The Dream

It's nightfall, and I was sitting in our living room with my legs crossed resting in our 1970s pineapple yellow ottoman. My mother had that ottoman custom-made when I was about 4 years old. It still looked brand new. Then my old grandmother, Lola Daday passed by. She didn't notice me sitting across the piano. I just observed her walking by. It seemed like she's feeling cold. She was wearing her pink cardigan with rose embroidery at the front over her old rose colored floral dress with elastic waist. I also noticed her beaded slip-on slippers. I always love her footwear but she has been telling me that they're for old people only. I kept telling myself that one day when I grow old I'd really buy a pair for me.

I don't know why I didn't stand up to help her, and just kept on looking at her. She was slowly guiding herself going towards the room near the entrance door in the living room by holding the wooden stair rail, the piano and the walls. She has cataract in both eyes. My father and his siblings wanted for her to have her eye surgery but she's hesitant to go about it. She's terrified to go under the knife.

Just as Lola Daday opened the bedroom door, my father came into the living room too. He came from the kitchen to feed our dogs. He was wearing a white cotton sando (tank top), a pair of cut-off faded jeans, and a pair of rubber slippers. I have the same slippers, and the same color too--red plastic X-strap with off white rubber sole. It's so warm this summer. He was dripping with sweat.  He just arrived last week from his 9 months of work in a far away place where everything in sight is snow and ice. He's a seaman. I guess his body has a hard time adjusting to the summer heat of the Philippines. The no. 4 setting of our old 1978 green electric fan is still warm for him. I can see the heat rash on his legs and arms. I am sure there's more on his back.

Surprisingly, he didn't go out today with his friend who lives next door, Nong Ding. They are best mahjong buddies, and their birthdays also fall on the same day, except he's way younger than my father.

As I was observing them passing by me, I had this feeling of missing them. It seemed like it has been years since the last time I've seen both of them. I really wonder why I felt that way when in fact they just passed by me. They're both in the house at this very moment.

Then, I felt a light pinch on my nose. I opened my eyes. The mister woke me up, and he's all ready for work.

It was just a dream that I was in my childhood home, and my fraternal grandmother and father were still alive. My father left the physical world in 2005. My Lola (grandmother) left a couple of years earlier.

I really felt nostalgic today. I remember I was praying last night, and I also talked to them about a wish I prayed for. I even talked to my father-in-law who celebrated his birthday the other day; my grandfathers; my other grandmother and even to Alan. That wish isn't for me, but for someone else.

Was that dream meant that they heard me?