Chapter 26, Ojai, 2015

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

THIS MIGHT KILL ME! It sounds dramatic. I don’t mutter these words out loud. I am overwhelmed and suffocated. There are too many hats on my head and running away sounds appealing. What if I have a stroke? Carolyn and I were raised to totally commit to each “task at hand.” I can’t do this – care for this family at forty percent. I only function, as Carolyn did, at a one hundred percent level. This requires utilizing every minute of my waking time. If I get the unexpected gift of a few minutes between tasks, I freeze. What did I do before Carolyn got sick? I remember having a DVR favorite TV show list. I watched television shows! I loved books! I used to have a huge pile of books I was reading on my nightstand. Today on my nightstand there is a lamp, an almost empty bottle of melatonin, lip balm, an open, tipped-over bottle of Advil, and two sips of red wine in a clear glass with lipstick marks on the rim… last night’s leftovers. There are no books… just drugs and booze. Who have I become? And since when do I bring wine to bed?!

I am truly starting to question my mental state. I’m not suicidal. There is a big difference between understanding why one may want to kill themselves and actually being suicidal. I am “at the brink” - a polite expression my mother loves to use. Extreme stress changes my body. It makes me have a fuzzy brain and a horrible memory. I have had to put locator charms on my key chains so I can remember where I put them. I have learned how to set alarms for EVERYTHING on my iPhone so I won’t forget basic things - like events at the kids’ school and who I told could come to visit for the weekend. This seems crucial after a friend of Carolyn’s texts me, “We’re Here! Just checked into our hotel!”, and I have no idea who it is. I look up the area code of the phone number and slowly recall everyone I know who lives in Kansas City. I have started having crazy dreams that put to shame crazy dreams of the past. These new dreams are incredibly graphic in detail. Sometimes they feel real, like I’m not dreaming but walking through my room when I’m suddenly transported to another world, where I see silver gigantic cows or oxen (I have never seen an actual ox, but I have heard they are much larger than cows). They are more than silver. They glisten, almost as if diamonds or glitter are floating off their silver bodies and into the surrounding space. They are sitting on the front lawn of our house, and I see them in the middle of the night, accidentally at first, when I walk to the bathroom. My bedroom is at the front of the house, and there is an enormous window that overlooks an amazing hilltop view just beyond the front yard. We aren’t in view of any neighbors, so I never close the drapes at night.

The first night I am surprised by these ginormous creatures-it is around three am. Post-childbirth, this is my habitual middle of the night walk to the bathroom. The room is void of noise other than the slight, deep exhale of my sleeping husband. I can’t hear cars or music from the local bar, The Deer Lodge, like I do most nights. We live on a high hill and sound seems to travel from the end of the valley and land in our yard. This night I do hear crickets outside and the occasional cat defending its territory, lending credence to what I see. I have cracked the bedroom window, and a slight breeze gives me a chill as I pass. I see the glow first. I walk right to the front window, mesmerized by the faint sparkle that becomes larger the closer I get to the glass. There are three huge creatures on the lawn, reclining. They look relaxed and well-fed. I briefly wonder why they are not standing up, as I remember my childhood in the Midwest and tales of cow tipping. It dawns on me they are staying for awhile. They are content. I am also content. I go to the bathroom and back to bed. Surely I am dreaming. In the morning, I tell Dines about my dream. “I’m headed down the rabbit hole. I’m now seeing things!” I exclaim.

“Melatonin gives some people crazy dreams, honey,” he says while rolling over to tightly hug me like he does every morning. I sit up.

“No, this is not like a melatonin dream at all, Dines. This is trippy weird. This is so real. I might have actually seen silver oxen on our lawn! They were peaceful, like angels. They felt soothing. They were silent and beautiful. Sparkles surrounded them.”

Every night for the next few weeks creatures appear to me. They are always at peace, and I notice something more beautiful about them with each visit. Their sparkles reflect the stars in the sky. All of them have soulful blue eyes. One ox is larger than the other two. They have big furry ears. One night, one of the smaller creatures is wearing a lei of beautiful flowers. My lawn is dried up from the drought in Southern California, but the creatures seem to bring their own lush landscape. They feed on brilliantly green grass and chew on bushes much more robust than what I have planted in my drought-tolerant yard. Their faces seem kind. It’s almost as if I could walk out the front door and lie with them or even on them and gaze at the stars.

I take a brief weekend away at the urging of a lifelong friend who understands my stress. We escape to a relaxing desert spa. We sit in warm pools of mud and eat dinner in our bathrobes. I dream in the desert, but not of my sparkling creatures. I dream of my Great Uncle Hugh, my Grandpa Vern’s brother. He stands down the hill from our house, looking up but not walking up the road. This is not the first time I have seen him. After he died, when I was a little girl, I had dreams of Hugh each time a family member and or a pet died. I would see him like I see the creatures, in the middle of the night outside my window. Most often he sat on the front roof of a car in the driveway, but once he stood right outside the front hall. He doesn’t speak to me but instead shows me images of his missing finger tip that I remember as a child. Hugh’s outfit is always the same - simple working-man’s clothing in muted colors. This was how men dressed in northern Minnesota when I was young. I am intrigued by my dream in the desert. He has always appeared close to the house in the past. Now he is farther away. It seems his message is this: “Death is looming but has not yet arrived.”

Right before Dines’ birthday, the creatures are on the lawn but not alone. Standing among them is my departed Grandpa Vern. It takes me a moment to decipher who is standing before me. Grandpa Vern always dressed like his brother. They were sons of a baker. Grandpa taught high school for most of his life. In retirement he owned a shop. My grandfather nursed my grandmother through her slow death from lung cancer and raised my mother’s sister who suffered from a rare neurological disease. In pictures, he was an extremely good-looking young man. He was a champion swimmer, and many remarked, “the kindest of all men.”

Carolyn adored Grandpa Vern. She named her son after him - Matson was his surname. Grandpa Vern leased me my first car when I was in college and bought me my first dog - a fluffy white Bichon Frise named Olivia. Grandpa died my second year away at school. My memories of him are full of joy, laughter, and thoughtful, patient conversation. My mother said when she was a child and would have bad dreams, he would wake up with her, and together they would make salad, eating it until they had worked out her dream. It has been pointed out to me that Dines is just like my Grandpa Vern. Perhaps this is why Dines felt like home when I met him and why Carolyn adored Dines just as much as she adored our Grandpa Vern.

“Grandpa, you’re here!” I say to him from the window overlooking the front lawn.

“Yes,” he answers as I begin to weep.

“Are you here with Uncle Hugh?” I ask through my tears.

“It seemed only right that I should help him,” Grandpa says.

“You are silver like those oxen,” I say.

“Yes. These are my gentle beasts. They are here waiting for Carolyn, just like I am. We are transporting her in our finest regalia.”

Grandpa Vern is bare chested and super muscular, like he was in the pictures I saw of him as a young man. His pants are as silver as his skin, and on his head he wears a crown that is over one foot high. It is filled with silver fruits, jewels, and ribbons. The frame of the crown is cut out of wood, Scandinavian in pattern. I recognize this pattern from Christmas decor in my childhood home, decades ago. He sparkles, too, like his gentle beasts. He carries a huge broad staff, curved at the top like the staff of a shepherd. His blue eyes look kind and alive, and I smile at seeing again the dimples I remember in his cheeks. I am not scared. I am happy for Carolyn. This is how she should leave this life - as a princess, in the safe care of the Nordic King.