While snuggling in bed this morning to keep each other warm, Gigi has this to say to me:

“I had the worstest dream in the night. It was about slime and flies buzzing. It was asgusting!” (disgusting)

“Oh my. That sounds awful. How did you end the dream?”

“You can make a dream end?”

“I used to have little tricks to end my bad dreams. My mother taught me.”

“Grandma BJ?”

“Yes. Grandma BJ.”

“What were her dreams?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure she ever told me. But her trick was to find a hill…in her dream…and roll down the hill…over and over until, at the end, she’d wake up. Clever, huh?”

“What were your bad dreams about?”

“Wolves. I had a terrible time with thoughts about wolves. They’d chase me and I felt like I could never really get away unless I woke up.”

“How did you wake up? Like Grandma?”

“Not really. I tried her trick but it didn’t always work for me. My way was to talk to myself, to yell, ‘Wake Up!’ or ‘Wolf, Wolf, Go Away!’ Other times, I’d try to find another person in my dream to tickle me awake. Sometimes I’d even get the wolf, who was chasing me, to tickle me so I could get out of the dream. Then the bad dream would end. I’d wake up, take a deep breath and try to go back to sleep.”

“When you go back to sleep, the bad dream finds you again.”

“I know. That can happen. Then you have to do the tricks all over again.”

“I wish you could be in the dream with me to wake me up.  I want you to save me, Mom.”

“You could try thinking me into your dream…so in your dream I could help you get out of it. That’s what your dreams are, you know, thoughts…that are in your head. Your thoughts are very busy while you try to sleep…until, eventually, they rest.”

Silence. Gigi pushes some strands of my tangled and untamed hair away from where they rest too close to her cheek on the white bed pillow. Then,

“Mom, on top of your bad breath, I smell cookies. Are there cookies…for breakfast? Please?”