The trees are wet this morning from the rain in the night. Just the least little breeze and a cascade of water droplets sound out a symphony of pitter-patt’n that I find pleasurable from my seat on the porch. I can even see the quarter notes in the bend of the creek as the drops reach the water. Perfect ringlets forming in time with the music.

I was restless last night. You probably know how that goes. But it wasn’t because I tossed and turned. It was the dreams that kept me stirred up.

When I was a boy, my daddy used to say that he almost never dreamed but that when he did, “it was a doozy.” I don’t think I ever believed him about the not dreaming part. Mama talked about her dreams. I know I dreamed all the time.

I had two recurring dreams when I was little. One was that I had the ability to fly through the air. I’d just take a running jump, and up I’d go. Eventually I’d get way up among the clouds and then, without warning, I’d lose my flying powers and start to fall. Just before I’d hit the ground I’d wake up with butterflies in my stomach, like it really happened.

I must have had that dream a thousand times.

The second dream was another one that scared me, but it made a little more sense than me flying all over creation. More grounded in reality. Whenever Dad and I would “work the cows”, as he called it, my job was to stand on the outside of the catch pen and pull the rope when they poked their head through the bars.

Standing on the outside left me exposed to all the cows NOT in the pen who were very concerned that their buddies were being mistreated. There was lots of snorting, bellowing, and pawing of the earth. It was enough to make a young boy nervous.

So, the dream was this. I would be walking through the pasture headed down to the lake. I’d come around the barn and there were our cows standing there looking at me. And when they saw me, it was like they said to themselves, “There’s that kid at the catch gate.” And they’d run at me, chasing me all the way back to the house. Just as they were about to trample me, I’d reach for the back door and wake up.

They say that dreams have meanings, but if they do, I can’t figure it out. Dreams almost never make any sense, at least the ones I can remember.

But I remember the one from last night. If fact, I got up at 3am, turned on a light and found a pencil and paper. I wrote down enough of the basics so that I could be sure I would remember it. In the moment, I knew I wanted to think about my dream some more and if I just rolled over, I would forget it.

Like a lot of dreams, it was disjointed. People from different times in my life who didn’t belong in the same dream. Places that made no sense because they weren’t like the places I knew. The scenes jumping from one to the next with no connection.

It all began with me being chased by two brown bears. I’m not saying that’s how it started, but that’s where my memory took notice of my dream. I’d lose sight of them for a moment, my heart racing. I’m walking down a tar & gravel road. A mix of woodland and pasture on both sides. And then, here they’d come again.

I finally ran up to a house and jerked the door open without knocking, slammed the door behind me, and leaned against it out of breath. But when I looked around it wasn’t a house. I was more like a church. I say that because I saw my dad standing across the way in a big, open room. There was a crowd between me and him, and he had on a suit with a white rose pinned to his left lapel.

My only recollection of him in a suit with a rose pinned to his lapel is from Mother’s Day. He wore a suit on Sundays, and on that Sunday, he would wear a white rose in memory of his mother.

I forgot all about the bears and thought to myself, “Wow. There’s Dad.”

I tried to catch his attention to wave at him, but he never looked my way. I just wanted to talk to him. Ask him how things were going. But I couldn’t get across the sea of people between us.

It also seemed like church because Miss Helen Greer came up to me and spoke to me. I don’t know what she said. I wasn’t listening or being very polite, because I kept looking for Dad.

Then I saw Clara Nutt. As plain as day. I haven’t seen her in a long time. She was wearing a light brown dress, the color of brown you get when you put just a smidge of Hershey’s chocolate syrup in a glass of milk and stir it up. A soft brown, not a dark brown.

The dress had a light tan pattern on it, maybe pineapples or just big polka dots. And she had on a hat that matched the tan in the dress, one like the ladies used to wear on Easter Sundays with a net that hung down a little bit over the forehead.

I didn’t speak to her. I just saw her. She smiled at me, and I waved my hand back at her.

Then, without warning, I’m walking through a grassy park. I can see picnic tables and swing sets. In the distance I can see my dad again. He’s sitting straddle-style over a picnic bench, his right elbow and forearm resting on the table.

He’s holding a Co-Cola, the eight-ounce glass bottle. He always liked the smaller bottles. He never wanted a 12oz. “Too much,” he said. And he stuck with that his whole life. When he and mama would come to the house, they would split a 12oz. can for lunch.

I’m looking at him, thinking I should walk over, but for some reason I’m content just to stay where I am and watch. He’s maybe 50 years old in my dream. He’s certainly younger than I am. He looks vigorous. He looks like he belongs here. He looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

He just sips his Co-Cola and looks off into the distance.

All the dreaming aside, I think of Dad all the time. Not in a remorseful way, but in a good way. I hear his voice in my head. I see his skin on the back of my hands. I have those moments when I think to myself, “I wish Dad could see this.”

I didn’t even tell you about walking through Hampton and running into Jerry Thompson from South Carolina. We were drinking tea from those amber-colored, plastic cafeteria glasses.

Don’t ask, because I’ll tell ya…

Dreams are crazy.