On Dreams Of Death
By Sonya Spillmann
@sonyaspillmann
A curtain of dusk lowers. Clouds of rain turn what I can still see dark. The kids are in their seats and I’m behind the wheel. We’re on the top level of an open air parking garage, parked in between two cars. I know it sounds funny, but I’m not sure how we got here. I just know we need to leave.
The rain starts. I turn on my wipers. I shift into drive and pull the wheel to the left toward the exit. My windshield blurs. I’m blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. We both brake, hard and fast. I’m too far out for the car to pass. And they’re too close for me to advance. So I put it in reverse and idle back into the spot.
But the van doesn’t slow when I press on the brakes.
What it does do, what it shouldn’t do, what I can’t believe it’s doing, is continue to move through the concrete barrier behind us, as if we’re ghosts, and then the vehicle falls off the edge backwards, into the air.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
In this eternal, instant moment I cannot comprehend if this is even real—is this the end of my life? Will the kids be okay? What is going on? What am I supposed to do?
***
I stand in front of my fridge. In my hands, I hold a piece of paper. The month of July is printed on it.
Months ago, when the world ground to a halt, the fridge became our center of logistics and family communication. I taped up lists: a running one for groceries, take-out places we wanted to support, people to send Thank You notes to, and ambitious “Things to do With The Kids” ideas. All that was next to our family calendar, on two sheets of paper -- two months at a time.
It’s June. And while I didn’t think it was in my power to delay its arrival, I’ve been hesitant to put up July. I just haven’t been ready, haven’t wanted to look at this month, normally chock full of swim meets and travel plans—now conspicuously blank, save one square, outlined in pink highlighter.
I didn’t want the visual reminder that soon, my life will change forever.
I don’t mean to sound so dramatic. We all carry a backpack full of days when our lives changed forever (the new job, the day we bought a minivan, when we discovered cold brew). But some days mark us in more profound ways—like the day we said I do, or heard that first cry, or got the news that shook our world.
My life changed forever this past January when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It changed again in March with the pandemic. In April, I had a lumpectomy, and the pathology revealed a more complicated diagnosis than the imaging had shown. So here I am, staring at the fridge, holding the month with a day on it that will again, change me forever.
The day of my double mastectomy.
I’ll be fine, I tell myself. It’ll be a long road. But I’ll be okay, we’ll be okay. I know this, even though I don’t. I want to be confident. Claim it. But I can't. Because what if? What if there’s a complication? An unexpected finding? What if ‘Your will be done’ doesn’t feel like ‘It is well’?
I take a deep breath and press July onto the fridge with green washi tape decorated with little llamas.
***
The plan was that I would stay at home when we had kids. So when my daughter was born, I spent my days nursing and pumping and trying with all my might to get our tiny little baby to nap, against everyone’s advice, on a three-hour schedule.
As she grew, we’d to go to coffee shops, the grocery store, and the park down the street. I joined a Moms Club and met new friends.
Then one random day, a few months shy of her first birthday, I sat on our grey couch and felt this pull to go back to work. I didn’t want to return to the same job—at a desk, eight-to-five. But could I, on my terms? If I could work in the hospital on off-shifts, on the weekends? It would be the best of both worlds. I’d be mom during the day and a nurse when she slept. And there’d be no need for childcare.
A month later, around dinner time on a Friday night, I’m in scrubs. I have a stethoscope around my neck and a pocket full of sharpies. My husband, Chris, sits on the couch feeding our daughter a bottle.
“Call me if you need anything,” I repeat for the hundredth time.
“We’ll be fine,” he says.
“I put pajamas on her changing table.”
“Okay.”
“Check on her before you go to bed.”
He nods.
“I put out a jar of peaches for the morning. It’s next to her cereal.”
“Go,” he insists, and finally, I do.
At work, I call a few times to check in. She’s fine. He’s fine. All is well.
In the morning, I drive back home and before I go to sleep, I give my husband suggestions for what to do with our daughter. “You could take her to the park, or the coffee shop, or just play here …” I’m trying to help, I don’t think he understands just how hard it is to take care of a little one all by yourself all day.
But when I wake up, he’s fine. She’s fine. All is well.
Weeks turn into months, and I forgo leaving peaches on the counter, picking out pajamas, or suggesting activities. And as our little girl becomes more active, his time with her becomes busier. It’s not uncommon for me to come home from work and find last night's dishes still in the sink or yesterday’s laundry not folded. It bugs me, but how many times has he come home from work and walked into the very same scene and never said a word?
But one day after work, after I’d slept and he’d taken Nadia to church, I see she’s wearing an outfit I don’t particularly like. It’s a pink footed snap-up onesie with a white bib embroidered with little yellow flowers. But the bib’s on her back, snaps are up her front, and when I see her little feet ...
“Chris! Did you take her to church like this?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because her outfit’s on backward.”
“No it’s not.”
I lift her up so he can see her dangling feet. The footie part points out from her heel like a floppy talon and her teensy toes are squished up tight.
“How did you not see this?”
It should be no big deal. It should. But I get mad. About all of it. I’m mad because the dishes aren’t done. The laundry’s still dirty. There are toys all over the house. And our baby is wearing an ugly outfit backward.
What’s underneath my anger? I couldn’t say it at the time, but frustration. Sadness. And for whatever reason, I’m feeling guilty. My daughter is being cared for by her dad, not by me, and not my way. I don’t know how to not be her whole world, all the time.
My husband and I will work this out.
But in the moment, I have no ability to understand that each of us is still finding our footing. I do not yet know how these new dynamics are reshaping both of us: he, into a confident father and sympathetic spouse; I, into a woman happy to be working outside the home and a mother who can appreciate her way isn’t the only way. I do not yet realize how in the coming years, our children will adore this dedicated time with their dad, how they will affectionately refer to these as their “Daddy Days.”
***
I’ve had three surgeries in the past five months, that’s just the path this cancer journey has taken me.
After each, my husband has managed our home, our kids, their school, his work—life in general. I’m no longer working in the hospital but with all six of us together during the stay-at-home orders, we are, yet again, being reshaped.
***
In the car, we keep falling—weightless and ethereal. My heart races, sinks, begins to break.
I’m aware that in these last moments, I still have a choice to make.
My hair flies forward into my face. I hold it back and from the driver's seat, turn around and look at each of my children. I take them in individually, then collectively. I know nothing else to say besides what I pray is written on their hearts, “I love you all so so much.”
Not a moment later, I’m awake, swallowing hard, and on the verge of tears.
The dark grey curtains of my bedroom place me in space and the rhythmic breathing of my husband places me in time. It was just a dream ... just a dream. Overwhelmed with relief, I turn over onto my side and curl into a ball. I’m too tired to cry, too grateful to think about what I thought was happening.
***
In a few weeks, I’ll have this big surgery. My recovery will be long. Chris, again, will be in charge of everything. From the kids to communicating with doctors, family, and friends. He will manage our lives, and he will do it his way. He will take care of me, and I will have to let him.
***
Hours after the dream, after adding a post-op appointment to the ever-populating July calendar, I take my coffee and sit at the computer. Into the search bar, I type: dreams about falling, about cars not stopping.
Falling: you might be facing a non-reversible decision. Yes.
Cars not stopping: you’re feeling out of control. Again, yes.
This all lines up.
I take a sip of coffee then type: dreams about dying.
The answer is not what I thought. They’re not ominous.
They’re about change. Transitions.
And new beginnings.
P.S. Love Sonya's writing? Check out her next Writing With Purpose workshop or her upcoming Reading Well, Writing Well workshop co-lead with Callie Feyen.
Photo by Lottie Caiella.