After this, my
mother—who had a habit of her own—appeared in my dreams. It scared me so bad, that I kept waking up,
trying to shake it off. For months, the
dream returned, night after night until finally I decided if I didn’t go to
sleep, I would not have the dream and it couldn’t come true. That lasted for two weeks—I was a nervous
wreck—smoking and drinking so much coffee, I always felt bloated enough to sail
away. Nothing changed. Exhaustion
finally set in and I fell asleep behind the wheel while driving. Fortunately, I ran into a ditch and didn’t do
much damage to my car or to me or anyone else, but that was truly a wake-up
call. No matter what happened, I would
not be able to change the course of events.
And I didn’t. My mother died of
an overdose of drugs before she turned forty.
Planning
her funeral was the hardest thing I had ever done. I was her only child and my aunt was still
grieving over her own daughter. I sat
for hours at a time, remembering—all the stuff she and granny used to tell
me. I believed our lives were based on
superstitions and no one could convince me otherwise. I even tried to convince my friends, but they
didn’t really believe me. I believed if
you spilled salt you had to throw some over your shoulder so you wouldn’t have
bad luck. One of my cousins once broke a
mirror and I told him he was going to have seven years of bad luck, but he
didn’t believe me. Nothing he did for
the next seven years amounted to anything and when he landed in jail, he
finally believed me.
There
were so many things that I was taught about good and bad luck and destiny. If a person had a gap between their teeth,
they were liars. If they were
left-handed, the devil had his hand on them.
If they walked with their feet turned in, they were up to no good. If their hairline was in a certain position
(not a widow’s peak), they were doomed for failure. And the list could go on
and on. While I was thinking about all
these things, I lit a candle and committed my mother to heaven with the sign of
the cross. And before the question comes
to mind, I was not Catholic, but I was taught to use the sign of the cross to
ward off evil.
After
we buried my mother in the dress I saw on her in my dream and carried her to
the cemetery that I saw in my dream, I really didn’t want to think much of my
so-called gift. After all, what had it
gotten me so far? So, I stopped paying
attention for a while and I really should have paid more attention. I saw myself being hurt in a car accident,
being hurt on a job, and finally having a heart attack, destined to live
dependently upon others.
No comments:
Post a Comment