Jessica

I dreamed I went to church with Jessica. I’ve never actually done that, but Jessica had a radio program that aired at midnight in St. Louis and she was from that old school where when she said, “Bless your heart!” She really meant God bless it. I remember her telling me she kept her suitcase packed and under the bed in case God called her home.

Jessica reminds me a lot of my grandmother, although I think she is closer to the age of my parents. A thin, sprightly woman, tall, vivacious and a lot of fun to talk to and be with. I met her when a friend and I were taking care of another friend. Jessica was one of those hundreds of people who dropped by to help, visit and give us moral support.

She took care of her own daughter when she slowly died at home, then took over the rearing of her granddaughter. Jessica had been around the block a few times. Growing up in the Mississippi of the old south, she was raised, along with her twin brother by grandparents on a farm and came to Chicago as a teenager. She married, divorced and became a counselor for alcoholics, then pulled herself along by the bootstraps trying all sorts of things along the way.

She did stand up comedy for one night, became a veggan and showed me that might be the fountain of youth. She put her granddaughter through college, took her first cruise on a whim a couple years ago and finally moved back down south where I have lost touch with her.

Tonight, though, I dreamed I went to church with Jessica and it was a church as big as an auditorium, filled with little boys in white shirts and ties and women wearing frilly magenta dresses. There was a purple veil hanging from the ceiling over the top back row where I sat and Jessica was on the other side, young, radiant, and smiling at me!