Tita Becky's Weblog

I very seldom remember details of my dreams upon waking up — much like what it’s purported to be when we come out of our mother’s womb and we are hit by the trivial concerns (like the pain in the butt that the doctor spanked, the pangs of hunger or the cold room) that supersede all the nuances of the comfortably reassuring womb.

Today’s 06 August 2007 and am writing down this dream, lest I forget again.

I dreamt that my husband and I were at the doctor’s clinic, but we were not together — he was in the doctor’s office and I was outside doing something else. I remember wondering why it felt so cold. Then he came out of the doctor’s office, crying! I asked him and he would not tell me why he was crying. Then we went home and sat down and he was looking at me intently with tears in his eyes. I asked him once more what the doctor told him, and he said the doctor said I have cancer on my face. I asked him, “on my FACE!? which part?” and he motioned with his hand, and I asked, “the upper part?” and he nodded. and I asked again, “in my brain?” and he nodded again.

I couldn’t believe my ears and I ran to the mirror and looked at my face this way and that and it all looked and felt normal — no sign of cancer at all. And I went back to him and asked, “are you kidding me?” and he shook his head to mean he was not kidding. And I just stood there looking at him, and felt everything go bleak and I felt very sad.

Then my eldest daughter, very young in the dream and in her striped red-and-cream pyjamas, came out of her room and tugged at my shirt, “Come, mommy, come, see!” And I let her lead me to the garden, and it was the most beautiful garden ever — with lilies that look like tongues of fire, each petal yellow around the brim and fiery red towards the stamen, and there were the red-and-orange suntans and the whitest and biggest roses ever that are as big as those tulips I saw in Christchurch campus gardens in New Zealand back in 1997! They’re all in full bloom! And my daughter was running around in it, and she looked even more beautiful than those big, colorful blooms!

And I know she was always wishing for the beautiful flowering garden that she grew up in before they were all wiped out by a series of floods and I stopped growing them because I hated having to tend them to full bloom and seeing them rot and die again. It was a secret trauma with me; but in my daughter’s young mind, it was a familiar place she once knew and has been
missing and wishing for — and now, in the dream, she was in one such a garden. I marveled at her ecstasy, running around like a young, innocent deer among the biggest butterflies in the most fiery-looking garden I have ever seen! I ran inside the garden and embraced my daughter, gave her the tightest embrace ever that she squeaked some and laughed some more.

I jerked around and looked for my youngest daughter. And when I couldn’t see her, I asked, “Where is your sister?” And she was laughing and said, “Don’t worry, she’s there, mommy, pulling out the weeds!” And I went to where she pointed and, indeed she was just around a corner in that sweetest smelling garden, in her yellow-and-white pyjamas, hunched on her knees also and with a trowel in her hand tilling the soil around a rose plant. She looked up when she felt our presence and smiled the sweetest smile ever! And I thought to myself, “my daughter is more beautiful than these flowers!”

My husband went inside for his digital camera, and started shooting photos of my daughters and me in that garden with the most frighteningly beautiful flowers and the biggest, most beautifully colorful butterflies flitting around with us. And he was still crying. I was feeling giddy (must be all that sweet-smelling flowers around me) and I teased him, “Stop crying and take some more photos of our daughters! Take more of our youngest, too, and of her long, beautiful hair!”

Then he went back inside, his back hunched a little, looking tired and after a while my daughters and I followed him inside, and he was sitting on couch and he was another wonder to see — he did not have a big belly, and he was wearing a young man’s
tattered shorts and sleeveless shirt that clung to his abs and showed muscles in his arms! He was wearing a wig that was all-black and curly that made him look like a beautiful, young-looking and skin-toned African negro! No, he did not grow young — he was still old, but he looked like he has been using lots of moisturizer on his skin. He was soooo beautiful, but he still had tears running down his cheeks, and my heart went out to him that brief instant as I beheld his teary face. I
wondered how he could look so healthy and big and strong… yet so fragile, so weak and so hurt?

He handed some bills to our eldest daughter and said, “Dear, go and order some food for us. I’m famished, and we’re going to have a feast in the garden!” And she promptly ran off and our youngest ran after her saying, “Ate, Ate, saan ka pupunta? ‘sama ko, Ate!” [translation: “Big sister, big sister, where are you off to? Take me along, big sister!”] And they both ran off. I ran to the window and looked after them until I could not see them anymore. Then I turned back to my husband and sat down beside him and put my head to rest on his shoulder and he wrapped his strong arms around me tenderly with tears still streaming down from his chinky eyes.

I woke up feeling I needed to pee, and I ran to the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror… Nah, it still looked and felt normal — no cancer at all… I must have been dreaming in my dream! 🙂

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