I woke up this morning with my heart racing and the most terrible dread that I have felt since the morning after my son died. I dreamed that I was on a trip in a foreign country with a good friend of mine (the one that I actually went to Ecuador with last time). We were in a small hotel and we were trying to figure out what the local customs for New Years were so that we could go out and participate. We were having fun, in a bar trying out our language skills and laughing a lot--everything was light and easy--fun. Then I went to go up and find my room to get something and though the hotel stayed the same my companions shifted to my sister and another friend and I was with my older son who was about 2 or 3 at the most. He was running around as usual, a blonde hurricane of joyous energy bouncing off the walls and I was alternately scooping him up for hugs and trying to keep him from destroying the place. We were packing up to leave and once again New Years figured in the dream because I did not want to travel on such a alcohol soaked holiday.
My sister and friend were heading to the car with bags and I was trailing behind. I had been holding Tyler's hand and I was also trying to carefully sneak my dog (in a bag!) out of the hotel without anyone noticing. Suddenly I was aware that I did not have Tyler's hand anymore and I said, Has anyone seen Tyler? The minute I said it the panic started to rise in my body and I dropped everything and turned around. My sister and friend gave me looks that were disapproving as if to say, "why would we be in charge/ You are the mother!" The shame now accompanied the dread but it was the dread that fueled my panic. As I raced back through the hotel floor by floor calling out, bursting into people's private rooms asking if they had seen a little boy, I noticed that the hotel had all sorts of floors I had not seen before--some were under construction and blocked off with cleaning carts in front of the stairwell exits, others seemed to almost be hospital wards for elderly men. I pushed my way into each one and continued calling. No one had seen him and everyone was disgusted that I had let him out of my sight.
Suddenly a little blonde boy who was not Tyler ran laughing through the room with his laughing parents in playful pursuit. There he is, some of the people cried! But no, this is not my son, this is another boy, their boy. It was an overwhelming horror. The same one that I lived through when Caleb died. I could not believe and yet I knew the truth. I had not protected him. I had not been vigilant. I had allowed myself to be distracted. I had lost my son. In the dream I could not breathe because the reality was crushing me. When I woke I was experiencing a panic attack and could not breathe again. I talked myself down. You are in your bed. You can slow your heart with deep slow full breaths. You did not lose Tyler. He is 29 years old. He is happy. He is alive.
Still, I cannot shake the dream, nor the horrible guilt and shame that seems to live deep inside me and may live there until I die. I could not protect my beautiful little boy. I failed to do the one thing that is most important that a parent do and that is to see to the survival of their children. It does not matter that I know rationally that this is not always possible, that this never in my control, that Caleb was already a young man making his own disastrous decisions. This shame exists on such a deep level that it rarely even surfaces anymore. But what this dream showed me is that it is as strong a force as ever.
I will go through my day. I have 10 people coming to dinner tonight and I stiil have to shop and cook. It is my book group. We will be discussing the Armenian genocide and the Native American genocide because these were the themes of the books we read. I will be discussing the lives of people that lost everyone, some that saw their children killed before their own eyes --not one but all of their children. I try to have perspective. My son is in Greece working with all the people that have lost everything from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq; people coming over land through Iran and Turkey and then by sea to Lesbos. I try to place my grief next to theirs in an attempt to quantify, to tell myself, yours is not so big. Bullshit. Grief cannot be quantified. It is surreal sometimes to carry grief. Imagine what these parents have seen, including losing their children in the final passage at sea. My nightmare simply put me back in this most primordial space: a mother must protect her child. Period. When that fails, when she fails, whether it is large waves at sea, a soldier's gun or a drug overdose makes no difference in that almost biological place in the psyche: she failed.
My sister and friend were heading to the car with bags and I was trailing behind. I had been holding Tyler's hand and I was also trying to carefully sneak my dog (in a bag!) out of the hotel without anyone noticing. Suddenly I was aware that I did not have Tyler's hand anymore and I said, Has anyone seen Tyler? The minute I said it the panic started to rise in my body and I dropped everything and turned around. My sister and friend gave me looks that were disapproving as if to say, "why would we be in charge/ You are the mother!" The shame now accompanied the dread but it was the dread that fueled my panic. As I raced back through the hotel floor by floor calling out, bursting into people's private rooms asking if they had seen a little boy, I noticed that the hotel had all sorts of floors I had not seen before--some were under construction and blocked off with cleaning carts in front of the stairwell exits, others seemed to almost be hospital wards for elderly men. I pushed my way into each one and continued calling. No one had seen him and everyone was disgusted that I had let him out of my sight.
Suddenly a little blonde boy who was not Tyler ran laughing through the room with his laughing parents in playful pursuit. There he is, some of the people cried! But no, this is not my son, this is another boy, their boy. It was an overwhelming horror. The same one that I lived through when Caleb died. I could not believe and yet I knew the truth. I had not protected him. I had not been vigilant. I had allowed myself to be distracted. I had lost my son. In the dream I could not breathe because the reality was crushing me. When I woke I was experiencing a panic attack and could not breathe again. I talked myself down. You are in your bed. You can slow your heart with deep slow full breaths. You did not lose Tyler. He is 29 years old. He is happy. He is alive.
Still, I cannot shake the dream, nor the horrible guilt and shame that seems to live deep inside me and may live there until I die. I could not protect my beautiful little boy. I failed to do the one thing that is most important that a parent do and that is to see to the survival of their children. It does not matter that I know rationally that this is not always possible, that this never in my control, that Caleb was already a young man making his own disastrous decisions. This shame exists on such a deep level that it rarely even surfaces anymore. But what this dream showed me is that it is as strong a force as ever.
I will go through my day. I have 10 people coming to dinner tonight and I stiil have to shop and cook. It is my book group. We will be discussing the Armenian genocide and the Native American genocide because these were the themes of the books we read. I will be discussing the lives of people that lost everyone, some that saw their children killed before their own eyes --not one but all of their children. I try to have perspective. My son is in Greece working with all the people that have lost everything from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq; people coming over land through Iran and Turkey and then by sea to Lesbos. I try to place my grief next to theirs in an attempt to quantify, to tell myself, yours is not so big. Bullshit. Grief cannot be quantified. It is surreal sometimes to carry grief. Imagine what these parents have seen, including losing their children in the final passage at sea. My nightmare simply put me back in this most primordial space: a mother must protect her child. Period. When that fails, when she fails, whether it is large waves at sea, a soldier's gun or a drug overdose makes no difference in that almost biological place in the psyche: she failed.
