What Dreams May Come

Another Nightmare

After doing my nightly devotions, I set aside my bible, turned off the lights and let my pillow cushion of head. My eyelids lolled and I was asleep in a minute. Shortly after, they fluttered open again and sunlight streamed through my window. I was in Minnesota, in my old bedroom.

I wiped the crust from the corners of my eyes as I sat up.

“What time is it?” I stifled a yawn, looking for the cheap digital alarm clock that normally sat atop my nightstand.

“Daniel!” a voice shouted from the living room.

“Mom?” I stuttered leaping from my bed. Poking my head into the hallway in utter bewilderment. “Mom, is that you?”

“Hurry up Daniel, I have to go!” she said, hurriedly looking through the closet by the front door.
“Mom?”

“What?” she said, glaring at me through her rectangular frames.

“You’re dead,” I said pointedly

“What are you talking about?”

“You died a year ago. Pancreatic cancer? Don’t you remember—”

“I don’t have time for this. Either get dressed and get down here, or I’m leaving without you.”

“Leaving? Where are you—”

“Get dressed!” She said.

“Okay,” I stuttered, darting back in to my room, throwing on a pair of dirty jeans and a white t-shirt I found in a dusty corner. From below, I heard the front door jarred open and then slam with a muffled “thunk,” followed by the soft “whoosh” of the screen door.

“Mom?” I said rushing down the stairs, zipping up my pants. The living room was empty. I checked the kitchen. “Mom,” I said, the panic rising in my voice, “are you still here?” No answer.

I ran to the front door and burst through it, running into the yard. My mom was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car that was peeling out of the driveway.

“Wait,” I bounded down the long cement stairs. “Mom, I’m ready to go! Don’t leave without me!”

The screeching wheels and the revving engine drowned out my cries. She hit the acceleration pedal and gravel flew from the back tires in to my face as she sped down the hill. My sneakers pounded after her, my breath billowing like a smokestack in the chill, autumn air.

Please, wait! Take me with you!” I cried, chasing after her until she was a mere speck at the end of the street, until that too winked out of view down a steep hill.

I was left alone in the middle of the street doubled over; wheezing and gasping for air as a sharp pain stabbed my side.

My heart thudded in my chest as my eyes sprang open. Reaching from my top bunk to the shelf of my closet where my alarm clock was perched, I grabbed it with trembling hands: 3:15 a.m.

To Bide Your Time: The Factory

This is a dream I had in college; it's very Freudian so be warned. It will go in the second part of the book after my mom has died. I had a couple of nightmares like this while I was writing a "Life History" paper for one of my college courses. We had to write a page on each year of our life. When I got to the age when everything hit the fan, it got extremely difficult. Especially when I found out that my parents had been having trouble since the late eighties, rather than the 1992 date I initially thought. Discovering that secret undid a lot of the growth I had accomplished up to that point. Until then, I had thought that my childhood years were something I could cling to. It was a point in time that my parents were happy in their marriage. When I found out they were putting on a show, and secretely having trouble behind closed doors, I fell apart. It was like reliving it all over again, and it was too much. It was too painful.

The Factory

I awoke standing next to my brother in the public bathroom of an abandoned building. The tiles covering the walls were black; caked with ages of grime and feces. I avoided touching them as I tiptoed around dusty puddles of urine gathering in the corners of the floor. I gagged as the acidic tang of vomit burned the back of my throat. I motioned silently for my brother to follow as we pushed through the bathroom door, and stood at the top of a spiral staircase.

“You first,” said my brother.

The rubber soul of my shoe tapped the first step cautiously and when nothing wavered, wobbled, or groaned in protest, I hopped on the stairs and turned to my brother.

“It’s safe. C’mon.”
We neared the bottom level of the building as the distant murmur of voices clattered somewhere below us. With it came the unmistakable scent of fresh baked cookies and the smell of home.

“IT’S MOM!” I said, as we both galloped down the remaining steps. We stood in an empty hallway filled with open office doors covered in mold and peeling paint. I hurried in and out of several rooms looking for my long dead mother.
Finally, I saw light pouring from a room at the end of the hallway. She was sitting in a chair in the middle of floor. The room was split in two, separated by a thick piece of thick glass.

“Mom!” I said with a smile. Before she could look at me the room started to pull away. With every step I took forward, the barren room slid further out of reach as a thick steel door slid shut, leaving me in the hallway, beating the metal slab with my fists.

“Mom!” I shouted. “Mom, can you hear me?” She didn’t answer. “Timothy help me with the—” I looked over my shoulder. He was gone.

“He can take care of himself,” I thought, thinking only of my mother trapped inside the room. My hand searched the steel door for a knob, a button, a lever; something that might open it, but there was nothing.

I ran through the hallway with my blood rushing through my ears and my chest burning. “I can’t let her go now. I’ve got to hold on to this moment.”

I ran through an intricate maze of hallways and dead ends until I burst into the room separated by the window. There she was, sitting on the other side of the glass.

Navigating through the garbage to the window, I cocked my head and noticed for the first time that my mother was naked, except for her bra and underwear.

“Mom?”

She looked at me momentarily through the glass. Her brown eyes flooded with tears as she dropped her head, and looked at her feet.

Scales fell from my eyes, and I noticed she was not alone. Naked and huddled in the corner stood Willie. He glared at me with his clothes clutched between his hands.

Backing towards the exit in horror, my shoulder blades slammed against the back wall as my hand wildly groped for the rusty doorknob behind me. I spun around quickly to find the doorway had vanished, replaced by a cement wall. I was locked in the room.

“I’m going to be in so much trouble,” I thought as Willie hopped on one foot, thrusting the other into a pair of blue jeans. “What if Mom tells Dad what I saw? He’ll be furious. He’d—hang on.”

Suddenly, the crashing realization struck. “They were having–” I couldn’t say it. The idea alone filled me with revulsion.
Rage overtook my body as I grabbed a splintered desk leg and smashed it as hard as I could against the glass, but nothing happened. I dropped my shoulder, and slammed into the divider repeatedly. My chest heaved as rivulets of sweat poured from my forehead.

Transfixed with morbid curiosity, I watched as Willie bolted through a door that had materialized out of nothingness. He left my mother naked and alone, staring at the empty doorway. Somewhere outside, a car door slammed, an engine turned, tires squealed, and the night was silent once more.

My mother pried her gaze from the doorway. Her piercing hollow eyes met mine. She looked beyond my body and saw the dark recesses of my mind. She could hear the questions I wanted to ask her. “ Did you love me? Did you ever really want me?” I looked expectantly, hoping to hear answers in her soft voice. She issued a silent verdict by turning her head and staring back through the doorway. Her answer was simple. Her answer was “No.”

“Mom, why!” I screamed, bolting upright in my bed, covered in a cold sweat with hot tears streaming down my face. My hand was outstretched, blindly groping for the dissolved glass barrier. I was greeted with the suffocating emptiness of my bedroom. I cradled my face in my hands and wept as the harsh December winds howled outside.

I tried to console myself by whispering, "It was a dream. It was just a dream." But, the haunting thought planted in my mind kept me awake for the rest of the night. What if it wasn't a dream? What is she didn't love me?

New Song

I'm going to be posting the song I mentioned in John Lennon Saved My Life in a couple of days. It will be recorded on my friend's computer, so it's not going to sound studio quality, but I thought everyone should hear it. It was really important in my journey to forgiveness. Here are the lyrics:

Gone
Verse 1
Mommy, you're gone; it's so hard to explain.
All my life you've caused me such pain
Cuz you didn't want a family man, You didn't want me too.
Broke my heart, cuz all I ever wanted was you.

Chorus
Well now since you've been gone,
Thoughts run through my head.
Since you've left me the very last time,
Since you've been dead.
Well, I hate you. I love you. I just want to see.
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?

Verse 2
Now you are dead; buried in the ground
Now I wonder, if there's hope to be found
And I wonder, if you've loved me at all
And if you did, then why weren't you in it for the long haul?

Bridge
Six feet in the ground, now there's no hope to be found
Six feet in the ground, now there's no hope to be found

Chorus
Well now since you've been gone,
Thoughts run through my head.
Since you've left me the very last time,
Since you've been dead.
Well, I hate you. I love you. I just want to see.
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?
Free of doubt and free of fear: what's a family?
Mommy, I'm still here, will you please hold me?

John Lennon Saved My Life

Okay, so this is a flash-forward. This segement is going to be when I was in college...This is the defining moment when I sort of embraced the negative feelings I had been denying myself. If anything is confusing, let me know.

When the grief group had finished for the evening I trudged up the stairs to my dorm room on the second floor of Snowbarger. It was Tuesday night, which also meant that it was open dorms for the guys. I did my best to sidle past each room as inconspicuously as possible. I wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination so the chances of someone talking to me seemed a little far-fetched, but I did it anyway. Just in case.

Reaching my doorway, I wondered how much the group was really helping. Each meeting left me emotionally drained and angrier with my mother. Tonight, we discussed what it must have felt like for me to come down the stairs each morning, unsure if my mother would be there sleeping on the couch.

Sighing, I dug a hand into the dark recesses of my jean pockets and pulled out my key ring. The key jiggled in my hand and the lock slid open. A peculiar feeling gripped my mind during the meeting and I couldn’t shake it. I felt like the corners of my brain were peeling back and something wanted to burst out. “Calm down,” I told myself. I’d grown accustomed to bottling my anger over the years, but my inner demons were growing restless. Tired of being suppressed and denied. My rage bubbled and boiled higher, rising into my chest. My knuckles clenched until I finally felt the long, sticky fingers of bitterness clutch my mind.

“What good will it do to get mad at her?” My rational side said. “She’s dead. Move on with your life.”

I shuffled through a stack of lecture notes piled on my desk and pulled a John Lennon CD from underneath. I slammed the disk in to my stereo. I jabbed the random button and jumped on to my bed.

Listening to Lennon’s music was like participating in his therapy sessions. There was an unexplainable bond that I felt to his lyrics. He understood what I was going through. When Lennon was 17, a drunken policeman who was off-duty hit John’s mother with his car and killed her. After he was informed of the accident, Lennon had to go the morgue to identity her body.
The first song that belted through the speakers in Lennon’s raw voice was a piece he wrote in memory of his mother.

Mother, You had me I never had you
I wanted you but you didn't want me
So I got to tell you
Goodbye, Goodbye

Images raced through my mind as I thought of my mother. I clutched her tightly around the waist the night she left—The day we helped her move across town into her dingy apartment; it was my birthday—The afternoon we found all the bills hidden throughout the house—Watching her leave, zipped up tightly in her body bag—The casket sinking into the ground. Tears fell from my face as the song continued.

Father, You left me but I never left you
I needed you but you didn't need me
So I just got to tell you
Goodbye, Goodbye

The night he screamed at me in the kitchen—His tears rippling the still waters of Lake Como as he tried to figure out what he did wrong—The question he probably asked himself all the time: “Why didn’t she love me?”

Lennon’s voice broke into a frenzied pitch.

Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.
Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.
Momma don’t gooooOOOO!
Momma don’t gooooOOOO!

Memories flooded me…
“Karen talk to me!” my dad shouted.
“Why do you have to go?” I asked her the night she left.
“She’s been diagnosed with cancer. She has two weeks to live.”
“Your dad found bills hidden around the house,” Kristina whispered nervously. “It looks like she was having another affair.”
“Sometimes I wish this was all a bad dream,” I whispered to my father in his darkened room. “I’m just waiting to wake up.”

“Aahhh!” I shouted, jumping from my bed. My feet ran to my desk, my hands jerked a desk drawer open and pulled out my journal.

My anger burst through the surface. The pen scribbled furiously on the notebook. My hand moved automatically, writing the words as if copying them from the dark recesses of my mind.

Mommy you’re dead. It’s so hard to explain.
All my life you’ve caused me such pain
‘Cuz you didn’t want a family man,
You didn’t want me too.
Broke my heart, ‘cuz all I ever wanted was you.

A giant tear splashed onto the paper, smearing the black ink. I cried in angst to her memory, holding my head in my hands. “Why mom? Why did you have to do this to us? Why did you have to leave me?” I sniffed, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, and continued writing.

Well now since you’ve been gone
Thoughts run through my head
Since you’ve left me the very last time
Since you’ve been dead.

Laughter echoed in the hallway as I looked at my locked door. I wished I could have had a life like theirs. “But, no!” I thought. “You had to muck it up with your stupid mistakes!

Well I hate you. I love you;
I just want to see,
Free of doubt and free of fear
What’s a family?

We weren’t good enough for you!” my pen paused. “You said you loved me,” I sobbed. “You’re a liar.”

Now you are dead and buried in the ground
And I wonder if there’s hope to be found
And I wonder if you’ve love me at all
And if you did then why weren’t you in it for the long haul

Six feet in the ground, now there’s no hope to be found
Six feet in the ground, now there’s no hope to be found

Well now since you’ve been gone
Thoughts run through my head
Since you’ve left me the very last time
Since you’ve been dead.

Well I hate you and I love you
I just want to see,
Free of doubt and free of fear
What’s a family?

“Momma don’t go! Daddy come home.” Lennon’s song ended and the room was quiet. My trembling hands dropped the pen as I looked at my words. The temptation seized me to rip up the piece of paper and deny those feelings, but I didn’t.

I walked to the stereo and shut the music off, threw myself on my bed, and cried myself to sleep.

Chapter Three: Atlas Struggled

At the dawn of time a bloody war raged between the mythic Titans and Zeus for the right to rule the heavens. When their battle ended with Zeus victorious, those who opposed him were imprisoned forever. One titan was punished more severely than the rest; his name was Atlas. He was given the task of holding the world on his shoulders. He managed to hand over the task to Hercules for a while, but was soon tricked in to taking back his burden, and to this day the weight remains fixed on his shoulders.

My dad was the same way. Though he lacked the size or strength of the infamous Titan, he more than made up for it with his spirit of commitment and dedication. He never asked for the responsibility of raising us alone, but he never complained. He didn’t guilt us in to thinking it was our fault either. He often reminded us, “It’s nothing you did. She loves you.”

And yet, at times he cut us off. Occasionally, he would get home from work, and go directly to his room. He would go to sleep without saying goodnight. When we watched TV in his room, we’d sprawl out on his queen-sized bed with little conversation. I realize now how difficult it must have been for him during my mother’s absence. Every time he looked at us he saw the traces of the woman who abandoned him subtly marked in our features.

Unlike my mother though, he didn’t flinch. His world revolved around two things. His children and his daily routine. He’d wake up at 5:30 in the morning. Shower. Shave. Brush his teeth. Blow-dry his hair. Get dressed. Shoes. Breakfast. Work. Home. We all switched to autopilot to help us cope with our loss.

A routine was easy to maintain. Routines didn’t cause fights. Hands that were brushing teeth couldn’t make mysterious phone calls. No one could pack their suitcases and leave if they were naked in the shower. As childish as it may seem, sometimes if my dad didn’t get home from work at his usual time, a sense of dread filled my stomach.

That same panic filled me when I was maybe six or seven. My parents went out on an errand and left me at home with my brother. After what felt like hours, I started to worry. My hands pulled back the living room curtains every thirty seconds. I would hear the distant thunder of an engine pass the house and frantically search for our blue station wagon, but it didn’t come. I started crying. “They’ve left me,” I thought. “They’re not coming back, and I’m all alone.” When they finally walked through the door, I was curled in a ball behind the recliner, sobbing uncontrollably.

My family’s circumstances had changed. My mom was already gone. Who’s to say the strain of raising three frightened children wouldn’t impel my dad to plan his escape as well? Losing a parent rattled my trust in the world. I witnessed first hand that people were capable of horrifying acts of selfishness and it terrified me. That’s why my father’s morning routine acted as a safeguard, and established a bastion of hope for the day.

I knew beyond the shadow of my mother that he would be there to wake me up so that I could get ready for school. The light from the hallway would cut in to our room, framing his silhouette in the doorway. The fresh smell of his newly applied after-shave would wash over my senses before he had a chance to say, “C’mon Daniel. Time to get up.”

Occasionally I awoke with the niggling urge to use the bathroom. I’d lie still as long as possible and listen to him prepare for the day. The blow dryer would hiss. The shower would gurgle. These simple sensory cues calmed my nerves more than words could. Atlas was preparing to shoulder the weight. He’d step out of the bathroom only after our world rested firmly between his shoulder blades. Then he would wake me up, fully in charge of the situation.

I would step in to the bathroom moments after he left it. The water in the bathtub would trickle down its porcelain sides, accompanied to the customary drip-drop beat of the faucet thudding against the drain. Bathed by this reassuring chorus of sound, the warm steam would envelope my shivering body, and I’d feel safe. That’s what my father’s presence felt like during the intervening months while she was away: warm and safe.

Chapter Two--Preview

I was in Heaven. The Heaven. The one I’d been learning about for years in Sunday school and Bible camp. It was beyond my wildest imagination. I was standing barefoot, on an endless landscape of dazzlingly clouds.

Excitement pulsed through my blood! There was only one reason for me to be in Heaven. God was granting me the chance to answer all of my questions about my parent's marriage problems personally.

The clouds cushioned my feet as I jogged towards the Pearly Gates towering in the distance. I stopped twenty yards from the entrance as the gate swung open. In the distance, an infinitesimal black speck tarnished the horizon.

I stood frozen in place, squinting at the mysterious figure approaching. “Could it be?” I thought. “Was it actually Him?” My palms started to sweat. I stood paralyzed with joyful expectation. It was God; I knew it.

As the figure drew closer, I noticed the Lord’s peculiar gate. He toddled towards me, swaying from the left and right. I watched in curiosity and thought, “He certainly isn’t as tall as I thought He’d be.”

At a hundred feet away my mouth dropped and eyes goggled as the creature continued to waddle towards me. It stood in front of me with a vacant expression in its beady eyes.

I stared at it.
It stared at me.
It was not God. It happened to be a penguin.

“What is a bird doing in Heaven?” I thought. “I need to talk to God.”

The penguin craned his neck and met my bewildered gaze.

“What the—”

“Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” The penguin squawked, flapping its wings rhythmically to match its piercing cry.

I covered my ears, attempting to block out the sound. It was useless. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” it continued impassive to my growing irritation.

Searching the empty expanse of Heaven for help, I screamed, “Will someone get that penguin!?”

“Shudioff,” my brother slurred through a tangle of blankets and sheets.

“Whuh?” I replied hazily, blinking my eyes.

“Shut the alarm off!”

Emerging in my darkened bedroom and fumbling with my chirping alarm clock I realized I was no longer, knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door. I was groping for the snooze button on the blasted alarm clock.

The memories of the previous night came rushing back. My stomach sank. I sighed and begrudgingly got out of bed. I stumbled towards the bathroom, bumping into the doorframe before stepping into the hallway. My parents’ bedroom door was open, and the room was empty. My dad had already left for work, without waking me up and saying, “good morning.”

My pajamas hit the linoleum floor of the bathroom as I stepped under the nozzle of the shower. The water gurgled and unleashed an icy torrent of water.

“What am I going to do?” I asked, letting steam swirl around me in undulating clouds, before stepping under the water. The envelope of mist allowed me to see my thoughts in perfect clarity. I resumed my prayer from the night before. “God, please help my parents. I don’t want them to fight anymore. Please.” My prayers amounted to nothing, as they usually did during that time.