I dreamed about my mom last night. My mom died at the end of last October, and my dad & I were with her while she lay there, totally unresponsive and struggling to breathe for over five hours before she finally gave up. Ever since then I have dreamed about her, and every time she is back with us at home, but always with the sense that we don't know how long for because somehow I know that she is dead.

Last night I dreamed I was sitting on our sofa talking to her, still knowing she was dead. My dad mentioned how a friend of the family had come to our house earlier, so I asked my mom if she had been around when he came and she said no. "He would have got quite a shock if you had," I joked, thinking how funny it would be for someone to see her even though she has been dead for months. Then my mom told me she couldn't keep doing this, she couldn't keep coming back. "I've got to go," she said. I had always known it was only temporary, but as soon as she said she had to go I straight away felt exactly as I did in the hosptital room that afternoon when she stopped breathing, when we sat and waited while her heart slowed down and finally stopped while I silently begged her to take another breath. "Don't go," I said, crying just like I did then. "Don't leave, mama."

I don't know if that meant something, maybe that I won't dream about her again. I guess I'll find that out over time, but when I woke up this morning I couldn't stop crying because it felt like I had lost her all over again.