Bad Guys & Good Girls

If you had not've fallen
Then I would not've found you
Angel flying too close to the ground
And I patched up your broken wing and hung around awhile
Trying to keep your spirits up and your fever down
I knew someday that you would fly away
For love's the greatest healer to be found
So leave me if you need to
I will still remember
Angel flying too close to the ground


Fly on fly on past the speed of sound
I'd rather see you up than see you down
So leave me if you need to
I will still remember
Angel flying too close to the ground

"Angel Flying too Close to the Ground" - Willie Nelson

I dream. Vividly. In Technicolor. My dreams are like huge, mega-monster, blockbuster movies that run waaaay too long. Sort of like "Gone With the Wind" only the acting isn't quite as good. The graphics, however, are amazing. My husband dreams, too. I call his dreams "Bruce Willis" dreams. He's always saving the world by drilling holes in meteors or dealing with impending doom by just being a bad a*@. We love to wake up and compare dreams. I had a doozy the other night....

I was shot by a bad guy. Actually, in my dream, Kevin and I were walking down the street at night with no one else around. Bad sign, already! Folks, for future reference, don't walk down unpopulated city streets in the middle of the night. Just don't. So, anyway, we round this corner and see "bad guy" shoot some other guy in the forehead, execution style. Of course, I scream, he sees me, and I immediately take two bullets in the upper torso - one in the right side of my chest (poor, poor John Wayne....she needed much more than an eye patch after that one!)and a through 'n through in my right shoulder (what can I say, too much Dr. G!). The pain was impossible to describe, so I won't even try - who are we kidding, of course I'll try. That has to be what it feels like to be shot. Nausea, shooting fire, intense sweat, inability to talk or breathe or even cry.....it was unreal.

Fast forward: We're at the hospital. Kevin has me propped up in a chair in the waiting room while he's haggling with the ER desk. Apparently, there was a rash of shootings and I didn't make the cut with triage. So....I'm bleeding out all over the lobby's mauve colored chairs, when my maternal grandfather shows up. He's been dead for 22 years (I was pregnant with Dillan when he passed, so it's easy to track the time.) He was wearing the only clothes that he ever wears in my thoughts: a blue and white plaid short-sleeved pearl snap with two pockets, gray pants, black steel-toe shoes - untied, of course, and his black horn-rimmed glasses. My grandfather was an imposing man. Well over six feet. Broad shouldered. Loud. Quick to anger. And....the biggest teddy bear you've ever seen. In my dream, he picks me up, sort of. Or hugs me up. He smells like Brut and Prince Albert in a can. I tell him I've missed him so much. He tells me not to worry. He has everything under control and I should just stay quiet and calm. And, he's gone.

Fast forward: Yea! I made it to OR! If you've ever had any sort of surgery, you'll understand this part. There is sometimes a point where a well-meaning doctor or nurse will say, "OK - now we're going to need to move you from this nice, comfy soft bed onto this rock-hard little teeny bed that's only about 10 inches wide....and you're going to have to help us, ok? This might hurt just a little." Not good. My policy is....heck to the no! Do you have any idea how much this is going to wind up costing me? I refuse to lift one muscle! There are plenty of you here in this room - put your back in it and let's see some lifting! Back to the dream, though, cause we're getting to the good part. They tell me it's going to hurt, but then she's there. Chynna's there. No one else can see her, but our noses are touching and she puts her hands on each of my shoulders. They are telling me it's going to hurt while she's making one of her goofy faces and she whispers, "No, it won't hurt. Don't worry." And, she's right. Then she lays down next to me on the tiny 10 inch table and tells me that she's going to stay with me until it's over. I ask her, "Where have you been? I haven't felt you around lately." I hear her giggle. She says, "Scoot over, you're hogging all the covers." She smells so good.

Such are the dreams of a heart-broken mother.