I can be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare.

Every so often, I have this dream. I had it last night.

I dream that my mom has been alive all this time, and that she just left and my dad told us she was dead.

The first time I had this dream was a year or two or three after she died, and I ran across her name in a paper or something. I tracked her down and asked her why, and she just said she couldn't do it.

In the dreams that followed that, she has gotten older and older, and my hate for her has grown stronger and stronger. In these dreams she visits me or I visit her as if she were a distant relative or something. It's so heartbreaking to wake up feeling like it is real, and feeling like I hate this woman that would have done anything for me. Feeling like I disappointed her, or that she didn't want me.

I don't know if you have experienced any similar loss, but in my case, it came accompanied with many dreams that I still have relatively often...nine years later.

I have had dreams where Jesus gave me a test: if I passed, I could have her back. She was sitting in a cage, and I at a desk.
I have had dreams where she was in the hospital and I have visited her because they brought her back alive long enough for me to tell her I loved her; long enough for me to watch her die all over again.
I have had dreams about her from which I have awakened choking on my own tears.

But the worst one is this one. How could she just leave and lie to me throughout all these years. How could she not want to be my mother. What was so much better than her own children?

After the first one, though, I held on hope in real life that this was really the case. That I would pass her on the street one day, or see a picture on the news. Anything is fine; I just want to see her. I wish I could understand the way I feel, but I can't.

I still feel like a part of me is missing.

I miss her so much. Who would I be if she were still alive? Where would I be. What would I look like? Who would my friends be?

I wouldn't be the same person.
Every ounce of good in me came from her. Imagine the person I could be.
I love you.