more than a little

Vinnie was just a small boy when I dreamed an entire cake had been smashed into his face. Well, in the dream he was a boy—maybe 5 or so—but in reality we were already adults. A couple years later when we were celebrating his sons 3rd birthday with cake and ice cream and his son dove his face into his cake, I suddenly recollected the dream I’d had years before.

It made me smile.

Vinnie is a good brother to me and we were always quite inseparable. That’s why one dream that I’d had on more than one occasion growing up didn’t make much sense to me:

There’s a building. A school perhaps. I’m inside a car. Windows rolled down. Daddy is there, but not Vinnie.

I had the same dream more than once and I always felt a little off whenever I woke remembering it.

Does that happen to you? Do you dream about something vividly and then forget about it until something in real life happens to bring you back to that dream? Or is that just me?

Because the unsettling dream that Vinnie wasn’t a part of came back to haunt me recently: I was sitting in my Toyota with the windows open waiting for my daughter to exit school. It was Tuesday and on Tuesdays we have to band together so I can whisk her off to gymnastics. I heard the school bell ring, but instead of seeing the school building she attends, it was the building from the dream I’d had 15 years ago.

Daddy is there. He’s talking to little girls. And he’s walking toward me and the car with little girls by his side. The door to the school opens and a little girl looks directly at me and smiles and runs toward me.

It’s my little girl.

The flash from the past is gone, but I’m left feeling a little off… more than a little, actually.

 

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