i have a reoccurring dream, i have been having this same dream almost every year since 2001. in the dream i am at home and i receive an invitation in the mail to a mental institution on randalls island in nyc. {i have no idea it's actual name i just remember always seeing the 3 big yellow buildings as we drove down the fdr.} so anyway i get this invite to some meeting, it doesn't bother me or even concern me that this very vague letter wants me to go somewhere. i just decide with out much thought to go. so i travel to the institution with some random people i attended high school with and when we arrive we enter this really bright, extremely large high ceiling-ed room full of four poster canopy beds rows and rows of them all with white linens. there must have been hundreds and all of the beds were occupied by life size white statues of people. some were in the beds other just near them but the was a statue for each bed. i the far corner of the room was the only other living person a woman behind a desk sorting through papers, we headed toward her weaving our way through the aisles. we we finally reached her, i explained about the letter and she sent us through a door behind her, she instructed me to take the elevator to the bottom floor, alone. when we the next room was quite darker than the last and smaller lit by candles, also it was round. in the center of the room was a cylindrical cage elevator and a bench. i left my "friends" on the bench and took the elevator down. when i reached the bottom all i saw was a brightly lit hallway that appeared to be endless and lined with many many doors, all with brass knockers and numbered {but not in order}. i looked at my letter and saw the number at the top and began looking for its corresponding door. eventually i found it, it was a yellow door with chipping paint that was hanging from it's hinges, barley even attached to the frame, though i was unable to see inside. so i knocked and a voice said come in. when i opened the door i was blinded by a wash of sunlight so bright i couldn't see anything for a moment, then it cleared and i was able to see a room filled with brightly colored furniture, oranges and greens and yellows {it looked like ikea exploded} and a man sitting facing both me and a high backed chair that was facing away from me, i knew someone was there in the tall chair though i couldn't see them at all. the man who appeared to be a doctor, a therapist i think, {he had a note pad an had been writing things down} welcomed me and then sort of just disappeared cause i didn't see him again. i stood there for sometime waiting for something to happen, when the tall chair began to spin toward me and i finally saw the person sitting in it. it was my mom. [so a little back story for those who don't know at the time i first had this dream my mom had been dead for 8 years] so she spins around in the chair and faces me, we stand in silence for a bit just staring at each other, both unable to speak. she is the first to break the silence, and she said as she walked toward me and hugged me "my baby, my little girl, look how beautiful you are." i stand there arms at my side not returning the hug still in shock as she continues to hug me and talk though i have no idea what she was saying. until i snap out of it and pull away to really look at her, she isn't how i remember her when i last saw her right before she "died", she is no longer ridiculously skinny and bald from chemo, but healthy looking and beautiful. i am crying now, hugging her, holding on for dear life. we talk for a bit though i don't know what about, and then comes the point when i get angry. i confront her about where has she been? how did she get here? what happened to her cancer? how could she do this to us? and why is she telling us now? i never got the answers to theses questions. we continued to talk but i again don't know what about. after a while she tells me its time to go,that i had to leave and she wasn't coming with me, that she couldn't. she kissed me goodbye told me she loved me and closed the door. i stood in the hall and stared at the door for a while hoping she would come back out, she didn't. i went home. i told my dad the whole story and he showed me his letter that he had just received, it was just like mine, he also showed me my sisters, and that where the dream ended with him holding both letters and us staring at each other in stunned silence.
