Considering that I'm on PDT, and the sun has not come up yet, yes, its a weird time to post, and I've been tossing and turning all night. Part of this I can blame on consuming an entire Hot Italian pizza last night; the ingredients - unlike the crap that mass produced pizza like you get at Costco - are actually fresh and we are so used to eating crap as a civilization (let's face it, unless you work *really* hard at it, its extremely difficult to eat right in fructose-drenched America - hey, rather than use that land to grow flax seed or something we can actually power our cars with, instead we grow corn and then make (literally) tons of sweetener out of what we can't use, and then impregnate every type of food imaginable with it, so our entire culture can grow fat, have our arteries, hearts, livers, and God knows what else explode with disease so the process of subsidizing the sweetener bankrupts our entire Treasury several times over) that my system goes into a delightful state of shock every time I eat one. This was a seasonal pizza - its not listed on the menu (I think, I've just provided the link and our server told us last night that this was a new pizza that they were about to put on the menu) - that had no cheese but their spicy tomato sauce, fresh heirloom tomato slices... and mussels and shrimp. Yes, it was delicious.
Anyway, tossing and turning (and listening to Merp slap around a lamp power cord half the night, as she loves to demand a middle-of-the-night snack - the cats prefer to be fed when its dark, which, of course, makes sense because they're nocturnal - party all night, sleep all day - she knows that sooner or later you'll get sick of listening to the lamp cord drag against the floor and will get up and use those amazing opposable thumbs to open the magic can), I fell asleep for a few minutes...
To wake up in my old bunk bed in my old room. It was dark, about the same time in the morning as it is now, and my stereo went off, oddly, blasting Ozzy's "Crazy Train" (I'm not that big of an Ozzy fan, but the song is one of the best rock riffs ever. Randy Rhoads did raise the bar in how much technique you need to play rock guitar in writing that song riff)... I was a little worried that it would wake my parents up, but it wasn't that loud, and I let the song play until the end and then hit the power button on the stereo. House was still dark, so I got out of bed and went downstairs.
I knew that my father was dead, and not in the house, but I was a little surprised to find my mother stretched out in the same "Lazy Boy chair spot" in the house that Dad occupied for years (she bought a new recliner after his death and often slept in it as her back bothered her because the cancer was eating it and her internal organs up - she even slept there when he was alive (he'd sleep upstairs in his bed) because I think she had the cancer a long, long time).
She had gained weight, and when I came down and sat down beside her, to read, and turned on the lamp that was on that table (although the overhead light in the living room was on, so its not like any light was going to disturb her), I thought "man, for having cancer she looks good" but she stirred, opened and eye and sat up a bit.
I was kind of surprised, and I said "Mom, you're alive... you're both alive... you've died, and come back, its kind of like Jesus." (Note - no offense to anyone's religious beliefs, but I am not a believer in the Christian myth in general... of the various stories in the Bible, I find Moses far more compelling, and far more believable. It simply makes more sense to me... Moses' life is described more fully from Point A to Point B than Jesus' is, after Jesus arises from the dead, the entire story of his life is rushed to an end along the lines of "he walked among the people and performed many more miracles" and that's pretty much it... but who knows what's been omitted from the Bible and there are so many translations and bastardizations now - and political correctness (see King James version) probably the only way to appreciate it is to have the ability to read the scrolls in their original language, and that takes a wee bit of scholarly study that most people simply don't have the time (or access) to do).
Mom smiled and said "It was sweet for you to say that. But I still feel terrible, this cancer hurts."
"But, you're OK."
"Yes, I am. So is your father." (I'm paraphrasing at this point, because she really didn't say anything but I know on a visceral level that they're both OK. Although Dad has moved on to something else, whatever he is now in the multiverse. His data is still there in the 2-D matrix, its simply not being projected in this part of the 3-D representation of the 2-D matrix. This is assuming, of course, that the string theorists actually know what they're talking about, and its probably just as plausible as anything else).
That's when I woke up, and knew that I needed to write this down before it faded. I'm lying in bed, covered with goosebumps (this also happened when we were cleaning out the house in April a couple of times when I was in part of the house alone... there was the perfectly clear afternoon sitting in my old room and this loud, persistent knocking happened for a few seconds - then a couple of nights later, we were returning to the house, after dark, and the front porch light - which I'd left on when we drove off for dinner, as I knew it would be dark when we got back - was out - and then as I pulled into the driveway it popped right back on. When we got inside, the switch was all the way up, and the switch had no shorting issues. It wasn't a power surge, as the lamp lights I'd left on in the house and the side porch light were all on), and knew I'd better grab the computer and write this down before the dream faded... because the dream is real.
I had another one of these dreams a few months back, before we flew out, but didn't write it down, but I woke up from it crying, because I knew that my parents were alive and it was OK and so profoundly moving... the gist of that one was that we were cleaning out the house, and my mother was there (Dad again absent) and there was all this cool stuff that we were going through, but some of it was shifting shapes as we looked at it - into styles of stuff that I like (Mom and I have very different tastes), and Mom was smiling... and much younger than I remember her. There were other people milling about because it was the estate sale, including a black man with dreadlocks, whom I walked up to... and I knew it was Bob Marley and I told him so and he smiled... and then just sort of melted away.
I'm not crazy about reggae, either, and it was interesting that another person who is dead was there with my mother, but I think I remember going up there and telling him that he was there and she said "I know, and its OK. Just do what you need to do Scott. Its alright."
Dammit Mom. Every time I write about this, you make me cold, and these goosebumps are very annoying. You're enjoying yourself way too much.
They're alive.
Happy Father's Day everyone.
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