I don't keep a dream journal. I don't even remember my dreams most of the time. I had the following dream, however, in July 2002, more than a year before my father died, and it was so striking I typed it out the next morning at work.
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We were all (what felt like family) partying, drinking, and having a good time at a cabin in the woods. I was in back of the cabin, I believe by a cauldron (like at Possum Lodge,) when Geoff’s friend walked by with a tall, backed bar stool and said “It looks like your father’s collapsed.” She was bringing in the chair for him and didn’t seem all that concerned.
I went in the cabin and into a bedroom and he was lying in the bed. There was a chest of drawers opposite but facing the bed. There were a lot of people in the room but they were just bodies, not anyone I knew. Dad had an IV in his arm. Someone said that the ambulance had been called. He was still a little “with it” and kept taking the IV needle out of his arm and piercing it back in. I got down alongside the bed and told him to stop doing that. He claimed it was designed for him to do that and kept doing it except he was putting the needle in perpendicular to his arm instead of parallel. The IV bag was running out and I was concerned about that so I kept sticking a needle in it that was attached to a hose and would fill the bag with a jet of liquid. I couldn’t get it to work right and had to try several times. It took me some time to get the hang of it.
There was some commotion and I somehow lost track of Dad in the bed. When I found him he had become very old and drawn. Like a mummy. He wasn’t breathing or was barely breathing. I started performing CPR, pumping his heart, but he somehow disappeared out from under me. Someone (I think Geoff) said “You’re just pumping pillows" and when I looked down it was just a tangle of brown bedsheets and cheap sponge-filled pillows. I started searching for Dad and finally found him face down in the space between the bed and the wall. He was all withered and frail like E.T. was when the older brother found him in the stream. I picked him up and was overjoyed to discover that he was still breathing. I carried him in my arms around the bed. He was incredibly light and easy to carry. Very bony. Again like a mummy, like parchment.
When I asked where the ambulance was someone said that they couldn’t find the place so I decided to get him help myself. We were then at The Land in Door County, WI and I was carrying him down the long driveway through the woods to the road. Next we were in a car and Dad was in the passenger seat while I drove. I wrapped a blanket around him but he was too sick to talk or even move. I thought he was dying right then. I was driving into town and called the ambulance to see where they were and they said they were lost, that they couldn’t find the place. I told them to just meet me on Garret Bay Road, that we would be waiting for them there. They sighed and agreed. I turned the car around and headed back but then realized that Garret Bay Road was the wrong road and that it was far too long for them to find us on.
At this point Dad seemed to be getting better. He was talking and we were laughing. He was still sick and in need of medical attention but he seemed better. We were driving through what looked a little like Sister Bay, WI but exaggerated. I stopped someplace to call the ambulance and I went ballistic. Screaming at them. Telling them that a man was dying. They said there was nothing they could do. I hung up. The people at the place I called from said the closest hospital was in Ephraim, WI. I freaked out because it was so far away. The woman said that her husband could get Dad to the hospital in no time. Dad seemed much better at this point. Next thing I know they have loaded Dad lying down into a little bullet shaped trailer that is being pulled by this man’s motorcycle. Dad seemed comfortable and hopeful. As they pulled away I finally felt hopeful myself about the whole situation. Then, as I watched, the motorcycle had to stop suddenly for some parade (complete with a marching band and everything) and the trailer flipped up and over the motorcycle. It exploded upon contact with the ground with my father in it. I knew that he was dead and I thought to myself “Now he’s dead even after all that. It’s like a John Irving novel.”
