I'm in my childhood home, in the Williamsburg gray green front hallway. Moravian star light fixture hanging from the center ceiling, glass doors on either side of the hall going into the dining room and living room respectively, staircase ahead. Traditional Colonial center-hallway home.
Mom walks out from the kitchen carrying an empty glass Mason jar. I am my age right now. Mom is young and healthy and energetic, maybe 20 years old. Wearing madras shorts and a white button down shirt with the tails tied in the front at her waist, you know the 1950's look?
She says, Come here. You'll be able to do this.
I follow her into the kitchen. She unscrews the metal top from the glass jar. She bends down to open a bottom cabinet, yellow wood cabinets, reaches the glass jar tentatively way back into the shelves. Then she jumps up. Out from the cabinet scurries a tiny hamster. It darts across the green wooden floor of the kitchen. I easily stoop down, snatch it up in my right hand. I pop it into the glass jar in Mom's hand and she screws on the lid.
I say, It can't breathe. She looks at me. I get a pen, poke a hole in the top metal lid, like we used to do for fireflies in glass jars. The little hamster is peering up at me through the hole I poked. It's not sad, or happy, just surprised. Not agitated. Just looking at me.
I hand the jar back to Mom. I ask, what are you going to do with him?
Mom replies, I'll take him away and let him go.
==================
I wake up. I make myself repeat this dream. I see the kitchen and the cabinet so clearly. Then I picture me stepping into our front hallway and the whole event unfolds again.
Now, the interesting thing is, two nights ago for the first time since Mom died 9 years ago, I talked to Mom. This isn't creepy, she didn't answer back and I didn't expect her to.
I was processing the time post-treatment. How do I not get afraid cancer has returned each time I feel a bump or ache? So I was thinking about this, and about Mom who always prayed for me. So I told her, I knew you are delightfully happy in heaven, and I am so looking forward to being with you there, but not yet. I told her, You are close up there to God. Go tell Him I want to live down here awhile longer.
I see why I would have a dream about Mom the next night. She was on my mind, as my advocate. Remember, dreams aren't really about the person or the thing as much as they your subconscious processing your emotions about what they represent.
Now the hamster? Hmmm. To me, when I think hamster, I think of that wheel. Oh yes, the wheel where they run and run and run, and get nowhere. Our lives sometimes, busy doing the thing we think is important, but it really is just the thing that is staring us in the face at the moment and so we jump aboard and off we go. Busy, busy. Getting nowhere.
Getting stressed out that we are getting nowhere. HA!
So, to me, this dream is saying I am able and capable to take all the things that have occupied me unfulfillingly, and bottle them up and let them go. The part of me that is my advocate tells me I can do this, and it's not a big deal. There isn't a fight, or a battle. Simply a matter of removing.
God will show me who and what and where is best in my life.
For my good.
I can depend on God to guide me in the paths of righteousness.
He will.
And when I need restoring, He will restore.
Thinking about this more, I have learned about myself that I need affirmation from others. I love being part of a team effort. I also love helping others and sometimes being alone. It is all a balance. And all are part of a healthy me.
I feel so much more peace after this dream. Thank you.
