I was in a car, a roadster, with my mother in-law Sue. She was telling me about this poem that Caitlin's friend Evelyn wrote about me. Caitlin is my sister in-law/Sue's daughter. I do not know Evelyn well. I did not know she wrote poetry. But Sue said they had all been amazed by how well Evelyn was able to capture me in words. They couldn't wait to hear what I thought.I couldn't wait to read it. We had parked in a gravel driveway. The rest of the family, including Caitlin's friend, was inside. I asked if I could read the poem before we entered. I would have asked the same had it not been a dream. She handed me the sheet.
"Ned is..." it began. As I read, I was awestruck, astounded, amazed. Never had I been so well defined. It was like my lifelong search for identity was finally over. My deepest essence, scripted in beautiful bubble letters, had been masterfully refined to fit on a half sheet of paper. It was a miracle.
It was also at this point that my sleep slipped to doze. I reread Evelyn's poem. My poem. I re-reread it. I remember reading it multiple times. This was a dream, I told myself. But of course it was more than a dream. God was speaking to me. He was using this dream to answer my questions. The questions we all have. The two deepest ones: who am I? why am I here?
And I was really coming into wakefulness now. And as it came the words were fading. Like the delete button pressing down. But I managed to find a pen before the first phrase was erased. I found an index card. I wrote down the words. Grateful, I fell back to sleep.
The next morning, I awoke to read this:
Ned is finger lickin' gum shoes.
