Where Did She Go?

Name:            James Flaherty
Email:           Chairboyodaboard@aol.com
Location:        Lowell, MA
Type:            Ghost
Date:            Tuesday, August 01, 2000
Time:            07:21 PM

This isn't really a ghost story, per se, but a recurrent dream that I've had at least twice. Some background:

As a child, with five sisters, all who attended parochial school, mornings were chaotic, to say the least. Everyone would be scrambling around to get ready for school, fighting over bathroom time, scouring the house for your homework, bookbag, keys, handkerchief, comb, lunch or milk money and bus ticket. And of course, everything had to be ironed, that's 5 blouses, 5 skirts, 5 jackets, 1 pair of slacks, 1 shirt and 1 tie, (thank God my father had his shirts professionally pressed) every day, Monday-Friday.

When I was around 8 1/2, I was probably up to my mother's shoulders in her bare feet and growing fast. She would come downstairs in just her slip or if it was wintertime, a housecoat and see us off to school.

Anyway, we used to keep the toaster and iron to cool after usage on two wooden shelves, that were built between the metal cabinets near the sink in the kitchen. One morning, rushing as usual, I was heading towards the sink to drain the hot water from the iron and put it away (as I could reach the shelf now). At the same time, my mother was coming away from that area and as we passed each other I grazed her right breast with the hot iron I was holding, talk about pain! She later developed breast cancer and in 1970 that meant a radical mastectomy, in which the whole breast is removed as well as affected lymph nodes, which limits the movement of your arm as well if physical therapy isn't immediate and successful. When she did come home she practically lived on the couch and required 'round-the-clock care, but wanted to be near us as long as she could.

She had gotten worse by the time I was 9 and had to be moved to the hospital by ambulance. It was at the hospital that she developed pneumonia and died soon afterward at age 42. Oh the guilt, oh the pain, you think you'll never survive it, and you are only 10 years old. It wasn't until much later that I realized that I didn't cause her death or even her cancer as the breast that was cancerous was her left one, and I had scorched the right one.

Soon after she past away, I would have dreams that she was still alive only to wake up and realize she was gone. However, in this one dream, I see her. She and I are getting into a cab. It feels so real, but wait, is this a dream? How can I check? If she really just moved away maybe she's gonna take me with her to her new home. I'll investigate this further to see is this is real or not! I can go to the address she gives the cabbie. And both times that I have had this dream, when the cabbie says, "Where to, ma'am?" She looks at me, chomping at the bit, in anticipation of a clue to an answer to this mystery, looks at him and says, "Driver, on!" I awaken, again, depressed.