Waking from Dream at Three A.M.

To me, dreams are meaningless and arbitrary puzzles.

My brother died in May of my sophomore year in high school. He was a year and a half younger. The circumstances of his death ... well I'll just say they were traumatic.

But this morning's dream is contemporary.

Tommy is being memorialized. There is a park with vast fields of green lawns. On this sea of green are occasional embedded stone markers abstractly resembling 20-ft sailboats. Well-worn paths go by each of them. So the implication is that they are dedicated memorials to the deceased. There is one large stone the path to which only approaches from one direction. I ask Trophy Wife to look at it closely and evaluate it as a marker for Tommy.

Next, I am in a large sanctuary. I am seated in the center of a large circle of all of our friends. An unseen pastoral voice is reading a reverential poem I was familiar with as a child but which I cannot identify now. I am anticipating rising and speaking. I will say that in expressing my remorse for, and forgiveness of, my brother's suicide, I am also expressing remorse and asking forgiveness for my own sins, failures, inadequacies and shortcomings.

Suddenly, I am distracted as my youngest son appears and takes a seat near to me. All the stress within me immediately recedes. He completes the circle of solace around me.

Soon, I am cupped in a small light keel boat, buoyant on a morning breeze.