Was it a good dream or a bad dream?

In my dream, my mother died before my father. That wasn't the way it's supposed to be.

I was worried that he would be unable to take care of himself. I went to the apartment to talk to him. He was so unsteady, I worried he wouldn't even be able to make it to the store. I suggested he get rid of the apartment so he could come out here and hang out with the other elderly men at the JCC. I told him I had seen them congregate in the lobby, where they seemed to be engaged in lively conversation. He said he wasn't ready.

Meanwhile, my mother came back to tell me it would be OK. I asked her what she did when her own mother died. She said she let herself feel her feelings. Some days she was sad, but on others she was fine. I love it when she is sitting right by me. I like to believe she is really there.

On another topic, I dreamt I had to leave work (at the newspaper) for what I thought would be a quick visit to a doctor. A previous examination had suggested the possibility of breast cancer. (I had read a story about someone undergoing treatment, and my porous cancer-sensitive mind absorbed it and must have stored the fear that it could be me.) After two hours, I still had not been seen. I tried to text Mimi back at work to say what had happened, but my phone wasn't working properly. I never did get in to see that doctor.

But then I realized it didn't matter how long I was gone because the paper was closing in one week anyway, and nobody cared what we did. Still, I wanted to finish up a couple of stories. I went back and found some newspaper peeps and said how much I was going to miss them. I suggested we make a group email and send it out so we could try to get together in a year. Somebody said that wouldn't work, and I realized it was a far-fetched idea.

People were wondering what they would do next. Realizing the end of the paper was near, I had sent out some queries and had been offered a news writing job at the Hartford Courant. I told somebody that I was afraid I would end up covering meetings while all I knew about was writing features. The person said not to worry.

Cancer relapse/technology trouble/parental dying/newspaper nightmare all in one night.

But on the positive side, my mother came back to tell me it was OK, and I had a job.