Dream Scream

I found myself at a large outdoor gathering of people, but cannot remember why we were there. Maybe it was some kind of fair or maybe we were waiting for someone or something to arrive. I was standing there with my father, and I think also my husband, when Dad began speaking in a voice loud enough to be heard over the din of the immediately surrounding crowd.

As he spoke, people began turning from their individual conversations to hear his words. It dawned on me that he was doing something akin to a stand-up comedy routine, having found a ready and somewhat captive audience.

For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve known Dad to enjoy an audience, but I’d never thought of him as a comedian. I can’t remember the story or stories he was telling, but more and more people became engaged and at one point, I don’t know why, Dad revealed his age as 64.

“What?!” I thought to myself. Even though until that moment I’d been thinking of myself as somewhere in my 30s, at that moment I realized I was 71 and my father was considerably older than 64. How could these people accept that blatant misstatement?

Trying to inject a correction in a humorous nature, that he was closer to 94 (in fact nearly 103) than 64, I said under my breath, “He’s not 64!”

But no sound came out. I had to be heard, so I put more air behind it and shouted again, “He’s not 64!” But all that came out was a horse whisper, completely drowned out.

The adoring crowd was pushing in around him, elevating him in his element and pushing me farther and farther out of the circle. My husband, who had been jostling me to let it go and allow Dad his moment, was also separated from me by the crowd.

Now, it was no longer the need to correct as it was to be heard. I couldn’t understand why my repeated efforts to scream were muffled within my own throat, and why the harder I tried to stay with Dad the more I was being pushed further and further back.

Suddenly, there was a warm, silky face nudging mine as my dog tried to wake me, her head on the pillow next to me.

I was indeed 71. Dad and my husband had been taken from me, as had my mother, and in a celebrating crowd who could not hear my calls. But my dog came to save me from the dream and return me to reality.

I remembered that when you find yourself voicelessly screaming, your legs are unable to carry you forward or you are moving in sweating slow motion against a world rushing at you, you are either caught in a riptide, or you are dreaming.

It is good to wake up, get moving, and swing into your day. There are good things waiting for you outside your door where you can still both listen and be heard.