Excavation

During a really lucid dream last night I dreamed of Mama. I lost her a couple of years ago, and rarely dream of her so I took notice. In the dream she reminded me of something I had forgotten about, a great treasure. In 2000-2001 my mother "discovered" the Internet, with a little keyboard connected to her television set. I saw her use it once...painfully slow to type on and very slow to upload, a real chore. The ease of today's connections would impress her I am sure. So in my dream I was listening to her taped voice. Nothing really all that meaningful was said, just the type of messages she would leave on my answering machine at times. I lived far away from her for years, and when I have dreamed of her voice it is often those messages I remember. During this dream she triggered a memory of her emails. In 2000-2001 she wrote me an email everyday, and I wrote her one back. These emails were truly astounding, like a connection straight through to a different side of her. She was chronically depressed as an individual, but these emails were happy and hopeful. We discussed current events, family life, recipes..all manner of subjects. I truly enjoyed our daily conversations and was so grateful to have this insight into the core of my mother at the time. This all ended when my sister, in a jealous fit, told her I only emailed because I felt sorry for her. Nothing on this earth could have been less true then or now. But it built a wall in my mother, and the emails stopped. I saved all those emails, and I printed every single one of them. At the time I thought I was doing this to eventually bind copies, and give them to her grandchildren at some point in the future as a glimpse into their very complicated and conflicted Grandmother. But today I realize that I saved them for me too. So as I excavate through the years of my life discarding what is no longer useful, I will be on the lookout for a ream of paper that is all that is left of my mother's spirit. Thinking there might be a message for me in the now.