Off Course - A Dream I Had

I don't normally go off on such topics, but last night I had a very strange and disconcerting dream.

I have been married for over eleven years. I have an infant son. I love my wife and child very much and would do anything to protect and provide for them.

Last night I dreamed I was transported back in time to the early '70s. The Vietnam "war" was winding down and hundreds of thousands of American men were returning home, facing permanent psychological damage from the scenes they witnessed in service to the federal empire.

I was attending a rock concert with some new friends. At the end of the concert I was in ecstasy, euphoria from witnessing such an awesome spectacle.

Then it hit me. I had no wife. I had no son. The things that I held dearest in my life were gone and here I was celebrating something petty and frivolous.

In the wake of that realization I became very depressed and frightened. It would still be many years before the woman I loved and who bore my son would even be born. Everything I had ever dreamed before and up to then evaporated in an instant and I was alone, facing the rest of my life without my favoured companion and my beautiful child. By the time she would be the age when we met and fell in love, I would be nearly an old man and of no interest or relevance to her.

The last thing I recall from my dream was visiting the hospital on the day she was born and leaving a single rose with her mother.

I woke up amid tears and panic and held my wife close to me.

The blessings of this life are fleet and passing and you have to hold on to them tightly for they are all we have.