Never in My Dreams

It is almost fifty years since I had the first dream, and yet all three of them remain vivid in my mind.

The lady sits perched on a stool, a book in her lap and a child sitting at her feet. As in most of my dreams, I am both the observer and the observed. The lady’s red and yellow prairie skirt adds the only color to an otherwise nondescript room. The child’s blonde hair curls long around her shoulders, her blue eyes shine with love and wonder. Story over, the girl jumps up and gives me an exuberant hug. I can feel the strength of our mutual love.

The second dream comes a few months later. The lady and her daughter are joined by a group of young children; we are now seated on the ground beneath the cooling shade of a large oak tree. Behind us stands the one room schoolhouse which we vacated to enjoy the sunshine and scented spring breeze. Again, I read to the children, this time Robert Louis Stevenson, “In winter I get up at night . . .” which they echo line by line. The children laugh at our attempts to be serious when all we want to do is move. The poem changes into song and we are suddenly dancing around the schoolyard, singing “Oh, Little Liza, Little Liza Jane” as dogs bark excitedly at our feet.

The third and last dream is dreamt six months after the first. We are all now inside the schoolhouse. But the scene and atmosphere are horribly different. Outside a snowstorm rages, while inside fire has just burst from the woodstove and is bent on destruction. With a loud scream, I push the students one by one out the front door into the lifesaving cold and snow. Finally, all are out except one child who huddles, whimpering, under a desk. I frantically rush to reach him, and as I touch his hand and feel the flames lick at the lady’s skirt, I awaken.

The lady, the children, and the schoolhouse never again appear in my dreams.