Kisses from Heaven

Are you gently sleeping

Here inside my dream?

And isn't faith believing

All power can't be seen

“To where you are” (Linda Thompson, Richard N. Marx)

If I had to recall one of the most miserable months of 2015, it would have to be February. Note: I am not saying it was the worst because there would be more to come. Yet, for some reason, February sticks out in my mind. Maybe because it was Mom’s month of birth. Maybe because nearly everyone seemed oblivious to our presence, even if there were moments of relief and relative happiness such as the time that a minister from the local Taiwanese association brought me to the vet when Charlie was seemingly ill (turned out it was severe matting in certain areas). At least he was fine even if his fur was shaved off during the coldest day of the year. Poor baby. If Mom were alive, I know he would have crawled into her bed by her side. 

That the tragedy of my mother’s death had finally started to sink in was apparent from my dreams about her which were rare in the first three months. Now, it seemed like I was dreaming about her on what seemed like a near daily basis or at least several times a week. 

Many of them were about either bumping into her while shopping or seeing her after a long interval. In one, I saw her while shopping for a briefcase in a stationery shop (so strange because I hadn’t carried one in over two decades). In another, she arrived home unexpectedly—and yet, it wasn’t our home: Mom, where you been all this time, I shouted excitedly as I rushed to her.  In others, I was waiting for her. I had run into her in an elevator where she told me she was going to see me in my hotel room but never came. There was one where I was going to meet my parents for lunch and I had even seen them in Mom’s car, but when I arrived at the diner, they were nowhere to be seen. Then there was one where I suddenly saw Mom in the hospital. She was being wheeled away by a nurse, telling me she would tell me later about her X-rays, but she did not return. Even more bizarre was a dream where I had heard about a bear lurking in our area and I was going to save Mom from it (a metaphor of her illness?) as she had not returned home yet. Yet, what was even more odd was that the house itself was set in a gymnasium (if that even makes sense—but dreams rarely do). Then, there was a sad dream where I imagined that we were holding another memorial service at our house: a house which was a combination of our present house and previous one. 

No matter now bizarre, the obvious link in all of these dreams, of course, was that Mom was missing. There was no home either. She was either conspicuously absent or when we did meet, it was for an all too brief period of time followed by a period of waiting, never to see her again. 

I’d wake up sad and sometimes cry—especially after dreaming that I had seen her momentarily. How happy I was to see her again! And now, what a misery to get up and face another Mom-less day even though I should have been used to it now, after three months. What a misery to see all the objects I’d seen last year with its particular associations and not see her. Going out was not much better either. When passing by or stopping at old haunts, I would be besieged by memories of our jaunts together. How carefree, happy and optimistic we were especially after I had gotten that book contract. Everything was going to be OK. In short, there was no escaping Mom, who had become a more permanent fixture in my brain dead than alive, it seemed.

But perhaps what I recall most from that February were two peculiar incidents. The first happened when I had gone to shovel the driveway as a light flurry started. I had always enjoyed snow from early childhood—when I had dreams of building a snow fort or igloo after having read one of my picture books. I liked the feel of the cool, delicate snowflakes on my cheek which I called “kisses from heaven.”  But even if I didn’t like snow, there was not much choice in the matter as a blizzard was supposed to hit in the next few days. Better shovel it now before it becomes unmanageable. 

It was a harder task than I anticipated. Again, memories flooded back—memories of last year when I was shoveling our driveway. How happy I was then, or at least, relatively happier. My introduction to the book was beginning to fall into place. (Little did I anticipate how little progress I would make over the year…) Back then, shoveling after a deep snow felt gratifying, partly because it was good exercise after sitting at the computer all morning—not to mention I knew that I was saving Mom from the chore: I never wanted her to shovel out of fear that she would slip and break a bone. All she had to do, I told her, was just fix me hot chocolate, with lots of mini marshmallows and whipped cream, please. 

I soon began to weep silently, grateful that our house was far enough from the sidewalk and that the neighbors were not home. How different it was now. Mom wasn’t around to admire my new, smart parka or appreciate my shoveling. When I reenter the house, it will feel just as cold because the warming presence of Mom is not there. (Here, I can’t help but think of Barthes in his mourning diary for his mother: “A cold winter’s night. I’m warm enough,yet I’m alone. And I realize that I’ll have to get used to existing quite naturally within this solitude, functioning there, working there, accompanied by, fastened to the “presence of absence.”) And sure, I could fix myself a hot chocolate just the way I wanted it, but it wouldn’t be  the same without her conversation. 

As I went back into the house after shoveling the driveway and sidewalk, I noticed that the hall nightlight was on which hadn’t been on for close to a year. Strange, I thought. Since it was hard to switch on and off, I couldn’t imagine that the cats would have turned it on by brushing by. I asked Dad if he went downstairs and he said no. 

How did it turn on by itself? Was it faulty circuitry? Could a mouse have tipped a wire somewhere? 

Then there was what would have been Mom’s 83rd birthday (she died WAY too young!) on February 27th. It was mostly a cloudy, uneventful day that affected me less than I anticipated: probably because I was already all cried out from the last few days thinking about Mom’s last birthday and the creamy chicken mushroom casserole I had made for her. But then, around a few minutes till February 28th, the lights blinked. Since I had my back to the kitchen window, I don’t know whether it was just our house that suffered a momentary outage or if it was our block. It reminded me of the few days when Dad and I were discussing the impending memorial service and the lights and computer blinked twice. “Did you see that?” He asked. Neither of us said anything more. 

And now, Dad called down to me almost immediately. “Did you see the lights flicker?” “Yes.” Again, neither of us said anything more. 

But I could tell what was on our minds even though we were both too embarrassed to ask the question: was that Mom? As an aeronautical engineer, he wasn’t supposed to believe in the supernatural. And as someone who was initially trained to become a scientist, I wasn’t either. 

Yet, I wanted to believe it was her. As I mentioned a few weeks ago in the St Cecelia post, I wanted to believe in a “grand design” so I would have hopes of seeing her in the hereafter. I wanted to know there was a purpose—even if that seemed almost impossible to figure out. And I wanted to believe that somehow, somewhere, she knew I missed her badly—and she wanted to assure me that she was still around, even if not in flesh.