About a week after the funeral I was having a dream that seemed so real. I was in a big place like a monastery, and I was cleaning the mud off my slippers (like the mud Father Ricker reminded me of on the white carpet, the day of the funeral ). My son Tim was with me and I thought I would get to see Rose if I went there at this appointed time. Soon a nun brought a woman to me all dressed in black, with a black veil over her face. I reached over and touched her shoulder and it was soft as I pressed it into the palm of my hand. And Rose's voice said, " See, Mom, everything is all right." Then she led me back into a little darkened room (while we were in Cleveland, I remember the daylight hurting her eyes) and she lifted the veil away from her face, but the face was not hers.

Then about six months later, I dreamed I was at their house on Summit Street and while I was there I realized in my dream that Rose had died, but she was there and it seemed perfectly natural. The reason I was there was to take her to the doctor because he wanted to see the scar where the Cleveland doctor had performed the post mortem. She showed the scar to me and it was red and inflamed and with many stitches. In this dream the reason Fran wasn't taking her to the doctor was because he was in a big hurry to glue back together a large ceramic vase that had supposedly gotten broken across the street and belonged to these good neighbors where the funeral dinner was held.

But while Rose and I were alone in the bedroom and she was showing me this scar, I decided to ask her what Heaven was like, since naturally as her mother, I wondered all of these months. She said sure she could tell me. But the dream ended before she had a chance.

Then just recently I dreamed that Rose had returned, but to the new house where her family are now living on Harvest Lane. It seemed she knew that she would soon have to leave permanently, and she said, " Mom, I want you to promise me one thing: that you will take my children to the National Christmas party." I replied, " Why, honey, I can't do that unless their father works at the National." She looked sad and said, " Oh, yes, I guess that is right." In her own childhood her father did work at the National Machinery to which she was referring and as a little girl the Christmas party was always a highlight in her life.

A few weeks before our daughter passed away, her mother-in-law dreamed that she was in some large motel in a big city and she had engaged a room and the numbers on the door of this room were 59. She went into the lobby, and someone came running in all excited, declaring that Errol Flynn had died and was to lay in state in this very motel. (As you know, Errol Flynn has been dead for many years.) But in the excitement an unidentified young woman came and led her away to a cemetery. They walked and walked and soon this young woman showed her an open grave with the large mound of dirt beside it. But when she turned around the young woman was gone, leaving her standing here beside this open grave. Then she suddenly remembered she had forgotten to tell the desk clerk at the motel to keep her room for her for another night because she did not want to miss the excitement of this Errol Flynn business. She hurried back to the motel and sure enough the desk clerk had rented her room. But she said she could look down a long hallway and the room door was open, but that the room was completely empty, with the numbers 59 still above the door.

Now that she reviews the dream she has also remembered that her daughter-in-law was born in May, the fifth month of the year, and she died in September, the ninth month of the year.

(End of Chapter 9)