Dreams of family

[fbhjr]

I dreamed that I was contacted by a man who was a secret son of my father. At some point in the late 50’s/early 60’s my father had an affair with this man’s mother and he was the result.
I agreed to meet him and talk about it. He invited me to the house of his aunt who had raised him for the meeting. It was in a city in another state, but I drove off there for the meeting.
The house was very large and quite old. It had obviously been there since the city had been founded and took up the entire block. The city around it had grown up a lot so it looked out of place. Across the street from it was a school playground. On the other side were apartment buildings.
It was painted a light yellow with white trim. But, clearly it had not been maintained well the last few years as the paint was peeling.

The aunt greeted me and invited me in. The inside of the house was very nice, but also had seen better days. It looked like she was the only person who lived in the large house and she was at least 70 or more years old.
A short time later my unknown brother came in. He was only a few years older than me, a bit shorter, darker hair and thinner. While he didn’t look a whole lot like my father, he didn’t look unlike him either.
He was dressed in a suit and I got the impression he was some sort of medical person, but I don’t remember it being actually said.
We talked for a while and he showed me photos and paperwork proving he was my father’s son. One was a picture of my father with his mother. She was not anyone I recognized. But, it all looked genuine and I didn’t have any reason to doubt it.
I told him a bit about our father, what he did for a living, what he liked, etc.
“I never met him,” he told me. “He went off and married your mother and never came back to my mother.”
“Mary,” his aunt said in an unpleasant tone. “My sister was never fond of the woman your father chose to marry.”
“If it’s any consolation, neither am I,” I said.
“But, my sister would not have made a good wife,” she said. “She would have still run off, then I’d have had to take care of both of them.”
“It’s a long drive back and I should get going,” I told them. “But, we should keep in touch and get together more. You’ll probably want to meet your other two siblings, but that might be harder to arrange.”
“Next time, I should come out and meet you,” he said. “But, I didn’t want to impose for our first meeting.”
“No problem, do you have email so we can set it up?”
He took out a card and handed it to me. He aunt also took out a card for me.
“I’ve got email too!” she said. “I’d love to hear more from you as well.”
I was surprised she not only had email, but that both of them had cards with their family information on it. It made me wonder more about their family with the big house in the city and formal cards for members.
“Oh, one last thing, what blood type are you?” I asked him.
“A+,” he said.
“Damn, I was hoping there would be at least one family member who matched me,” I said. “I’m A-.”

My stuff was in the next room. As I grabbed it, there was some sort of news report on the TV that was on in that room that made me stop and watch it.
“You better get going,” his aunt called from the next room. “You want to get home before dark and it’s a long drive.”
I waved to her and left.
There hadn’t been any parking in front of the house, so I had parked behind a store on the next block. I put my stuff down in the car, then decided I should get a photo of the house where we met. I walked out to get it, but the trees made it hard to get it all in one shot. I saw the store had some windows that faced that way and were higher up, so I decided to go in and see if I could get a shot from there.
When I went in, I found it was a grocery store that was a combination of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. I decided to look around and find something nice to bring back to my wife.
In a back nook I found some very nice animal carvings and a nice wooden serving tray with lots of wells carved in it for sauces or dips.
I realized I had gotten so involved in shopping that I forgot to take the picture I wanted, so I went to the front of the store where the windows were. As I crossed into the other part of the building, I found they were having a line dancing contest that I had to pass through to get out.
Dream ends

Well, the line dancing part is easy to explain. Last night capt_amos told me he might go to a line dancing event in Pensacola tomorrow night. And, I’ve seen adds lately for a show where celebrities find lost relatives. So, that may have put this into my head.

I don’t know which city the dream was set in, but parts of it seemed very much like the area of Worcester where we used to live. Just down the street from us there was a school with a playground at an intersection just like in the dream. But, there was no large yellow house or store in the right spots.

I’m sure in the dream I knew what his name was and his aunts, but I didn’t keep that memory. At least right now, I can remember what he looked like. He almost looked like a cross between evrgreen and a younger version of my father. (And, evrgreen and my father both came from nothern Vermont. I guess their families could have met, even though one was on the east corner and one on the west…)

When I was young I used to have dreams where I had a brother I didn’t know about and when we met we’d be good friends. This dream reminds me a lot of those dreams. But, it is the first time I’ve had one in at least 35 years.

Just as an added bit of “what?” I opened my fortune cookie at lunch today and got “Your dream life is rich- listen to your dreams”.
So, is the cookie saying I do have lost siblings out there? I hate to put too much trust in a cookie, but it’s still weird.