A Bad Dream

At around 4 o'clock in the morning, I heard my four-year old son whisper, "mommy?" I was sleeping but when he called me, I woke up immediately. He was crying. I was alarmed.

"What's wrong, baby? What's the matter," I said.

"Don't be impatient, Mommy. Don't be impatient with me, OK?" he said in between sniffles.

It was still dark outside. And it was pitch dark in the bedroom. His father was snoring heavily beside him. He sleeps in between me and his daddy.

Coming out of deep sleep, my head was fuzzy. Why will I be impatient with him? In the middle of the night while sleeping? But I reassured him.

"No, baby. I won't be impatient. I'll never be impatient with you. I love you," I said. I was trying to look at his face in the dark but I couldn't see his expression. But I could still hear him sniffing.

"I had a bad dream, mommy. It was about you and the one below," he said.

"What do you mean? Who's the one below?" I asked.

"The one below God. You were impatient. And I was scared," he said, then started crying again.

I hugged him. "Shhh, baby. It was just a dream. It's not true. I won't be impatient."

But I have been impatient with him a lot of times, usually when I'm tired coming home from work. And one time, feeling guilty, I sat him down and told him to forgive me when I'm in my impatient mood. I told him to call my attention when I'm becoming short tempered, or when I'm not listening to him when he tries to tell me his stories.

Since then, he's been pointing out my impatience whenever I start to lose my temper. When this happens, I immediately check myself and calm down.

But last night, I felt a little guilty that his bad dream was about my impatient attitude. From what I could understand from his narration, I sort of transformed into a devil-monster. I think his bad dream was themed after the movie Transformers 2, and the movie Hellboy 2. Scary movies alright.

"Can you open the light, mommy?" he said.

I turned on the bed side lamp.

"Can I see your hands?" he said. He took my hands, inspected them and my arms. He was checking something.

"Oh," he said, "it's not there. I thought your hands had oil all over and turned red."

I told him, "It's just a dream. It's not true. See?" I spread out my arms, and hugged him again. I told him not to cry anymore and not to be scared.

"I will not be impatient. Sleep now. I promise to take care of you" I whispered in his ears as he closed his eyes still wet with tears.

Life's Recipes (for STC's anthology)

Power Bar 

(Or what food to take when you decide to take on life’s extreme adventures)

By: Chef Chi Almario-Gonzalez

 

Ingredients:

One best friend from high school

Tequila shots

Coffee talks

One perfect moment

 

They say you’ll never commit suicide, or go mentally crazy, if you have one true best friend in life.

I met my best friend in high school. Though we have different interests, even personalities, we clicked immediately.

Very few friendships survive high school through college. Ours did. It was quite an effort on each our part to make sure we meet every week during our college days.

I think we exerted so much effort to commit to those afternoon coffee talks in McDonalds Quezon Avenue because it helped keep us sane and balanced in the separate worlds we lived in then.

College was tough. Coming from an exclusive, strict high school, we both were culture-shocked and even overwhelmed by the freedom of college. She entered the University of Santo Tomas, and I entered Maryknoll College.

There were too many temptations. Too much happening all at the same time. Some of my friends, and some of hers didn’t survive college. Some got kicked out, some dropped out.

But with our weekly coffee talks, we were able to pull each other back from bad decisions. And we survived college, happy to look forward to being young adults in the real world.

But the real world offered real challenges, real pain, real fear, real sadness.

From coffee talks in McDonalds, we transferred to East Saint Louie Bar in Quezon City. We could then afford weekly tequila shots, or some other booze after work. With 70s and 80s classic music as background, we traded funny, sad, frustrating stories in our lives. Often we wondered how our lives would play out when we grow old.

We had this perfect moment we pictured in our minds. At the ripe old age of 40, we see ourselves still best friends, sitting in rocking chairs on a porch of a big beach house. Beside us are our husbands, and in front of us are our kids playing happily on the beach. The perfect moment.

We’re both 40 now. But that perfect moment hasn’t happened yet. The picture keeps changing.

I got married first. Then she got married and had a family. My marriage didn’t work out. Hers too. Then we got too involved in our own family problems.

There a lot of times when I thought I would lose my mind, if not my soul, due to heartache. And every time this happens, I call my best friend who boosts me up like the power bars I carry when I go on extreme adventure trips.

And even when I’ve taken a wrong turn, she stands by and waits for me to go back to being sane. And being good.

I will never be alone, whatever happens. Isn’t that a powerful thought? A rare gift. That is what my best friend has given me. That is why I know I will always overcome.

I know that that perfect moment will still happen, even if it takes us another 40 years. We will still be best friends by then.