I was supposed to go see her. I was going to drive down with my then boyfriend. I had slipped and fallen on ice walking home from the gym earlier that morning. It wasn’t surprising when my aunt said we had to postpone the visit because of ice on the roads. I later found out she had just said that until she could tell my mom that their mother, my grandmother, had died.

Even today, I carry the guilt from that tiny pang of relief when my aunt told me we shouldn’t drive down. It was cold. I was tired and about to go back to college after a month-long break. It’s not that I didn’t want to see her, I just didn’t mind that we had to push it back a few days. Of course, I didn’t see her a few days after that or at all.

The dreams started coming pretty soon after she left me. Nothing really ever happens in them. We just exist in the same place. In the same world again. My grandfather is sometimes there too. But, for whatever reason, it’s only a few moments before I realize he’s not actually alive. That never happens with my grandmother until I wake up and realize it was all just a dream.

When she visits me we never use words, but she still communicates. She lets me know I’m ok. Not that I will be ok. That I am ok. That there is someone, her, always looking out for me. That I still have unconditional love in my life. And I always believe her. It’s uncomfortable for me to accept love, but I can always accept hers. Maybe the physical distance between us makes that easier.

It always feels real when I’m sleeping. It is real. I wake up knowing we’ve spent time together. She doesn’t show up frequently, but she always seems to when I need her. Or when I see something that reminds me of her. Like a Cosmopolitan. Or a golf ball.

My grandmother communicates with me through dreams. She died 8 years ago, but we still talk. I don’t know what I believe in, but I believe in that.