When my mother dreams

On the eve of my mother's birthday, my family gathered at my new apartment to celebrate. After the meal as we shared the dessert and coffee, my mother began to talk about a dream that she recently had. She was much younger in this dream of hers, early thirties perhaps. She was walking somewhere, holding my sister's hand and carrying me on her back. After a while, she realized that she lost me. She looked everywhere, but I was not to be found.

My mother never dreams. Other than the three "pregnancy dreams" that she's had (and subsequently giving birth to three daughters), she only spoke of one other dream--a chillingly prophetic dream that she had twenty-five years ago. In that dream, she came walking down a mountain--she was part of a funeral procession that had just buried my father. We would not find out about his fatal illness for another year afterwards.