Each & Every Day

It’s not usual for me to dream of friends and family long gone. To conjure up ghost from my past to delivery me messages or words of encouragement. Last night I dreamed of my mother. I suppose it came from the lengthy conversation me and my oldest had earlier. I fixed her a pot of chicken and dumplings, one of my mom’s signature recipes. And she was razzing me about how it was almost as good as Granny’s. 

As a kid, my mom always washed her hair and ours in the kitchen sink. My mom always had hard sharp nails, which I always found very soothing on my scalp. So in my dream I was washing my mom’s hair. She didn’t speak much but I noticed she wasn’t much older than she was when she passed. While oddly enough, I was the age in which I am today. I remember telling her as I rinsed the soap out of her salt and pepper hair. That we were going to be the same age soon and that it wouldn’t be too long before I’d be older than her. She just smiled while she laid there.
 
I’ve thought long and hard about that dream. Trying to dig up some nugget of information my sub-conscience was trying telling me. The subject of death comes up a lot in my conversations. Too often as my family likes to point out. But when faced with parents that died at a fairly young from pretty much the same illnesses you currently suffer. The thought does cross your mind. I like to think of these things as a reminder of the fallibility in which we all live. 
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Instead of thinking of death in it’s most fearful of terms. I take it as a positive. In that being aware of my current physical state keeps me conscious of the responsibility I have to live life each and every day. Too often we let the things that make us the happiest slip through our fingers. Simple things like texting a heart emoji to a friend or stopping by your daughter’s and eating supper, even if you weren’t hungry. We worry about our own little bubbles so much we forget the greater truth. That memories make up the fabric of who we are. Good or bad, the legacy we leave behind forms the impressions that shape the here and now.