casja Thread

When I was little, I used to have dreams about my father coming into a room with an axe. For years, I had dreams about it. It was really conflicting for me because my dad was an awesome, amazing dad (SAHD until I was 5) and I couldn't understand why I was having those dreams.

Seemingly unrelated but completely relevant: Two days before my grandmother died, she and my mom and I were at our city's downtown indoor farmer's market. As we were leaving the building, an old woman in a long, purple dress and shawl grabbed my mother's forearm. I was four years old and remember it clear as day.

"You must not go back," she said to my grandmother. "You mustn't go back to him." I remember my grandmother staring silently, calmly, without responding. She took the woman's hand off her arm and walked away. I remember the woman screaming "YOU CANNOT GO BACK TO HIM," as my frightened mother scooped me up and hurried after her. Yeah, two weeks later, my grandmother's husband (not my grandfather) shot her in the head. And those axe dreams I'd been having? Turns out that whenever my grandmother and her husband would stay at her house, my dad would keep an axe next to the bed because her husband gave him the creeps. One time, when I screamed from a nightmare or something, he came running in with said axe, thinking I was in crazy trouble. He didn't tell me the truth about any of this until I was 15.