Sunday 8 January 2012

Nightmare

I had a terrible nightmare last night.  I dreamed that my Oz - the one I call my sunshine because he has filled my life with such light since the moment he was born - had died.  I have the sense that the dream was very prolonged and it centred around my trying to understand what had happened to him and to accept that he was gone.  I met with disinterest and dismissal at every turn and wasn't allowed to see his body.  I remember thinking of the photograph Phil took of him at Christmas 2010 - of his beautiful blond curls and mischievous, joyful smile.  The nightmare ended with my screaming again and again "Who will cuddle me now?"  He's an incredibly affectionate little boy and his comfort object is my necklace, that he calls 'neck neck'.  His favourite place to be at three years old is the same as it was when he was tiny - he'll curl up on my lap with his thumb in his mouth and his other hand clutching my necklace.  It has a Saint Christopher pendant on it.  When I woke it took a few moments for me to realise that Ozzie wasn't dead and that he was sleeping peacefully in his bedroom, under his In The Night Garden duvet, across the hall.  I've had dreams in the past where I've lost loved ones and on waking I've been relieved, momentarily unsettled but have invariably drifted back to sleep (with a fourteen month old baby, sleep is regularly a rare and precious thing).  On this occasion, knowing that he wasn't dead wasn't enough - the distress was so extreme that I cried and cried until my eyes were sore.

Why am I mentioning this?  I've always felt very lucky to be Ozzie's mother.  Even when he was a tiny baby he could make being awake at 4am ok, no matter how tired I was.  I'd find myself smiling and chatting to him when I should have been encouraging him to sleep.  Today, however, I felt more acutely than ever just how precious he is.  Every smile, every sweet observation, every stroke of his head.