The first thing I remember is driving down an old country road with a car full of kids. But we had to take a detour because at one point in a small town, there was a congregation of Amish people having services in the middle of the road. A woman was speaking to the crowd of both men and women (would THAT ever happen?) about the correct roles of each gender in a marriage.
After our detour, we ended up at an Amish home. I'm not sure why that was our destination, except that I think it was for a religion lesson. We weren't Amish, but wanted to learn more about their religion. I don't think we were there very long. But I remember Brenda and Linda (friends from my church) being there, both with whom I've taught 7th grade religion. And we took attendance. We were missing one student, Wayling, a girl. I don't know anyone named Wayling, but I have two Waylon's in my class this year, both boys. Anyway, I remember thinking that if you pronounce her name with the accent on the second syllable, it sounds Oriental, Way-LING.
Before we left, we discussed starting up a Relay for Life team for the kids. I remember asking Linda if we should start that in March or April. After going back and forth a couple of times, we decided on late March.
Before I forget, the walls in the house were purple, much like my bedroom.
As we were leaving, one of the girls started crying and ran ahead to the car. I told the other kids to sit together on the grass and I ran after the crying girl; I can't remember her name. When I asked her what was wrong, between sobs she said, "While walking down the driveway, I was seduced." (This is not the word to describe what happened to her, but in my dream that was the word she used.) I told her she'd be okay and I'd deal with it.
I spoke to the group and learned that it was Dustin who was the culprit. He said he grabbed her read-end. I told him he was grounded for a month and that he needed to apologize to her.
The next thing I remember, we were having baseball practice in the school yard and my mom was hitting balls out to the kids. They weren't too bad considering their young age. I just remember thinking that we looked pretty disorganized and I was trying to decide how to rectify that. (Uhhh, I couldn't tell you the last time my mom his a baseball.)
The next thing I remember was that we were at my parents' house. Most of the kids had already been picked up, except Dustin and Kyle. (I don't know Kyle, but I used to babysit for Dustin.) At one point, I thought they were going to spend the night there because there was an extra mattress on the floor in the spare bedroom. But Mom mentioned that maybe we should call their parents. I had a difficult time finding their numbers in the phone book, but one at a time, the fathers showed up without me making even one phone call.
First Dustin's dad came. He was also a good friend of my dad's. Mom told me that I really needed to tell him about the incident with the crying girl. She assured me that he was a great father and always dealt with Dustin really well about such things.
Next, little Kyle's dad showed up. At one point, Kyle comes running out of the house to tell me that his dad was tearing up the kitchen and that he was sent out by MY dad to come and get me. Once I ran inside, the kitchen actually looked fine, but my dad seemed to be tending to Kyle's dad. My dad yelled for us to get out of the room.
So, we went back to my parents' bedroom where we found my mom. I asked her what was going on. She said that Kyle's dad had really bad coughing spells just like my dad. So, my dad was seeing what he could do to comfort him. I got the impression that things weren't going well. I don't remember anything after that.
Later the same morning, I had a dream about being in my yard with a few of my neighbors. Ironically, Linda and her husband were there. We were talking about the remodeling I'd done and what I still planned to do. I remember showing them around, even in the garage. Though it didn't seem strange at the time, there was a square patch of grass in the middle of the garage, about 4' by 4'. I couldn't explain it; I just remember noticing how green the grass was and how perfectly groomed it was.
The next thing I remember was playing football in the yard. A bunch of guys were playing, but someone got hurt. My brother's team was going to lose because they didn't have a quarterback. So he asked me if I'd fill in. I told him that I hadn't played in a long time because of my shoulder. So, I could play, but I didn't think I'd do them any good. After throwing around to warm up, my confidence level increased.
Also in that dream, there were several young boys who were doing some kind of performance. I just remember they were all wearing the same outfit, had to be quieted and corralled, lined up on the stage for something, and then all came off the stage and down the hall to wait for their next task. The only reason I remember it being the same dream is because the little boys were upset that they couldn't play football with us.
