More like my heart... I woke up this morning from one of the most horrible dreams. I dreamed that we let Anna (who is only 6 1/2) go to the movies with some friends and we came back to pick her up. After waiting several minutes for her we realized something was wrong.
Anna was gone. In my dream I cried the chest crushing sobs of grief, the kind where you actually feel like you are going to die... the kind where your heart hurts so bad it might explode into flames.
To make matters worse, I woke up briefly last night to turn over and went right back into the dream, only I had fast forwarded and I realized that we had never called the police. In my dream we went over to the MIL's apartment to ask for her help finding Anna despite recent real life events. As I was asking for help, Anna came out from a bedroom. In my dream I was trying to get John's attention while sobbing and holding my girl and all that would come out was a strangled whimper.
The MIL said in my dream that Anna had managed to escape from her kidnapper but Anna wanted to stay with her nana for a little while because she was afraid she was going to get in a lot of trouble.
I woke up and cried of course. Anna came into the bathroom and asked me what was wrong and I told her while she hugged me. "It's ok mom," she whispered, "it's not real."
Believe it or not, I always try to use these stupid dreams for good. I know that John and I would never be stupid enough to let our 6 year old go to the movies unsupervised. Of course I would never forget to call the police.
I also took the opportunity this morning to reinforce that the child is never to blame in these situations and she has to know that she can't ever give up because we will NEVER stop looking for her.It's also an opportunity for her to know the important things like how to call 911, that she knows her complete phone number and address. We went over again who is allowed to EVER pick her up ANYWHERE, even if someone seems to have detailed information about our family.
These dreams always confirm three things for me: That I am so afraid that I will lose one of my kids, and that I am so afraid I will lose them because of a terrible mistake that I have made.
(It also confirms how neurotic I am...)
And how much I love them, and I don't what I would do without them.
7 comments:
Oh, Those are hard dreams.
A good thing too is for them to know a secret pass word.
Hey sis, I know how it is to have dreams like this. It's hard to explain why we have them, but we do. We love our kids so much that when they are hurt, we hurt 100 times more. I remember when Rebecca was young having a dream like yours. We were in a store and I turned away for a moment and she was gone. I just about lost my mind trying to find her. I woke up in a cold sweat and ran into her room to make sure she was there. The next day we had a long talk about why it's important to stay with me when we are out.
I don't think you're neurotic, I think you are just a GREAT MOM!
Love you,
Marci
OMG, how freaky! Friday night I had the SAME kind of dream, very different story but surrounding the fear of losing Emma and I woke up completely crying so hard and breathing heavy and heart racing. Those are SO scary and when they are so realistic it's even more scary! When I was driving down the road that was in my dream the next day, I felt that anxiety all over again!
I think sometimes we're blessed to have such emotional dreams to help us put everything back in perspective. Nothing does that as powerfully for me as a dream where I lose a child.
Hugs,
Holly
I don't think thats neurotic.
I have terrible night mares too and they usually even deaths. I hate them.
ugh i hate dreams like that they so suck... but yes they do tend to remind us of what we need to do to stay on our toes.
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