Yesterday I dreamed that I walked away from Lil Miss while she was swimming. I walked back and she was drowned. I kept walking, knowing it was my fault and I couldn’t quite take it in that she was really dead… I walked to a friends house and even though I was sitting on their floor while they were being sarcastic and horrified, I kept seeing her body, face down in the water, with swimmy floaties still on her arms. She was a toddler, barely three and she was dead because I didn’t take it seriously. I thought she would be okay – shallow water, floaties, other adults around… her blonde curls floating by her head

I started pounding on the floor in deep immense wordless grief… I couldn’t get it out of me – both the inexplicable pain and the sounds that went with it… all I could do was pound on the floor hoping would break through it and be swallowed up by the earth and fall into the molten core….

I woke up and began sobbing… I tried not to make noise, so I wouldn’t wake her up. I resisted the immediate urge to wake her up and make sure she was alive. I put my arm around her and felt her breathing. I whispered “can mommy have cuddles?” and she half-awake turned over and snuggled right into the curve of my body, like she’s done since she was born. I kept wiping silent tears and holding my body still so I wouldn’t shake her awake. I could not get the image of her as a toddler, lying dead in the water, out of my head.
Eventually I went back to sleep and dreamed something completely innocuous.

When those things happen I often wonder what was in my mind that such terrifying stories would play out… what purpose does it serve to fill my own head full of guilt and grief and anguish?