“Mr. Lang, do you remember your first love?”
“Yes.”
“And what you felt when you saw her face?”
“Yes.”
“Can you feel it now?”
“No. Not really.”
“Have you ever sensed that emotion in a dream?”
“Yes, I suppose I have.”
“To say you can't teach an old dog new tricks really isn't the case. The brain is capable of continually learning. As people get older their sleep is often interrupted. It is shallower. Their dreams are closer to the surface. Those dreams can be quite lucid. Older folks are in the enviable position of having access to the sweetness of dreams. Or the horrors. The pills that you ask about, the ones that your mother took, helped facilitate those dreams and allowed her to enjoy emotional states that she hadn't felt for a long time. She awoke in love. And she spent her days knowing that she could renew that love each night. Can you see how that would make a person's days pass easily? You might feel carried along by bluebirds. We envy the young in that state of bliss. But we know that sadly it won't last. What I'm telling you is that with certain techniques, a little, let's call it training, and some simple chemicals a person can repair those emotional paths. A person can direct their dreams to carry them to a favorite place, solve a problem, or recreate an emotional state. Have I been able to answer your question?”
“Yes, but your answer suggests so many new questions.”
“Of course.
I should go back and tell you how I came to be sitting and having this conversation with Mr. Oliver. My mother, Rachel Lang, was dead. She had lived here in this assisted living facility for several years before her death. It was a quiet easy death. I was told she was smiling in her sleep. Her possessions were in a box between our chairs. They were soft comfortably worn chairs. The whole place was like that. Nothing modern, formal, or particularly antiseptic about Blue Haven. It was both my mother's and my good fortune that it was all we could afford.
Things had been going poorly for me. My research job had evaporated during a government budget battle. It had been a shock to lose my job. I had to relocate to a rural research lab and now was a rat wrangler for half what I had been making before. Maybe something would come of it, there were always possibilities. My wife had decided not to relocate with me. That somehow wasn't quite as shocking. Our daughter had finished both college and graduate school and now was a rafting guide in Idaho. Things could have been worse. After my mother drove through the neighbor's screened in porch they suggested that she shouldn't be living alone. It was not the first problem and I knew it was coming. I had to take some time off and find her somewhere to live where she could be taken care of. My father had been dead for some time.
She had a cousin living in a nursing home a few towns away in western Massachusetts and her family suggested the place to me. When I fist saw Blue Haven I can't say that it was impressive. It wasn't stately or modern, but it seemed clean and the residents seemed in good spirits. Mr. Oliver had shown me around. He was an impressively large black man with a shaved head. Surprisingly he was not imposing. His voice was musical and had occasional lazy island notes. His wife, Marie, was almost as large as he was. She was seated at a sewing machine in a tiny room surrounded by colorful cloth, sewing pillow cases. I saw her colorful pillows on every bed and equally colorful, but not always matching curtains hung on the windows during my tour. There were a lot of windows and they needed washing. The light picked out the floating dust in the air and although the color and light were riotous there was a nice calm about the place and as I've said, we could afford it.
A week later, when I first brought her there, my mother didn't go willingly. She thought she was just fine in her house. She didn't want to give up her newly repaired car. She said she had never liked her cousin. And Frankie, her black Terrier, wasn't welcome at Blue Haven. I had to lie and tell her I would take him to live with me in the country.
Oliver, had been very welcoming and Marie's smile revealed a sparkling golden front tooth. I left my mother sitting on her new bed still with her coat on. The box of her personal belongings were sitting next to the bed and Marie was unpacking her suitcase. Before I drove away with Frankie, Oliver assured me that it was quite a natural first reaction and she would be just fine. Call anytime. Come visit as often as possible.
I left Frankie at an animal shelter before I left Massachusetts to drive north. They said that older dogs weren't that easy to find homes for, but he was a cute little fellow and they'd do what they could to find him a home. He was looking at me and peeing on the floor as I left. It was a long six hour ride back to the coast of Maine. It was cold, snowy, and the wind bounced the car around in the dark.
My mother called me the first five nights after I had left her. I would answer and say,
“Hello, Ma, how's it going?”
“I want to go home.”
“How's your cousin Lil?”
“She won't sit with me at dinner”
“How's the food?”
“It's kind of bland. I want to go home.”
“Yeah, ma, but you just can't. Give it a try will you. Everyone there seemed so pleasant.”
“They're all on drugs. They're gaga.”
“Have you made any friends?”
“Hows Frankie doing? He's not really an outdoor dog you know?”
“Frankie's just fine, HE'S making the best of it. We take a nice long walk morning and night.”
Every night it was some variation of this.
“Do you have books to read?”
“I lost my glasses”
“What was for dinner?”
“It was too spicy.”
Or, “Nobody plays poker.”
And “They won't let me drive to the store for any decent food.”
And always, “How's Frankie?
Finally I started letting her talk to Frankie through the phone. On the fifth call I tried a sharp little bark in response.
“He sounds sick. Is he eating all right?”
“Yeah, ma he's eating just fine. He likes scraps from the table.”
“I never fed him from the table. You'll ruin him.”
“Talk to you tomorrow Ma.”
But on the sixth day she didn't call. Nor on the seventh. So I called Mr. Oliver. He assured me my mother was fine. She was making friends and things would be okay. I decided to drive down on Sunday to see for myself.
Marie let me in. She smiled a silent golden toothed welcome. Oliver came to meet me as I got out of my coat and said that my mother was in the next room with some ladies. He showed me the way. We passed into a sitting room that was a confusion of overstuffed chairs. Three women sat together in the sunshine. One was giggling and entertaining my mother and another woman with a story of some kind. My mother was looking uncommonly happy until she looked over and saw me standing in the doorway. It was like I'd sucked the sunshine from the room.
“Hi, Ma.”
“Hi, Cal.”
I was introduced to my mother's new friends. And then they left us alone. One dragged an oxygen tank behind her slowly to another part of the room. We talked a bit. She asked about Sylvia, my daughter. I told her what I could about the Green River rafting trips. My mother's mood brightened.
“She must be having the time of her life.”
“Well,” I said, “I suppose she is, but six years in college seems like a lot to be a river guide.”
“She'll be just fine. What about you? How are you doing?”
Now this was new. All of a sudden my mother was worried about me? I told her that I was fine. The work was okay. Things would work out.
She asked about Frankie. I told her Frankie was good, having the time of his life. The landlady was going to feed him and give him a walk while I was down here.
“Is there a dog park up there? You ought to take him to the dog park if they've got one. It's a great way to meet people. The ladies like a cute little dog like Frankie.”
“The ladies? Ma?”
“Sure wouldn't a lady friend be a nice thing? Get away from your rats for a while?”
This too was a change. She hadn't said boo about my marriage when it ended. She just looked a little sad when I had to explain the changes in my life. Now all of a sudden it was meeting ladies at the dog park? But she seemed great and that made me feel better. I didn't feel like a rat for abandoning my mother in a nursing home.
Before I left I ran into cousin Lil. I told her that my mom seemed to being doing well – getting along, making friends. Was I right?
And Lil said, “Oh yeah, she's discovered Mr. Oliver's little pills.” But that's all she would say about them.
Two years have gone by. For two years there have been phone calls and visits. Over the phone I tell her my made up stories of Frankie's adventures. There have been porcupines and quill extractions. There's a raggedy little dog down the block named Lucy that Frankie likes to stop and play with. Ma doesn't seem to mind that he eats my table scraps anymore. I've been trying to kill Frankie off and stop all the lying, but I can never quite bring myself to do it.
And then one day I got the phone call. My mother had passed away in her sleep. No drama and no pain. The funeral is over. Lil was there and some family that I hardly knew. She was buried in a church yard next to my father in the town that I had grown up in. And now here I was talking to Mr. Oliver and collecting my mother's few belongings.
“Mr. Oliver how do you direct a dream?”
“Well it's both simple and complicated. I will try to give you an example. Something happened when I was very young that sent me home crying. I don't have the slightest memory of what it was, but I was embarrassed for not being able to control my tears in front of my friends. That made it much worse and I ran home and hid in my room. My mother found me there and took me in her arms and comforted me. She quietly told me that it was perfectly alright to cry. Everybody needed to cry sometimes. So I cried and I cried without any shame and was completely comforted. If I feel I need that comfort, I will think of my mother and that day as I lay in my bed going to sleep. I might place a picture of my mother on my bed table and look at it as I drift off. A handy pad of paper and pencil to immediately write down what I've dreamt is helpful. You can write without entirely waking up. Sometimes, later you'll find your handwriting is illegible, but soon you won't need the pad and paper. As I lie there I can tell tell when I'm dreaming and can have some control over how those dreams develop. Not completely, and I may not end up where I expect. I may find myself receiving the comfort I was looking for or I may dredge up the cause of the tears, but I'm secure in knowing that it's okay to cry. It takes a little practice. . And you shouldn't wake up too quickly. Easing into wakefulness is helpful. These are a few helpful techniques.”
I opened the box holding my mother's things. On top was a picture in a folding cardboard frame. There was a silver hair brush and mirror. There was a silver box with an opal set on the lid that I had given her. When I opened the picture on top it was of a smiling young man in a navy dress whites holding a small black dog. I didn't recognize him. Oliver looked at me in what I thought was a questioning way, but I said nothing, I laid the photo back inside the box on top of my mother's possessions and closed the flaps.
“Mr. Oliver could I have some of your pills?”
“You are young Mr. Lang. You do not need any pills. Dreams are a comfort, but live your life.”
Blue Haven