This dream came to me several days ago, if not a couple of weeks.  I don’t know why I didn’t include it here. Maybe because it left me sad and a little hopeless.

At this point, I don’t remember much at all, except that Allie appeared to me in a younger, perhaps teenage version of herself. I know there was more to this dream before I got to the point I can describe. But what I recall is walking up to the doorway of a room in someone’s home. It looked like a teenager’s bedroom, but nondescript and I don’t know if it was our home or someone else’s. Allie was standing at the far wall, which wasn’t that far away from the door, next to a dresser. She was talking to a couple of her friends, whose identities were unclear, but in the dream I think I knew them. Her hair was long and down, like in high school. My view of her was her right profile as she chatted with the other girls.  She turned and saw me. She did not look sad, but she wasn’t smiling. When she looked at me she looked back at her friends, momentarily (I believe there were two next to her and one to three others out of immediate view.) then turned back to me and walked over. I think I stepped once into the room to meet her, and she said to me, “Mom, I don’t belong.”

I so rarely remember my dreams that if I do, I usually feel as if I didn’t rest. But when I was jarred from last night’s slumber, it was particularly agonizing because I was dreaming a dream so wonderful! I was dreaming about my daughters. All of them. And, yes, there was Allie, big as life.

I know the dream had been going on for some time, but the part that stays with me now is that we were all piling into a  minivan or SUV type vehicle. It could have easily been the Aerostar that we had in the 80s, lol. I was viewing the scene from the back, but I could see all the seats, so it must have been a fourth row, or the bench seats went around the circumference of the vehicle. Brittny was in front of me and slightly to the left. I was smack in the middle and leaning up over a barrier like a seat cushion. Ashley was still outside the vehicle and I only caught glimpses of her, but I could hear her voice.  I don’t remember the words of the conversation taking place, but it was definitely about my grandchildren. And there was Allie getting in the seat in front of Brittny, but there was no barrier between them so her seat must have been sideways, like a limousine.  She was smiling and talking as if everything was as it should be. I sometimes recall her hair as dark brown, but then I think, no it was dark red. But, either way, it was just above her shoulders and wavy. Then Ashley reaches in to hand Allie her baby boy.

Allie’s baby boy.

My joy was off the charts throughout the dream, but I wasn’t completely surprised to see the baby.  I knew he was joining us in the vehicle. He was a chunky baby boy with a pale knit cap that had a yellow stripe on the bottom, and a white(?) onesie. I don’t think it was the trip home from the hospital because he was too big and she was too energetic. He was a few months old. I saw his back and right side, his smooth and pudgy legs, a short fringe of light hair peeking out from his cap, as Allie reached for him. Allie was smiling, talking and turning him around. I was about to see his precious face and hear his name.  I felt happy and normal.