Visions became second nature to me, from when I was just a very young child. Mom could always tell by the faraway, yet intense look that would change my demeanor from a happy child to a troubled old adult. "Honey you look like a little old lady", she would say as she smoothed back my hair. Nothing is that serious, don't think so long and hard over nothingness. Mom didn't know that the nothingness that was turning me into a ..Little Old Lady.. at eleven years old, were visions of her;"my beloved Mother" writhing and screaming on the kitchen floor. The turned over pot of chicken soup still steaming, covering Mom's stomach and legs, spreading across the kithen floor.
The visions would wake me up from a sound sleep, they were now becoming nightly nightmares. How I prayed these dreams and visions were scenes from a horror flick that might be hidden way back in the recesses of my mind. They seemed to be coming more, and more often. I would even begin to hear her screaming before the scene began to take form before my eyes.
Each day whenever I left the house I would hug her and say, "Now you be careful, HEAR?" Again Mom would laugh and call me her Little Old Lady. I began checking the top of the stove whenever Mom was cooking, making sure all the handles were turned inward. She was never aware of what I was doing. I told myself I was doing it to insure my little brothers safety. Jacob was always at her feet it seemed. He played on the kitchen floor as she prepared our meals.
Mom asked me to go into the garden for some fresh vegetables to add to the soup she was making. "CHICKEN" Dad's favorite. I had just started to pinch off the parsley, when I heard the blood curdling screams. I raced back into the house..She was exactly as she had been in my visions. WRITHING and SCREAMING in agony, her apron and dress steaming from the boiling soup.
We never knew she was seeing a doctor because of dizzy spells. They assumed she had a dizzy spell, and she reached to grab on to something. The rest of the story told itself. She was months recovering from her burns. The visions stopped, "AT LEAST THAT ONE DID."
The years quickly passed. Mom didn't seem the same anymore. Maybe she couldn't take the blows that life began to beat her down with. Jacob was killed in an auto accident the night before his Highschool graduation. Dad, who was so loving and easy going, just drove off and never returned. Mom didn't really seem to care. She was so deep into her own self consuming depression. she didn't seem to see anything or anyone.
The VISIONS began to return. Again..I would see Mom on the floor, only this time she wasn't making a sound. Not a muscle moved. Her outstretched hand semed to be reaching for the glass that held the wine she learned to love, and depend on, to help her through the day. The VISIONS were bombarding me day and night. I was helpless to try and stop what I knew they meant.
Mom never heard the whimpering and cries, I made before I was awakened by the dreams and visions. She was usually into a deep sleep from ther sleeping pills washed down with her favorite wine.
It was a Sunday morning when I was awakened by the neighbors barking dogs. Looking at my bedside clock, I was shocked to see we were fast approaching noon. I never even heard Mom stirring in her room.
I ran into Mom's room. The first thing I saw was the spilled wine running across the hardwood floor. Mom's hand was reaching out as if to find the glass she dropped. NEVER MORE will her hand reach out. Her eyes were staring into nothingness.
Submitted by: Name withheld
Background by: Nancy
