#mamaw

One of my beloved Mamaw’s notes. I see the pictures I took of her writing after she passed and they are so precious to me. I wish she would visit me in a dream again, like she did to warn me of a house fire.

I was married then, a couple years ago. My ex-husband and I had moved into her house and I had laid down to sleep while he stayed up. I had the most vivid dream, of a kind that I don’t usually have. My dreams are usually disjointed and strange, but in this dream my Mama Jury came and said to me, ‘Bar, I’m afraid there’s a fire.’ She always called me ‘Bar’ or ‘K-Bar.’ I said to her, ‘Mamaw I don’t see no fire, there’s no fire.’ But she kept repeating, ‘I’m afraid there’s a fire.’ In the dream my whole family was gathered and she was so alive, holding court in her kitchen. I stepped out onto the porch and there was an old suitcase and it was engulfed in flame. When I woke up, I had tears in my eyes. She was so real and so present, and like a wisp of smoke she was gone again. Before I’d had time to tell him, my ex-husband came in and said, no preamble, ‘I almost caught the house on fire.’ He told me that he’d been on his phone and heard a sparking sound. One of the outlets had overheated and scorched the wall.

Now many people might write this off as me smelling something burning and my brain just putting it together in a dream, but I know for a fact my mamaw visited me to warn me. She was newly gone, and her ties to the house were still strong. My mamaw was a careful, frugal woman. She worked hard for her home and was always placing written prayers and charms around to keep out pests, to prevent fire, to ask the Lord to keep her furnace blowing. It was just something she worried about, and she took care of her place. I will forever hold that feeling of her visit, the realness and sweetness of it. After all, she’d told me herself of how her daddy had visited her in a dream when her son died, to signal to her that he was guiding him home and he would be taken care of. She taught me that those we love never really leave us, and can visit us in times of distress or need.

#A895FA