What Do Dreams About Lost Loved Ones Really Mean?

Today is February 23, 2015. Four years ago today was when Timile was officially diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Almost all of the celebration of us becoming parents nine days earlier went out the window as our new family went into crisis and began to go into survival mode. With it being that day I thought I would share some things.

Within the past few weeks I have had a few dreams about Timile and my grandmother (who passed away February 20, 2014). I shared my dream in which after having a talk with Timile she called me responding to everything I had to say. I had two other dreams about her recently. In the first one it was 2011. Timile had short hair but it had been growing back after chemo so I assume it was the fall. Cydney was about six months old as well; but I looked like how I do now (which is a drastic change from 255 with [dread] locs compared to a muscular 205 and short curls in my head). Matter of fact, I think it was November. We all went to see the doctor and they said that the three of us were terminally ill. We only had 24 hours to live. That was scary and probably the closest thing I’ve had to a nightmare in a decade. Right before I woke up, it was the morning of my last day. I was in my second grade classroom and knowing what was ahead of me all I could think about was Timile, Cydney, who would go first, and what would happen.

The second dream was about my grandmother. Actually, Timile was alive in this one as well. We were living upstairs at my mother’s house. She had long hair and looked like healthy self. I came downstairs and all of a sudden I was in my grandmother’s dining room. She was sitting in her normal spot at the table and a four year old Cydney was on her lap hugging her whole jumping up and down like a little kid does when they’re excited to see a loved one. I pretended to give her a kiss because she didn’t see me. But then she said something smart so I did. I asked her what did she think about Cydney because she hadn’t seen her in a while. My grandmother said she was happy but Cyd is a handful. She was really alluding to how I was as a child in which much of our dynamic was me getting into things and her shooting me looks to stop doing whatever I wasn’t supposed to be doing in church. While she was sitting down Cydney and I gave her the biggest hug while the two of them smiled and then I woke up.

I feel like that dream was really about me. My last few talks with my grandmother were about me being a single father, what she wanted for me out of life, and finding happiness with someone who would take on Cyd and me. I have been doing some reconciling and rectifying with someone I once cared a lot about…Actually I had been doing some accepting about what was, is, and not being in my head so much. It made sense that this dream of happiness and her essentially telling me to be happy like a kid and move on made sense.

The third dream was one I had the other day. I was visiting my friend Chase who used to live in DC but moved back to Atlanta. I drove with him from Georgia to The District to pick up some old things and while we were at his apartment he found some childhood toys he wanted to give to me saying they were really for Cydney (I was going to play with those Ninja Turtles from the 1980’s or put them with my others that sit on a shelf in my studio until Cydney takes them down to play with).

Looking in an old bucket I found Timile’s driver’s license. What was crazy was that it was a New York one-she had a Georgia license-and it was one of the new ones that have just come out recently. I asked him how did he get it and he said he had no clue; but he’d been holding onto it in case I wanted it. As soon as I touched it it snapped in half.

I’m not quite sure what this last one means. Honestly, I’m not sure what any of these really mean. Just thought I’d share and if any of you have interpretations I’d love to hear them.