Fixing

I feel like I have been blogging a lot lately about dreams; the one I had last night was not very good. In the dream, Jake and I were out running errands and we had Carynne with us. She was hooked up to her oxygen, but for some reason, she couldn’t get enough air. We were stuck in traffic and I was screaming at Jake to get us home to the big tanks so that we could turn the airflow up. I started giving her CPR but I knew it was too late. I was jolted awake and stayed up for about an hour, too upset to try to go back to sleep.

It’s terrible how your mind plays tricks on you in your dreams. Certain dreams that you want to go on forever are cut short and then really disturbing dreams keep coming back to you. It’s all completely out of your control. A lot like the disease. During their entire illness, I just felt like I was so helpless for them. I just wanted to make it all go away and I couldn’t; I wanted to fix them.

The other night a work friend of mine graciously gave us tickets to Coldplay. We love Coldplay, but maybe it wasn’t a good idea to go. They started the song “Fix You” and Jake and I both started crying. Jake was able to stay pretty composed, but I had one of those awful, shoulder-heaving, breath-stealing cries going on. As parents, you’re supposed to be able to fix your children’s problems; kiss their boo boos, scare away the monsters in the closet, comfort them during thunderstorms. I don’t get to do that. I can’t fix them.