I dreamt I was going to die. 

I knew that it would be soon and quick, and that I didn’t have the heart to tell my family, most especially my mom. In this dream, my sister had gone before me, but she was coming to pick me up at the moment of death. 

It didn’t matter how I passed away; the details were hazy anyway. I had planned not to tell my mom because I knew the news would crush her. But she comes into the room and in the seconds before my appointed hour, I cave in and tell her. We end up weeping and wailing in each other’s arms. 

It happens without fanfare; I simply drop to the floor. As expected, my sister is there, waiting. She leads me out into a long narrow hallway, and it is at this point that I wake up. 

I open my eyes and check the clock: it is 3 in the morning. I have the heaviest feeling in my chest. I search my memory for the meaning of death in dreams. A visit from the grim reaper, even if in the land of dreaming, is disconcerting and I wonder if it is a prediction of sorts. 

I recall from a dream interpretation class that I attended that death is a metaphor for a life-altering event; it is our subconscious alerting us to the death of the life we once knew. 

The death of the life I once knew. 

I had this dream about a month before my wedding. In that time called the witching hour, I cried in bed realizing what my dream was telling me. My life was about to change drastically, and so were the lives of my loved ones, the people I had been stuck with not just over quarantine but for most of my young life. I would be leaving home, leaving the  attic room I had grown up in, my parents and siblings, the neighbors and childhood friends with whom we shared the compound – everything warm, certain, and familiar.  

The death of the life I once knew. 

Barely a day after the wedding, I again found myself awake at 3 in the morning in a hotel room. It had been over 7 months since I had slept somewhere else, so it was doubly strange to wake up in a bed other than mine. I sat up in our honeymoon suite and recalled the morning’s festivities. The ceremony had been a beautiful affair – small and big at the same time, with only 20 people physically present but about a hundred streaming the event through Zoom. So what was this unsettling feeling? 

I turned to my husband (how strange to write it), John, who was quietly snoring beside me. Just a few hours prior, he had been standing at the end of the aisle, a smile tugging at his lips and his eyes welling up as he watched me walk toward him. My eyes scanned the dark room and stopped at the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Taguig. It was a stark contrast to the modest one in my attic room. Before I knew it, I was sobbing, prompted by a kind of grief I couldn’t put into words.  

Prior to marriage, the life I knew consisted of well-established routines. Even now, I can picture what a quiet day in our house looks like: dad in the trellis smoking and working on his laptop, my brother Jay watching a basketball game on TV, my younger brother Mark playing computer games in his room, my little sister Dani on her tablet or creating  jewelry or cat berets, and my mom outside tending to her garden. My eldest sister, Din Din, living in Hong Kong with her husband, will call on Viber, and “Lala and Wowo” will spend a couple of minutes speaking to her babies in high-pitched sing-song voices. 

We are all in our own separate spaces. Most likely, I am sitting on the couch by the window, reading and listening to music. But I rarely feel lonely because I know that somewhere inside or outside our home, they are there. 

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not all picture-perfect. There were times when all I wanted was to get away and start anew. I may paint a lovely and idyllic image of home now, but we’ve had our share of disagreements and fights over the years. When I was younger, I was prone to running away, full of pride and angst, eager to prove I could make it on my own. But if there’s one thing this pandemic has taught me, it’s to sit still, to pay attention and  appreciate what I have at the moment. Being stuck at home with nowhere to go helped me see that I have a lot, more than anybody could ever ask for. 

To the brides leaving home in this pandemic, it is a difficult task to plan and navigate your way through all the quarantine guidelines. You will agonize over the tiniest details with your fiancé and wonder why 2020 decided to be such a nuisance. You will wonder about Zoom and Facebook Live, if it’s worth the trouble to stream the wedding (for us, it was). You will wake up with anxiety on the nights leading up to the big date, nervous about having a gathering – no matter how small – that could put the attendees at risk. You will cry and worry and somehow find a reason to go on. Your plans may change last minute, and then you will have to make do with what you have. 

What you have. It will be stressful and sometimes discouraging, but remember what you do have. Remember to spend time with your family, the people who will be giving you away. Find time to sit at home and soak it all in. Home will look different to every individual. To me it is the morning light softly creeping into my bedroom window, the books and boardgames accumulated through the years, the stairs leading to the living  room, the aroma of breakfast cooked by mom, the music from dad’s old vinyl records, the lumps on the bed refusing to get up until noon, the satisfied smiles that come from a well-cooked meal, the comfort and occasional annoyance of never being alone. 

Take a mental snapshot, write it all down, let your loved ones know how you feel. Home will oftentimes feel like something you’re leaving behind, but it’s actually something you will take with you. 

And if it helps, there is this: back in bed at the hotel room, as I was sobbing into my pillow at 4 in the morning, my husband reached out in his sleep and hugged me tight. Later in the morning, he will tell me that he doesn’t remember doing so, doesn’t even recall waking up. But I am grateful in that moment of grieving to have someone to hold me. It reassured me of the duality of weddings: yes, it is the death of the life you once knew, but also the birth of a life and love yet to be lived. – Rappler.com

Patricia Lim owns a compassionate crafts company that works with artisans in different parts of the Philippines. She has also done research work and case studies for NGOs, including a post-Yolanda area development study in Samar, which led her to her work today as a social entrepreneur.