Cafe Hitch-hike

2004-09-19

Dreaming?

Back when I was in an undergrad, I worked as a student assistant in an office that did social science research. The office was founded by a professor named Julio, who had been retired for about 5 years when I came on board. Julio kept in touch with the office and its director, although he was ill with some a terminal neuromuscular disorder that physically slowed him down and impeded his speech.

One Saturday night, I was asleep in my student apartment off the campus of the University of the Rust Belt State. I dreamed I was in a hospital where I was sitting in a chair in a corridor, waiting. Waiting for what, I did not know. Soon, doctors were pushing a hospital bed down the corridor, and Julio was in it. I stood up and felt some concern.

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked.

Julio looked at ease, and seemed to know where he was headed. "I'm fine," he said. "Don't worry about me."

He added, "I'm going to be alright."

When I went to work the following Monday, the assistant director told the staff that Julio died in his sleep on that Saturday night. I had no idea or ever heard about the state of his health (only knowing he had a disease), and I never knew when he was expected to pass. I felt stunned to have had that dream right around the time he died.

Words just can't explain further how I felt about that dream and experience. I don't tell many people that story because it sounds a bit far-fetched, and also because of the loss of words. I guess I wrote this to come to grips with it, like maybe there is something about it that I can see now that I wasn't able to back then. I don't know.

However, I can say there was comfort in sensing that an ill person was going to finally see peace. I can say there was wonder because of the possibilities that people can connect on so many levels.

I don't profess to be a medium or am able to speak with the deceased, not at all! It's just that an experience like this, even if just a dream, really made me feel that so much more is possible with this life than what we see with our eyes. It was a stunning, yet humbling experience.

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