On February 2 last year, my only brother died of ALS. On February 3 this year, I dreamt that he, my sister, and I were young children again, cleaning the kitchen in my parents’ home as we waited for them to return from vacation.
As we cleaned, I looked out the window and saw my brother, looking as healthy as he did before his diagnosis, driving down the driveway.
Even in the dream, I knew that he was dead and that the disease had robbed him of the ability to drive long before he died. I knew, and yet I was filled with the certitude that he was again alive.
I rushed out the front door, shouting, “It’s Brian!”
But when I got to the driveway, there was no car. No Brian.
I fell to my knees, sobbing, heartstruck. That feeling . . . you know that feeling if you’ve ever lost a loved one.
My mother emerged from the house behind me, placed her hand on my left shoulder, and said, “It’s like that sometimes.”
I woke and lay in the darkness, newly griefstricken.
.
This week my mother’s doctor told her she could die at any moment because her aortic valve has become so narrow. She is scheduled for heart surgery on February 23.