What a weird night.

For the second night in a row, I dreamed of my brother David. 

We weren't close, and I have few memories of him. David was about eight years older than me, in pictures he's beautiful and very blonde. He was a talented, one might even say gifted, musician, whose hobby at seventeen years old was restoring pipe organs, and he did good work. I grew up with a pipe organ - bellows, pipes, console and all - filling every inch of space in the basement. He sang with a lovely tenor voice. He was also, as it happens, gay.

He committed suicide in the summer a 1977, a few months short of his nineteenth birthday. Our father could never accept David's orientation and threw him out of our house, subsequently (and correctly) blaming himself for David's death for the rest of his life. 

My father came into my bedroom one morning and woke me to say that David had had "an accident." I asked, fatal? Dad said yes. I nodded, and dad left to do whatever it is you do when your son is found in a running vehicle with the exhaust connected to the driver's side window with the plastic hose from a vacuum cleaner. (The basement pipe organ was dismantled and sold for scrap within a year.)

For my part, I got dressed, glad that I didn't have to stick around and deal with the mess, and left for my friend's house down the street. Besides noting the empty space at the table that Thanksgiving, I gave no further thought to the matter. Aspergers in practical application.

As I've grown older, I have wished David had lived. From what I understand, he was an interesting person and would have been good to know. I haven't missed him, per sé, because I did not know him.

The dream was not exactly the same both nights, but was similar in theme and location: a brownstone apartment building where I was either working or living (my dreams are rarely so specific as to make writing them down easy - my dreams are directed by David Lynch, I think.)

I arrived home (or came out of my office) to find David in a chair being ministered to by a nurse/doctor/barber. He was bandaged about his head and hands but otherwise okay. I spoke to him, telling him how glad I was to see him, how glad he was okay, and that he needed to live because I wanted to get to know him. I wanted my brother alive.

In last night's dream I worked my way past the nurse/doctor/barber and hugged him.

That was it. I awoke many miles from Spancil Hill, so to speak.

I don't know if there is a message I'm supposed to take away from this. I certainly don't think David is trying to communicate with me from beyond the grave, not three decades after the fact and at a time in my life when I'm not listening or even amenable to the idea. (If he is, he's doing a piss-poor job of it.)

Maybe I'll dream again. Maybe the third night there will be an answer. Probably, I worked it out by writing and it won't come again.

What a weird night.

What a weird night.

For the second night in a row, I dreamed of my brother David. 

We weren't close, and I have few memories of him. David was about eight years older than me, in pictures he's beautiful and very blonde. He was a talented, one might even say gifted, musician, whose hobby at seventeen years old was restoring pipe organs, and he did good work. I grew up with a pipe organ - bellows, pipes, console and all - filling every inch of space in the basement. He sang with a lovely tenor voice. He was also, as it happens, gay.

He committed suicide in the summer a 1977, a few months short of his nineteenth birthday. Our father could never accept David's orientation and threw him out of our house, subsequently (and correctly) blaming himself for David's death for the rest of his life. 

My father came into my bedroom one morning and woke me to say that David had had "an accident." I asked, fatal? Dad said yes. I nodded, and dad left to do whatever it is you do when your son is found in a running vehicle with the exhaust connected to the driver's side window with the plastic hose from a vacuum cleaner. (The basement pipe organ was dismantled and sold for scrap within a year.)

For my part, I got dressed, glad that I didn't have to stick around and deal with the mess, and left for my friend's house down the street. Besides noting the empty space at the table that Thanksgiving, I gave no further thought to the matter. Aspergers in practical application.

As I've grown older, I have wished David had lived. From what I understand, he was an interesting person and would have been good to know. I haven't missed him, per sé, because I did not know him.

The dream was not exactly the same both nights, but was similar in theme and location: a brownstone apartment building where I was either working or living (my dreams are rarely so specific as to make writing them down easy - my dreams are directed by David Lynch, I think.)

I arrived home (or came out of my office) to find David in a chair being ministered to by a nurse/doctor/barber. He was bandaged about his head and hands but otherwise okay. I spoke to him, telling him how glad I was to see him, how glad he was okay, and that he needed to live because I wanted to get to know him. I wanted my brother alive.

In last night's dream I worked my way past the nurse/doctor/barber and hugged him.

That was it. I awoke many miles from Spancil Hill, so to speak.

I don't know if there is a message I'm supposed to take away from this. I certainly don't think David is trying to communicate with me from beyond the grave, not three decades after the fact and at a time in my life when I'm not listening or even amenable to the idea. (If he is, he's doing a piss-poor job of it.)

Maybe I'll dream again. Maybe the third night there will be an answer. Probably, I worked it out by writing and it won't come again.

What a weird night.