On Saturday, October 19, I dreamt that my mother died. I woke up at 8:32 a.m., the grief my dream persona experienced ebbed into relief as I realized it wasn’t real. As my heartbeat slowed to a steady pace, I sniffed and felt tears rolling down my face.

I sat up and wiped them away with my sleeve, but more poured out, and soon I was quietly sobbing on a sunny Saturday morning, birds chirping, because of the death of my dream mother. At exactly 9:07 a.m., my tears stopped, and I caught a glance of myself in the mirror across from my bed: face flushed and blotchy, eyes bloodshot, hands fiddling with the blanket on top of me.

I promptly fall back asleep for another hour, thankfully into a dreamless rest.

About three days later, I woke up from a dream where my mom told me she didn’t love me. I could still recall the confusion and rage I felt in the dream, how I begged for a why, a when, a how—any answers.

But I didn't burst into uncontrollable tears. I only had one thought: What a ridiculous dream. 

I know that my mother is very much alive and very much loves me. She’s in good health, and I can tell she loves me when she asks me if I bought my train tickets home yet, gives me pointed, candid advice when I tell her about my (oftentimes petty) drama, and repeatedly checks if I need her to bring anything from home when she visits.

So how did my brain even come up with not one, but two dreams like that?

And then it hit me: I just desperately missed her.

I miss walking down the stairs and seeing her there. I miss hearing about her day even if I’m only half-listening. I miss eating her cooking. I miss hearing her laugh. I miss the warmth of her unprompted hugs.

I miss her constant presence.

Last year, as a first-year, I had the excitement of meeting new people, living in a new space, and scrambling to keep up with classes to distract me. But, now that I’ve settled in as a sophomore, and Brown no longer has that shiny novelty, I’ve grown to ache for my mom and home more.

I speed-walk to my class tugging at the belt loops of the jeans she wore when she was my age and wrapped up in an old jacket she gave me after I went home for the long weekend. My phone holds an unread text from her. I sit down in class and take out the notebooks she gave me, the laptop littered with stickers she bought me.

When I return to my dorm, it’s nothing like coming home after a long day of classes back in high school. Instead of a house that’s always humming with creaks in the floors or conversation among my family, I’m in a cramped room with a broken drawer and no one else to help fill the silence.

But there are still traces of home here: the nail dryer on my shelf gifted to me by my mom, the command strips my dad helped put up on the walls, and the empty suitcase that’s tucked under my bed, waiting to be packed for my next trip back home. My mother isn’t here physically, but she’s left little pieces of her love behind.

I unzip my jacket that was once hers and hang it up in my closet, already missing its cozy warmth. But I know it’s there waiting for me to wear it again, to act as a soothing balm against the autumn cold and my aches for home.