A Sunny Morning at Mom's

I dreamed about my mother still young and beautiful and alive, and almost immediately, in the dream and in real life, I started crying uncontrollably, and then I woke up. The phrase "tears on my pillow" never had any lasting literal truth for me before this year.

I don't miss her every minute of every day, but the moments when I feel the loss come like gunshots, sudden and messy and undeniable in their impact.

Anyway, it was the endpoint of a long dream sequence that involved me being in Mick's townhouse (!) to help welcome Bobby back from the airport. This welcome back turned into a big house party which turned into a morning after, with Mick and everyone too asleep or hungover to help me home. And so I had to fight my way through streets and streets of soldiers and bus-riding mutants, Mad Max-style, just to get back to my place, which was in UP Village. (I remember Shinji Manlangit, of all people, handing me a laser rifle to help me make it through.) There was an army of people singing parody songs. There was a cult who had devoted themselves to making a warped version of Esquire Philippines, issue by issue. Yes, really.

And at the end of all this nutty chaos, Mick picked me up at home, and we went on a weekend morning to where my Mom was living, in a beautiful house with a swimming pool and a sala suffused with sunlight. Mom was sitting up on a daybed, and I had been bantering with Mick, and I turned to Mom to good-naturedly request that she berate Mick for making fun of me, and then I saw Mom so young and beautiful and alive and I immediately started crying, in the dream and in real life, and I woke up and here I am.

I love you forever, Mom.