Good Lord, Woman! It Was Just a Dream!

I had the most vivid dream last night.

I'm not positive on the time frame of this, since, well, I never see myself in dreams, ya know, but judging by context, it was probably sometime in the mid-80's. I'm sitting in my grandparents carport on one of Mema's well-cushioned porch swings, staring through the latticework at a truck pulling up the gravel drive.

Now here's where it gets weird because, as I said earlier, it seemed to be sometime in the 80's, and yet, in the dream I had the knowledge that Daddy Dean was dead, which would make it sometime in the last 5 months. Weird how dreams have that ability to warp time.

Anyway, so there's a truck coming down the driveway. I always loved the sound of tires digging into the gravel, wearing twin ruts into the reddish soil beneath--the soothing monotonous tone of stone grinding against stone that announced a visitor.

The truck is a fairly beat up boxy blue thing with a brown strip down the sides. Not a truck I can ever remember seeing around the farm, or anywhere, for that matter. In the driver's seat is my grandfather! Big, robust, almost fat in a way that he probably never was in life, but still, most certainly the picture of strength and health. There, smiling, wearing his blue flannel shirt, jeans worn white at the thighs and knees, stained with farm-grit and those thick red suspenders. His feet were clad in high rubber boots, one of the many pair that sat waiting next to the front door for whoever was heading out to the fields. Huge, thick, mud-encrusted boots that, as a child, came up to my hips.

In the passenger seat was the biggest Irish Setter I've ever seen- aging, the grey traveling from his muzzle up around his eyes, masking his entire face. His red fur glistening and blowing in the dappled sunlight. The two of them- an absolute image of life.

I don't think we spoke at all to each other, I just sat, absorbing the wonderful-ness of him. His height, his heft, the dark hair, greying at the temples. I remember marveling at his eyes. Eyes that I never gave much thought to when he was living. I suppose that during his healthy years there were so many other things to take in that the eyes were more of an afterthought, but when life slowed down and he was confined to a chair, it seemed that the eyes were the only thing left. There was a depth to them that my mind, still, is a bit afraid to fathom. Depth, intelligence, keenness that I'd never seen before. I mean, sure, I guess I had always known that it was there. I never once considered my grandfather less than intelligent, but I don't know if I ever gave it much thought at all.

My father appeared on the carport with me, he and Daddy Dean slipped into conversation and that's where it fades. Just a kid, just a kid on a swing overhearing an adult conversation that is so wholly meaningless that it just becomes a buzzing of voices in the back of your skull, like the sound of bees, powerlines humming.

And the dream is gone. I stayed awake for a long time afterwards, remembering how it wasn't until our last visit together that I actually took the time to notice his eyes. Funny how death will do that to you--make you pause and absorb all that you can- drink in the details so that you might remember them. He was so frail at the end- almost unrecognizable if it weren't for the height, the eyes, that mouth that smiled despite the exhaustion he must have felt.

God, those eyes, so blue, so alive despite the failing of the rest of him. My hand in his- the closest thing he can muster to a hug because it hurts so bad. "You come back and see me real soon." he tells me. So much meaning behind those words. That strong silent country way of not speaking the truth that is so damn everywhere that you can't avoid it if you try.

A whispering in the walls:

I'm dying!
Nearly gone!
Won't be much longer

What wasn't spoken seemed to be said, none-the-less--transmitted through locked eyes--the intensity of a lifetime of memories fading away into nothingness. And that's the way that we forget ourselves, who we are and where we came from and how we came to be. We let it sit silently inside, knowing it's there but not taking the time to record it, to remember it, to pass it along so that others will know it, too.

And Jeez lady, get over yourself! It was just a dream.