Everyone talks about pregnancy dreams but no one puts any emphasis on postpartum dreams. If you ask me, the hormones raging through your body are ten times more intense after you’ve had the baby. Some of the dreams I’ve had since having Beau felt like hallucinations, while others were so realistic that I would wake up in tears because I was experiencing the dream so vividly.

I’m not normally one to share my dreams with people, mostly because I don’t want to bore them. I rarely look into my dreams for a deeper meaning because those kinds of thoughts feed my anxiety. But at this point in time I feel compelled to share a reoccurring dream I’ve been having since Beau was born.

We’re in a Walmart, not a specific one. I’m pushing Beau in the cart right at the threshold of the store. I’m not sure if we are leaving or entering. All of a sudden I see people scurrying and taking cover between the racks of clothes and behind the containers filled with DVDs and candy. I run towards the lawn and garden department and I can see a man with a gun standing in the center of the store shooting aimlessly at hidden targets. At one point in my dream it feels like we’re playing a game of manhunt, using all of the resources Walmart has to offer in order to survive. I’m not sure how I make it out or if I even do, but I’ve had this dream several times.

A couple of days ago, two terrible tragedies struck our nation yet again. One of them was a shooting at a Walmart. I had one of those moments where I was relieved that I told someone about my dream because if I hadn’t, no one would believe that I had dreamt almost this exact scenario. It sent a permanent chill down my spine. They say a mother’s intuition is somewhat of a superpower and part of me is letting my anxiety trick me into thinking that I somehow predicted this. Or when I really think about it, how far fetched is this tragedy really? Shootings have become so prominent throughout our nation, that we gave up on trying to stop them and have resorted to teaching people how to prepare for them. It’s not if it will happen, it’s when.

Now that I’m a mother, I dread the day I have to put my son on a school bus. Not because it marks a milestone of growing up, but because our world has become a cruel place. The evil that resides among us, does not discriminate. At one point and time it was unethical to harm women and children. The people committing these monstrosities have no moral code. None of us are safe. It’s an unsettling feeling to have as an American, but it’s stings a little deeper when you have a child to raise.

I pray for the victims of these barbaric acts of violence and I pray for a safe home that doesn’t feel like a bad dream.