I had an odd little dream tonight. One to which I wouldn't have paid much attention except that it's kinda recurring. Kinda sorta.

I was at my home, in my living room, taking a nap on my couch. My mom was there, sitting on my loveseat and doing crochet. There was a black kitten in her lap, trying to attack the yarn.

I wasn't quite able to get to sleep, and I was tossing and turning on the couch. I fell off onto the floor. Mom looked up from her work and asked if I was okay.

I couldn't answer her. I tried very hard to answer her, but no words would leave my mouth. Just a croak is all I could manage.

I crawled up under the coffee table, where I figured it would be dark, so I could go to sleep. I was so tired.

My mom put down her stuff and sat on the floor and talked to me. She told me that I would be okay, that I'd had a bad dream, and that everything was fine. She tried to reach in to stroke my head, but I kept moving away from her for some reason. I guess I didn't want comfort, I wanted to sleep. I somehow knew that once I'd had a good nap, and after I'd woken up, everything would be good again. If only I could sleep for a little while.

Mom started singing a song to me. Some childhood lullaby. And I started to cry. Mom asked me why I was crying, and this time I was able to speak.

"Because it hurts," I said. "Because it hurts so much. It never stops."

"There there," she said. "It will all be better in a few days."

And then she told me about Thursday. How she and Dad were going away together. On a cruise to the Virgin Islands, for a sort of second honeymoon. How excited she was about the trip, and how she was going to buy me lots of presents, and she'd be back in a couple of weeks.

I felt a little better then. I was very happy for her and Dad. They'd saved up for this trip for a long time. They deserved it. I started to smile, and I started to crawl out from under the coffee table..

But then I remembered that Dad had died.

I became frantic with fear. I crawled under the couch. I couldn't face my mom. I couldn't tell her that Dad was gone, that their dream vacation wasn't going to happen.

But then I remembered that Mom had died, too.

Under the couch, there was a sort of display. Like in a museum. There was a door with a big rusty padlock on it. There was another door, painted red, and slightly ajar. That door scared me. I shied away from it. Between the doors was a pedestal, and on the pedestal were two tickets for a cruise to the Virgin Islands. Both were stamped with the word "cancelled" in big red letters.

Then the black kitten meowed at me, and started climbing up my leg, and I woke up.

So this dream was recurring, kinda sorta, for a few reasons.

First, the black kitten. It had no tail. I've dreamed about kittens like that before.

Second, I was under the coffee table crying about something in particular. Someone in particular. My grief in my dreams is so much stronger than what I feel in my waking life. I definitely notice when I dream about her. Even when it's bad.

But the most recurring thing about the dream was the part about Thursday. I had another dream about Thursday a few days ago. And another one about a week before that. Always the same Thursday. Always the 19th of April. Always the second Thursday after Easter.

This Thursday, I'm taking a day of vacation. Maybe I'll sleep all day long. Maybe, when I wake up, everything will be good again.