I dreamed about Jason last night

I rarely dream at all. If I do dream, I usually don’t remember them.

I haven’t dreamt much about Jason since he died. When I do, they are very vivid. I dream that it’s all a huge mistake that Jason died, that he is alive. I dream that I am looking for him, that he must be somewhere and I need to find him.

Last night I dreamed that the place we lived had a Mount Vesuvius-type volcanic eruption. Jason and the girl he loved had been somewhere together when the blast happened. I couldn’t get to them to protect them and, when the blast was over, I frantically searched and searched and searched for them. I ran through the ash-covered streets checking each person who had succumbed to the the volcanic eruption to see if it was Jason and his love. The ash was so deep that it made it difficult to tell what exactly the shapes were, whether they were human or an inanimate object. I looked in every possible hiding place I could find to see if they had taken shelter in one of them. I desperately wanted to find them alive and for them to be okay.

I couldn’t find them anywhere and kept getting more panicky by the minute.

And then I woke up. I laid in bed and thought about how much I miss Jason, how incredibly different our lives would have been in SO many ways had he lived.

No matter how long it’s been, I think our hearts always long for our children to be alive and with us. We desperately want them to come home and to be able to hug them tight. We want them to be safe. Sometimes the longing comes out in our dreams.

Missing you, my boy, today and always.

Love,

Mom

© 2021 Rebecca R. Carney

Symbolism in Dreams

I had a dream last night. I don’t dream a lot – either that, or I don’t remember my dreams much – but this was a vivid one.

I dreamed that I met a friend for breakfast, a friend whose family we used to think of as extended family members. Our kids were young – middle-school age or younger. They were so excited to be together and were having so much fun. We were seated in a far corner of the packed restaurant. We initially spoke to the waitperson, but then the person waiting on us disappeared and never came back. The kids kept getting more and more restless. After about 45 minutes of waiting, I decided to go and find someone to help us.

As I headed toward the front of the restaurant, I ran into the mother of a child who was a good friend of our daughter. I could tell she was so mad at me and she walked away from me without saying anything to me. I didn’t know why she was so mad at me. I found out where she was sitting, tried to apologize for doing whatever I had done that had offended her and reached as if to give her a hug. She avoided me entirely and refused to even look at me. I gave up and went to find the manager.

The manager said that they were not going to be able to take care of our party at all because they were having a sale to support a charity. All of their employees were downstairs helping with the sale and no staff was left to serve us. I went down to the lower level where they were having the sale and saw that all of my personal fabric (I used to sew a lot) was mixed in with all of the other fabric and things for sale. Most of the fabric belonging to me was some that I was going to use to make a memory quilt. Someone had taken my fabric without my permission and had given it all away. I was so frustrated that someone thought so little of my things – things that belonged to me and things that were important to me – that they just took them away from me without my permission. I tried to find a box to start collecting my things, but whenever I stepped away, someone took my fabric and placed it somewhere else to be sold. It was all gone before I could do anything at all to get it back. I had nothing left.

I found my sister (who was in charge of the charity sale) to tell her what had happened, but she acted like it was no big deal. It was for charity, was a good thing for someone to take my fabric away from me and add it to the rest of things to be sold. It was for charity, after all. She said that I didn’t need it any more and it was time for it to move along to someone else. I was so mad that I started hitting things and knocking them over (which is totally unlike me) as I walked out the door.

And then I woke up with a start.

I realized I was really upset and still so mad, even though I was awake and knew it was a dream. I started to think about what I’d dreamed and believe it actually symbolizes many things we have gone through.

First, the anniversary of Jason’s death is just a couple of days away. It is a difficult time of year for me. The friend and her kids that we met for breakfast symbolized the people we once knew, people we considered to be close friends, people we loved and cared for. The disappearing, non-existent waitperson symbolized the help we expected from those we knew after Jason died, help that never materialized.

The mother of our daughter’s friend who was so mad at me symbolized the people who didn’t understand why it hurt me that they deserted us after Jason died. They thought we should get over it. When we could not be who they thought we should be, they rejected or avoided us. The woman in my dream was the one who proudly told me in real life, just a few months after Jason died, that her kids were nearly 90% back to normal. She actually told me to my face that her kids were nearly over my son’s death. It was unbelievable.

The fabric symbolized all of the things I felt have been taken away from me without my permission since Jason died. I’ve lost so much. My sister represented the callousness of people who seem to have not cared how much we have lost and those who feel it’s time to forget and move one. My sister is not callous at all, by the way, so I don’t know why she was in my dream depicting such a person. It’s genuinely easy to feel at times that hardly anyone even cares any more how much we still hurt or all that we’ve been through. People got tired of our troubles. Out of sight, out of mind. After all, it’s been 19 years, right? Except that the pain of losing a child never goes away.

The anger in my dream represents just that. There are still times when I’m angry. Not all the time, but I sometimes struggle with anger. I’m angry that Jason died. I miss my boy. I miss his hugs, his beautiful smile. I miss everything about him. I’m angry both at the people who deserted us and those who seem to have moved on with their lives. I feel like Jason is being forgotten. I’m angry at the way people treated us, the way our daughter’s friends treated her. My precious daughter. She didn’t deserve the way she was treated.

At times, I’m still angry, no matter how hard I have worked at forgiveness. I’m angry that Jason did not have the chance to live his life, to graduate from college, to marry and have a family. His friends are doing all of those things. I’m angry that we don’t have the opportunity to dote on and love his children, our grandchildren. I’m angry that we have struggled so long and so hard to get our feet under us after Jason’s death and to find a place where we belong, only to still feel like we don’t belong anywhere, in limbo, our possessions in storage once again. We are like the man/woman without a country. We have no home of our own, no furnishings, what little we own in storage. I feel so alone sometimes. 19 years later and we are still lost. It boggles my mind.

Our minds are amazing things. No matter how hard we try or how much time passes, we never forget the things that are in our hearts, the experiences we have been through and that have deeply affected us, and the pain of losing a child. Sometimes our minds pull those fragments together and they come out in our dreams.

Missing my boy, always.

Hugs,

Becky

© 2021 Rebecca R. Carney

My Dream

I don’t dream much – or, at the very least, I don’t remember my dreams.

I haven’t dreamed of Jason in a very, very long time, but I dreamed about Jason last night.

I dreamed that Jason came home to visit us from college. I was so ecstatic to see him – beyond ecstatic. I couldn’t stop staring at his face. It was so wonderful to see his face again. He seemed concerned or worried about something, so he wasn’t his usual cheerful, smiley self. In my dream, I was waiting for him to smile his beautiful, sun-shiney smile. I took his face in my hands and just smiled at him for a long time until he didn’t look worried any more. He couldn’t stay long and had to get back to school.

In my dream, I sat down on the floor against the wall after he left and cried and cried. I was so sad that Jason had to leave. I was so sad that our daughter and other son lived so far away from us (which is true in real life). I felt so alone (which is also true in real life).

I woke up crying. I miss my boy so much. I miss his smiling face. I miss everything about him.

~Becky

© 2020 Rebecca R. Carney

Dreams

There are people that dream about their family members who have died, but typically I am not one of those people. I am not one who usually dreams or remembers any of my dreams at all, although I’ve had a few very vivid dreams about things over the years.

For example, one Friday night I had an extremely vivid dream about my mother-in-law. I dreamed that she had fallen, that someone had come to pick her up, and that she was dying. Her health had been declining, but there was no indication that she was near death, so this dream really rattled me.

The next morning, I debated with myself about whether or not to tell my husband, but I decided I’d better tell him and encourage him to call his mom to check in. When he called his folks, his sister answered the the and said, “Joey, I’m so sorry. We should have called you. Mom fell yesterday, and they came and took her to the hospital. They’re really not sure how long she’s going to live.” Needless to say, he booked his plane ticket right away to go see her. She died not long after. That whole experience still gives me goosebumps.

I’ve had several other similar vivid dreams that seemed to fit exactly into what was going on in real life. It is a bit unnerving at times, I have to admit.

I have only dreamed about Jason a couple of times, most memorably about six months after he died. I wish I dreamed about him more. I miss seeing him so much. I miss his hugs so much.

After Jason died, it caused me enormous anguish to think that my precious, beautiful son had borne the direct hit of a car going 70 miles per hour. As a parent, we just want our children to be safe and protected, and our minds rebel at the thought that they weren’t. Our whole beings cry out for the safety and protection of our children. My husband went through a horrible time of guilt that he wasn’t able to protect Jason; he felt like he should have been able to protect him somehow. When the accident happened, the drunk driver’s car hit Jason’s car right on the driver’s side door, right where he was sitting.

My anguish was made worse when I got the death certificates in the mail. Not understanding the medical terminology of the main cause of death listed on the death certificate, I made the mistake of looking it up on the internet. I have never, ever shared what I found with anyone, and I never, ever will. Ever. It caused me a whole lot of anguish for many years. It’s not like I have dwelt on the cause of death all the time, but it definitely factored into my grieving process.

Although we have a complete set of the police investigation, along with all of the photos they took that night, it is securely taped shut with a stern warning on the outside about never, ever opening it. I’ve never looked at it and I never want anyone to, either. When the police detectives reviewed the case with us, they were very selective in the few photos they showed us of the accident. I’m sure there is a very good reason why. I’m glad the whole court case didn’t go to trial; otherwise, a lot of that documentation would become public. I should probably have our work’s shredding service take it away. I don’t know why I’ve held onto it this long.

Anyway, some years after Jason’s death, I hit a really low point and was struggling mightily in my grief — not only about Jason’s death and everything surrounding that time, but how he died. And then, one night, I had a dream that really brought me comfort.

We lived in Florida at the time. In Florida, there are canals and waterways all over the place, and there are some bridges that go up on either side to a flat area on top. As you go  up and across the flat top, you can’t necessarily see if there are any cars stopped as you head down the other side. I always watched in fear that someone would come off the bridge too fast to stop. Florida has some crazy, fast drivers! (No offense to any Floridians!)

In my dream, I had gone across the flat top of the bridge and was on the downslope on the other side, stopped and waiting for the light to change. In my rearview mirror, I saw somebody in a very large, heavy vehicle come barreling up behind me. I instantly knew that there was no way he could stop in time, that he was going to hit me hard, and that there was no way I was going to survive. Right in the split moment before he hit me, I felt my soul, my spirit, whatever you want to call it being pulled out of my body so that I was several feet above the car.

In my dream, I could actually feel the sensation of being pulled out of my body. I don’t even know how to describe it — sort of a quick, but gentle and airy separation of body from spirit that sort of tickled, like someone grabbed me by the back of my collar and just lifted me right out of my body. I was still me, just not in my physical body any more. I could look down past my feet at my physical body in the car, and I felt a holy presence beside me, holding me. I had felt no pain at the moment of impact because I was no longer a part of my physical body; I had been pulled out in the split second before the car hit me.

And, as I woke from that dream, I realized that that’s what had happened to Jason. God had spared him the horrendous pain of being hit by that drunk driver, of his 180-pound frame absorbing the full impact of a speeding, 4000-pound car. He had quickly and gently pulled the true spirit of Jason out of the way of that speeding car to be with Him, leaving just the shell of his body behind to absorb the impact.

From that time on, even though I remember the medical terminology of Jason’s cause of death and know exactly what it means, I know in my heart that he felt no pain at the moment of the accident. He is safe; he is healthy; he is happy. And he’s waiting for me.

I love you, my precious boy. Oh, how I miss you.

~Becky

© 2018 Rebecca R. Carney