I Still Dream About You

As she gasped for what she knew was her last breath and felt the heavy ice-cold water rushing down her throat and into her lungs, just as she was on the very verge of losing consciousness forever, she suddenly shot straight up in bed with her heart pounding in her chest, covered in sweat, still screaming at the top of her lungs, “Wait! Stop!” She sat in the pitch dark struggling for breath, still in a blind panic, not knowing if she was dead or alive. Had the river been a dream or was this a dream? She could still hear the sound of the water rushing past her ears. Was she dead? She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the remote and, with shaking hands, clicked on the television set, and when the gray light came into focus, there sat Rick and Janice on the set of the Good Morning Alabama show, and Maggie had never been so happy to see any two people in her life.

Still, her heart continued to race out of control. It was pounding so hard that she wondered if she was having a heart attack and if she should get up and take an aspirin. Ironic that someone who was planning to drown herself was now terrified about having a heart attack and dying, but she was. She jumped up out of bed and ran into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, but it was empty. She had thrown everything away last night. So she just stood at the sink and did some deep breathing until, finally, her heart slowed down a little. She was still slightly disoriented, but now that she thought more about it, she realized that of course it had all been just a terrible nightmare, a bad dream. She should have realized it sooner. What had she been thinking? Omar Sharif was from Egypt, not Siberia!

She made her way into the kitchen and fixed a cup of herbal tea. Still sweaty and shaky, she then went outside and sat on her patio in the fresh air, just as the sun was starting to come up over the mountain. She sat there, still in a state of shock. She had had nightmares before, but never one that vivid or real and certainly never that terrifying. Up until a few minutes ago, she’d had no idea she wanted to live, but clearly, she did. She had fought with all of her might. Even though it had just been a dream, she still felt exhausted from the struggle. What a total surprise! She had assumed she was perfectly ready to go, but she had been wrong. Just yesterday, she couldn’t think of a thing to live for, but right now, a hundred reasons flooded her mind. For one, it felt so good just to be able to breathe; why hadn’t she noticed that before?

Maggie looked up at the sky and watched as it turned from early morning pink to a pretty robin’s-egg blue. The colors were so amazing; she hadn’t sat out on her patio in months, and almost never at dawn. How beautiful it was!

As she sat there looking up at the sky, she realized something else. This happened every morning. No matter what was going on in her silly little life, the sun always came up. Why hadn’t she remembered that? Then something Hazel used to say popped into her mind: “Remember, girls, it’s always the darkest right before the glorious dawn.” Hazel had been referring to real estate at the time, but it could apply to her this morning. Hadn’t she just gone through her darkest hour? And hadn’t there just been the most glorious dawn? Certainly the most glorious one she had ever seen. And now, in the early morning sunshine, everything looked so fresh and beautiful, like something out of a movie. The world had suddenly turned from dark gray to bright Technicolor. She fully expected Gene Kelly to come dancing around the corner and swing on the lamppost at any moment. She felt absolutely joyful. But then she thought, Wait a minute. Why was she feeling so happy all of a sudden? Could she have just had a break with reality? Had she finally just snapped and flipped out and gone completely crazy? Or had she been crazy before? Surely, planning to jump in the river was a pretty good indication that something had been off. Could the dream have scared her so badly that it had shot an overload of adrenaline into her system and flipped her back into her right mind? Or maybe this euphoria she was feeling was just some sort of temporary chemical imbalance from all the lemon pie and hot dogs she had eaten yesterday. Of course, her heart had been pounding pretty hard, so there was the possibility that she could have just suffered a minor stroke, but whatever it was, she was feeling absolutely-what was the perfect word? Hopeful, that was it.

And thank God she had had that dream last night; tomorrow night would have been too late. But what had caused the dream? Could it have been a simple case of indigestion that had saved her life? Or had it been something more? Could it have been someone from another dimension? Her parents or Hazel or a guardian angel of some kind trying to reach her, to stop her, before it was too late? She didn’t know who to thank, the hot dogs or an angel, but she was grateful to whatever it was, because she was so glad to be here to enjoy this perfect beautiful morning. She looked up again at the blue sky, just in time to see three little puffy white clouds float over Red Mountain. She smiled and waved at them as they passed by. “Hello, you pretty little things. I’ve missed you.”

Everything was so quiet this morning that she could hear the bells of the big Highlands Methodist Church start to ring way off in the distance. Church bells, what a happy sound. But wait a minute. Why was everything so quiet? The dull roar of Highway 280 traffic usually started around six A.M., but this morning, she couldn’t hear a thing, except for a few birds chirping. Had there been some big accident, had something happened? Then she remembered what day it was. No wonder it was so quiet. She had completely forgotten. It was Sunday; not only Sunday, but Easter Sunday. Imagine. She must have been out of her mind. How could anybody forget that?

Now Maggie began to wonder if having that dream on Easter had been some kind of miracle-or was it just a coincidence? She would like to believe it was a miracle, but of course, she had no idea if it was or not. But then, a few seconds later, she glanced over to her left and saw something she had not noticed before. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Standing right in the middle of her rock garden was one large white Easter lily! After all these years, it had somehow managed to survive and push its way up through the rocks. And it was now just blooming away, happy as a lark and enjoying the sunshine.

Oh, my God, she thought, it must be Hazel. Hazel had sent her those Easter lily bulbs, and she had planted them years ago, and not one had ever bloomed. It couldn’t be just an accident that this one had waited all these years to bloom, could it? Of course, they’d had a lot of rain this year, so was it just a coincidence? A fluke of nature? She wanted to believe with all her heart that it was Hazel, but she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. Now she didn’t know what to think. Then, as if on cue from some stage manager in the sky, a large white dove flapped its wings and flew directly across the patio and landed on the edge of her bird feeder and looked her right in the eye, blinking at her twice. Oh, my God. Not one sign from Hazel, but two! After she got over the initial shock of seeing the bird and looked at it more carefully, Maggie saw that it was a light gray pigeon and not a white Easter dove, as she had first thought. But she didn’t care. As far as she was concerned… it was close enough.

Maggie wanted to jump up and run inside and call everyone she knew and tell them she was back. But since nobody knew she had been away, they might think she was insane. And they could be right. A moment ago, she had been talking to clouds, but if this was insanity, she would take it. And most of all, she thought, God bless Hazel Whisenknott. Hazel obviously didn’t want her to jump into the river; she just knew it!

HAPPY EASTER. HOORAY AND HALLELUJAH!

LATER THAT MORNING, after Brenda got up and listened to the message Maggie had left on their machine at 6:47 A.M., she remarked to Robbie, “If I didn’t know her better, I’d think Maggie might be drunk or stoned or something.”

“Why?”

“She sounded funny.”

“What do you mean, funny?”

“Sort of silly… or something.”

“Oh, she’s probably just happy; it’s Easter.”

Just the same, Brenda called her back, but Maggie did not answer.

As Maggie drove across town in the clear, bright sunshine, she looked around and was amazed to see that spring had already arrived in Birmingham and she hadn’t even noticed. The dogwood trees and the azaleas were all in bloom, and every yard was full of yellow and white jonquils. She had her windows down, and the smell of the clean, fresh air was wonderful. Just being able to breathe was wonderful. Everything was wonderful! She turned on the radio and heard the swelling of the organ music being broadcast from the big Baptist church on the south side and sang along with the choir as she drove. She thought this was exactly what Scrooge must have