Playing Tarot Card Poker with Smoking Clem

A dream about my now dead brother, Clem.
This dream took place in a BIG hotel, that I have dreamt of before. We were on the top floor. Not there as guests, we were playing a sort of poker. But the cards were more like Tarot cards, or more appropriately, fairy tale cards. I remember, at one point having the "Twelve Dancing Princesses" card. Clem played the first game with us. He was smoking a cigarette. He didn't smoke, except during college when he drank (i picked up this habit as well). Or when on a road trip trying to stay awake. There were quite a few tables playing similar games. Clem got up to do something. He left me in charge of his hand. Each hand consisted of 10 or 12 cards. And this was a wild deck. I was trying to figure out if 12's were the same or higher than Queens, and how exactly to match up cards. In the meantime I lost track of Clem's hand. Then I lost track of my hand. The dealer tried to fix it, but gave me the wrong hand. She tried again, and still I had the wrong hand, but decided to play it anyway. At some point I went looking for my brother. I went through one room and then into another and fell into a pool without realizing that it was there. I replay this scene in my head over and over. This is how I felt when my younger brother gave me the news. Submerged, disoriented, fully clothed in a pool, out of context. I would like to say that in the past 2 months since his death, it has gotten better. It hasn't.
The other things that really astounded me about the whole dream was how disorienting the hotel was, and how big. This hotel has appeared in dreams with me before. At one point i wanted to go downstairs to get a soda, which were free to guests, so there was some deception in that. The journey to find the soda was confusing and I don't think I ever found it. Lots of rooms, dark wood, and funky stair cases. My best friend from high school was there as well.
I wonder about his last moments. How quickly his soul was split from his body. A second of recognition that he was in trouble. An emergency call, his final words, which indicated he knew something was horribly wrong, and then a very forceful crash, his body identified through finger prints; by his wife through a picture of his thumbs, after their final task of gripping the controls. How he once asked me, "Why drive in, when you can fly in?" How he loved flying. One of my first memories is sitting on the floor of an airplane my Dad was flying. He was almost 28 months older than me. He must have shared some of those memories.
He died young, looking years younger than his age of 45. He left 4 wonderful children, who I hope will cherish his memory and remember what he taught them. He left his wife a widow, and me feeling a depth of loss that i never thought I would feel this early. He did not leave a pretty corpse. This would have upset him, but not as much as being torn from a family that he truly saw as the most important part of his life. How at peace he was the last time I saw him alive. How he had seemed to gel as a father and as a man.
They say he is with God now. I wish God had given me more time with Clem.

I had a dream

A couple of months before my older brother was killed in a plane crash, I had a strange dream about him. In the dream, he had recently returned from the African country where I was stationed during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He was speaking in the national language. The funny thing was, though, that he was speaking this African language with the inflection that one would use when speaking English. I confronted him, asking, "Did the Africans understand you?" and he was defensive saying, "Yes, of course they did." The language he was speaking is a tonal language that is only understood if you use the right cadence. Therefore, if one speaks the language using the inflections and intonations that one uses to speak English, none of the people in the country would understand a word.

Impressed as I was at his vocabulary in this language, I asked his oldest daughter, "How long was he there?" She replied, "One week." This further impressed me, but I was still confused about how anyone there understood him when his delivery of the language was so off. So there I was, knowing full well that he was being dishonest because there was no way that anyone understood him when he spoke without using the right tones to convey the meaning of what he was saying. But I couldn't disprove him because we were in the US and there were no native speakers of the language around to help me prove my point. We were at an impasse, and, in the dream, I decided that this was okay and congratulated him on his travels and his quick mastery of language.

I told him about this dream, but never really decided what it meant. Initially, I thought that I was feeling guilty because I had promised him that I would do something, and I hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Looking back on it now that he is dead, I wonder if it was just that I wanted to make some kind of connection with him because I had told him a few months before this dream that I wanted to start talking about my Peace Corps experience more. He responded very positively, encouraging me to tell my stories and saying that he was always proud that I had this experience. I sort of envisioned that he would help me somehow with translating my experience into something that I could understand better and that I could share with others. He died less than a month ago. Since then I dream about him almost every night, but none of those dreams stand out in my memory like this one does. I can't describe the pain I feel due to his absence.

Happy Birthday, Brick!

Brick,

I just wanted to let you know how much I love you, now that you are my big 4-year-old. My life changed substantially when you were born, and I would never go back to the way it was before you came into it. You are a joy everyday, and I have learned so much from you. I want you to know that I love you unconditionally and more than I ever thought I could love.

Big hugs and moochas smoochas,
Mama

Letter to Puddles

My sweetest Puddles,

I haven't written as much to you as I have to my first born, but I wanted you to know what a joy you bring to my life. At almost 11 months, you have hit every milestone on time, some a little early. You love all kinds of food and skipped eating baby food because you wanted to eat what we were eating. Even as a tiny baby, you would wail whenever you smelled food and were not nursing. You got your first tooth on August 9th of this year, just short of 6 months old. You now have 8 teeth. I hope this isn't boring for you, I just want you to know some of the things that have happened up to this point. You smile all the time and strangers often comment on how cute you are and what pretty eyes you have. You are a flirt and a delight, and your mama loves you so much!! You love all animals, and make a 't' sound when you see the cats. You enjoy a good game of Picasso face, and taught yourself how to clap and to blow raspberries on mama's face, so you could do that back to her. You are such a sweetie. You love to cuddle and nurse, and play pass the baby. You go to your daddy and then go back to your mama. I can't imagine life without you and am thankful everyday that you have come to be with us.

Your ever-loving mama