Was it just a dream

My mother-in-law and I had an on again, off again relationship. Sometimes I was the daughter, or granddaughter she always wanted and sometimes I was the incomprehensible child in her younger son's life. 

She was the same age as my grandmother, fifty some years older than I was. A woman who thought she had raised her family when she discovered she was pregnant with my husband.

Time passed and eventually we brought her down to a nursing home in our town to be closer to us. Our intentions were to visit often, play bridge and keep her youngest grandchildren in her life. She was tethered to an oxygen tank and still slowly suffocating, so life wasn't hunky dory, but it was okay.

Then, one night when she was feeling especially happy and spry from all the attention, she got up and didn't call for a nurse to take her to the bathroom  She simply took herself as she had done most of her life and it was fine until just before she got back in bed.

Then she fell and broke her hip.

Not wanting to admit she had been foolish she told no one until the next morning. They rushed her to the hospital, but her oxygen levels were too low for them to give her any real pain relief, or to set the hip. It was everyone's worst nightmare.

That night I dreamed that I was her and I was trying to find my son's and his wife's house, but I didn't know the town. I drove around and kept ending up back at the nursing home. Finally I hit the big tree in front of the home and found myself so tired. I was incredibly, horrifically tired. Just breathing was too hard and as I was losing consciousness, I realized that I was me, the daughter-in-law and not her!

I woke up in a panic as everything went totally black. It was like I had hit a big black wall and could not break through it. I was gasping for air and woke my husband up. I was crying and shaking and he was trying to figure out what was wrong when the hospital called. His mother had just died.

Coincidence? Or was I actually with her at the end? I guess we'll never know for sure, but I think I was.