Chance Meeting

I had a dream last night. I was shopping in Target and I ran into my mother. I was walking down the CD aisle. It was one more CD left and me and this woman reached for it at the same time. I recognized her hand. I followed her hand up to her arm and eventually her face. When our eyes met it was like I was staring at a more progressed version of myself. The woman I was staring at is the women that I imagine my mother would have been had she not gotten sick. She was healthy. She was independent. She was alive. I don't know what came over me but I collapsed in her arms. Tears exploded from my eyes as I my arms wrapped around her tight. My snotty nose didn't stop me from inhaling her millennia perfume. She calmly kissed my forehead, pulled her shades over her teary eyes and freed herself from my grasp. I wiped my eyes and she was gone.

A part of me wishes that I could just randomly run into my mother. It wouldn't matter to me that I went the last 10 years of my life without her. I wouldn't ask questions about where she went and why she left. I would just be grateful that she was mine again. I have so many conversations that I wish I could have but never will. So many apologies because I know there were times I could have been a better daughter. Now that I'm older and understand her sacrifices better I wish I could just tell her I appreciate her. I wish she was here after I got my first job so I could have given her a better present. I can't relive the past. I just go through the present sometimes. I'm sad when I think of all of the memories that will be one sided. I want her to meet the man I will marry. I want her opinion on him. I want her to hold my future child. When I wake up in cold sweats with tears in my eyes from dreams like this, I know. I haven't dealt with this. Her funeral is a montage. I knew what death was. I knew I would never hear her voice. I knew I would never touch her again. I just never knew how much my life would change. I never knew how much she would cross my mind. I could never fathom how much I would miss her.