The Man in the Brown Hat
I have always had vivid, twisty dreams. Often, I have prophetic dreams. I only share them with a select few because when you grow up in a very Catholic family, things like this....dreams, tarot readings, second sight...are sometimes viewed as....
Wait for it.
SATAN.
I have never bought into that. I do buy into Satan. It only serves reason to believe that if there is a force for good, there must be a counter force. The universe, in general, prefers a good equilibrium. But, I believe that this world we live in is full of incredible, albeit, strange things. I think there are those who walk among us who have special talents and no, they are not Satan's puppets. My wife's grandfather could start fires with his eyes. My wife's favorite aunt was a great seer. No, she didn't go around wearing gypsy dresses. She did not kohl rim her eyes. You would be sitting across from her in a chair at her apartment and it would go like this.
ME: I'm thinking of taking a job at BCBS. I think I might be ready for a change.
AUNT IRENE: No. There is a baby coming. A girl. Don't make any big changes.
ME: Um, I really don't think....
AUNT IRENE: Trust me. Also, you need to be careful going down those basement steps. Snakes are scary, but harmless. Now, who wants to try this figgy pudding that I tried to make?
Enough to say that a baby came 11 months later. A girl. And a few weeks after our conversation, as I was walking down the basement steps to put a load of laundry in, I looked down, saw a garden snake on the step and fell down the last three steps, bruising up my knee badly. Plus, that baby snake actually hissed at me,
Aunt Irene knew nothing of my life, my past. Yet, she told me once that "My, my, your Dad sure loves you. You were like two peas in a pod before he died, weren't you?"
My Dad died when I was 10. We were extremely close. When I timidly asked her more about him, she told me that he was part of my tribe. That we have many lives and he and I tended to reincarnate together because we were true kin.
She told me that my biggest assignment in this particular life was to work with children, raise them up to be leaders. Because, while I would not see the troubles, they were coming and that my children would be needed. That all good, free thinkers would be needed.
Aunt Irene was a Catholic. But, when I questioned her about Catholic doctrine, she produced a stack of Jesuit books and a series of writings by Franciscans. Francis of Assisi. Anthony of Padua. Thomas Aquinas. Bonadventure. She was a believer but said that God put certain people on this earth to help and aid and those who screamed, "DEVILS! WITCHES! SATAN!" were the ones who got in the way of the true believers. Actually, she was less kind than that. She called them the "you tell 'em, buddies." The ones who sit around sniveling and being scared about breaking rules instead of using their brains.
She wanted to die so badly, to be with all of her friends and family, yet lived to be nearly 100. She watched two of her own children proceed her in death. As she often said, "For some reason, God needs me here a lot longer than I want to be!"
I still miss her.
But, it was Irene who taught me to trust in my dreams.
So, I do.
I often dream of things before they happen. I won't go into details here. But, I can honestly say that I have about a 70% accuracy rate. I don't often have prophetic dreams, but often enough.
And sometimes, I just have nonsensical dreams. The typical ones. I am late for a test. I am only wearing the top half of my pajamas and have no underwear on. I am at a party and can't find the bathroom. (And then, wake up having to pee badly...) I am lost and cannot find whoever I am with. I can see them in the distance, but keep losing them. When I try to call them on my cell phone, it suddenly won't work or it has no numbers. The kinds of dreams we all have.
Other times, when I am under great stress, I dream of the man in the brown hat. He is always dressed the same. Like a character in a gangster movie. Long, dark brown raincoat. Brown hat. He is not particularly handsome, but not ugly. He sports a brown beard, longish hair. A caucasian man who comes up to me and will not shut up. He never says anything remotely kind or nice.
When I first found out that I had breast cancer in 2015, he used to taunt me.
"Dumb ass little fucker didn't wanna be anything like her mama, but lookee there, you are going to die EXACTLY as she did. Just a chip off the ole block."
He was speaking my fear. For most of my life, while I loved my mother, I did not wish to be like her. When people said that I resembled her, I frowned. I knew in my heart that she was a strong woman but I also knew that her stubborn refusal to love her child unconditionally left me out in the cold. She was a Catholic. The Catholic church denounced homosexuality, so when I came out to her, she cut me out of her will, her life and her heart. I vowed that I would never do such a thing to a child, if I were to have one. When I found out that I had breast cancer, I was dumbfounded. She had died of it and I was so sure that I would NEVER get it. Yes, I was, indeed, a dumb ass little fucker. It took me a very long time to accept that, in many ways, I was so much like my mother. Not just in my genes, but in my stubborn nature, my tendency to think that I was always right and mostly....my inability to admit when I was wrong. I was like her in other ways, too. Underneath my seemingly kind nature, I had a spine made of steel. I was...yes....a steel magnolia. I was made to fight cancer. And I did. Twice. Winning twice, but not without some deep wounds. Today, I am more than grateful for her gift of strength. It bought me time with those I love the most.
I also inherited her really bad teeth, but that is a story for another day.
When I was getting chemotherapy and trying to stay employed, the man in the brown hat often appeared in my dreams to tell me that
"All that work piled up on your desk. And here you are...home...puking your guts out. What a failure. Do you REALLY think you can work for much longer? No. You are useless. Just useless."
Again, he proved to be right. I had to take early retirement. My body was as weak as a kitten after chemo and radiation. It would be over a year before I could stop taking afternoon naps. I would always walk with a cane after that treatment.
And then, just when I was thinking of getting back into the swing of things, just when I started volunteering for the Democrats in a city election, I found out that I had leukemia. I had a very rare kind of leukemia that had a good success rate....if I could live through the treatment: arsenic
You read correctly. Arsenic. Every. Single. Day. For nearly 8 months.
This time, the man in the brown hat was tickled pink.
"Feel like dying yet, little dumb ass fucker?" he would ask me, tipping his hat and pretending to vomit into it. "You are weak. Just a weak, stupid woman."
It took almost everything I had, but that spine I inherited from my mother got me through. I was diagnosed with leukemia in April of 2017 and I went into remission on December 8, 2017.
I figured that maybe I had managed to banish the man in the brown hat. Forever.
You know the rest of the story. My breast cancer metastasized. It is now back, living in a lesion wrapped around an unnecessary artery to my heart.
The man in the brown hat is back. This time, I suspect he is a prophetic dream and not a fear induced one. He was in a crowd of people in my dream last night, waving lazily at me. Laughing in a not-so-nice way. He isn't speaking yet, but I have a feeling he will soon.
I will try to ignore him. I have never had the strength or the guts to take him on. But maybe this time I will.
I have nothing to lose this time around. No strength to save. I can tell him to fuck off. I think I might just be able to do this. I'm also smart enough to know that in order to do this, I must accept the fact that the only happy ending in store for me is that I won't have to see him after this round. I will be in a place where he can no longer reach me. My human mind will no longer exist, thus he will not exist.
Small comfort, though.
Wait for it.
SATAN.
I have never bought into that. I do buy into Satan. It only serves reason to believe that if there is a force for good, there must be a counter force. The universe, in general, prefers a good equilibrium. But, I believe that this world we live in is full of incredible, albeit, strange things. I think there are those who walk among us who have special talents and no, they are not Satan's puppets. My wife's grandfather could start fires with his eyes. My wife's favorite aunt was a great seer. No, she didn't go around wearing gypsy dresses. She did not kohl rim her eyes. You would be sitting across from her in a chair at her apartment and it would go like this.
ME: I'm thinking of taking a job at BCBS. I think I might be ready for a change.
AUNT IRENE: No. There is a baby coming. A girl. Don't make any big changes.
ME: Um, I really don't think....
AUNT IRENE: Trust me. Also, you need to be careful going down those basement steps. Snakes are scary, but harmless. Now, who wants to try this figgy pudding that I tried to make?
Enough to say that a baby came 11 months later. A girl. And a few weeks after our conversation, as I was walking down the basement steps to put a load of laundry in, I looked down, saw a garden snake on the step and fell down the last three steps, bruising up my knee badly. Plus, that baby snake actually hissed at me,
Aunt Irene knew nothing of my life, my past. Yet, she told me once that "My, my, your Dad sure loves you. You were like two peas in a pod before he died, weren't you?"
My Dad died when I was 10. We were extremely close. When I timidly asked her more about him, she told me that he was part of my tribe. That we have many lives and he and I tended to reincarnate together because we were true kin.
She told me that my biggest assignment in this particular life was to work with children, raise them up to be leaders. Because, while I would not see the troubles, they were coming and that my children would be needed. That all good, free thinkers would be needed.
Aunt Irene was a Catholic. But, when I questioned her about Catholic doctrine, she produced a stack of Jesuit books and a series of writings by Franciscans. Francis of Assisi. Anthony of Padua. Thomas Aquinas. Bonadventure. She was a believer but said that God put certain people on this earth to help and aid and those who screamed, "DEVILS! WITCHES! SATAN!" were the ones who got in the way of the true believers. Actually, she was less kind than that. She called them the "you tell 'em, buddies." The ones who sit around sniveling and being scared about breaking rules instead of using their brains.
She wanted to die so badly, to be with all of her friends and family, yet lived to be nearly 100. She watched two of her own children proceed her in death. As she often said, "For some reason, God needs me here a lot longer than I want to be!"
I still miss her.
But, it was Irene who taught me to trust in my dreams.
So, I do.
I often dream of things before they happen. I won't go into details here. But, I can honestly say that I have about a 70% accuracy rate. I don't often have prophetic dreams, but often enough.
And sometimes, I just have nonsensical dreams. The typical ones. I am late for a test. I am only wearing the top half of my pajamas and have no underwear on. I am at a party and can't find the bathroom. (And then, wake up having to pee badly...) I am lost and cannot find whoever I am with. I can see them in the distance, but keep losing them. When I try to call them on my cell phone, it suddenly won't work or it has no numbers. The kinds of dreams we all have.
Other times, when I am under great stress, I dream of the man in the brown hat. He is always dressed the same. Like a character in a gangster movie. Long, dark brown raincoat. Brown hat. He is not particularly handsome, but not ugly. He sports a brown beard, longish hair. A caucasian man who comes up to me and will not shut up. He never says anything remotely kind or nice.
When I first found out that I had breast cancer in 2015, he used to taunt me.
"Dumb ass little fucker didn't wanna be anything like her mama, but lookee there, you are going to die EXACTLY as she did. Just a chip off the ole block."
He was speaking my fear. For most of my life, while I loved my mother, I did not wish to be like her. When people said that I resembled her, I frowned. I knew in my heart that she was a strong woman but I also knew that her stubborn refusal to love her child unconditionally left me out in the cold. She was a Catholic. The Catholic church denounced homosexuality, so when I came out to her, she cut me out of her will, her life and her heart. I vowed that I would never do such a thing to a child, if I were to have one. When I found out that I had breast cancer, I was dumbfounded. She had died of it and I was so sure that I would NEVER get it. Yes, I was, indeed, a dumb ass little fucker. It took me a very long time to accept that, in many ways, I was so much like my mother. Not just in my genes, but in my stubborn nature, my tendency to think that I was always right and mostly....my inability to admit when I was wrong. I was like her in other ways, too. Underneath my seemingly kind nature, I had a spine made of steel. I was...yes....a steel magnolia. I was made to fight cancer. And I did. Twice. Winning twice, but not without some deep wounds. Today, I am more than grateful for her gift of strength. It bought me time with those I love the most.
I also inherited her really bad teeth, but that is a story for another day.
When I was getting chemotherapy and trying to stay employed, the man in the brown hat often appeared in my dreams to tell me that
"All that work piled up on your desk. And here you are...home...puking your guts out. What a failure. Do you REALLY think you can work for much longer? No. You are useless. Just useless."
Again, he proved to be right. I had to take early retirement. My body was as weak as a kitten after chemo and radiation. It would be over a year before I could stop taking afternoon naps. I would always walk with a cane after that treatment.
And then, just when I was thinking of getting back into the swing of things, just when I started volunteering for the Democrats in a city election, I found out that I had leukemia. I had a very rare kind of leukemia that had a good success rate....if I could live through the treatment: arsenic
You read correctly. Arsenic. Every. Single. Day. For nearly 8 months.
This time, the man in the brown hat was tickled pink.
"Feel like dying yet, little dumb ass fucker?" he would ask me, tipping his hat and pretending to vomit into it. "You are weak. Just a weak, stupid woman."
It took almost everything I had, but that spine I inherited from my mother got me through. I was diagnosed with leukemia in April of 2017 and I went into remission on December 8, 2017.
I figured that maybe I had managed to banish the man in the brown hat. Forever.
You know the rest of the story. My breast cancer metastasized. It is now back, living in a lesion wrapped around an unnecessary artery to my heart.
The man in the brown hat is back. This time, I suspect he is a prophetic dream and not a fear induced one. He was in a crowd of people in my dream last night, waving lazily at me. Laughing in a not-so-nice way. He isn't speaking yet, but I have a feeling he will soon.
I will try to ignore him. I have never had the strength or the guts to take him on. But maybe this time I will.
I have nothing to lose this time around. No strength to save. I can tell him to fuck off. I think I might just be able to do this. I'm also smart enough to know that in order to do this, I must accept the fact that the only happy ending in store for me is that I won't have to see him after this round. I will be in a place where he can no longer reach me. My human mind will no longer exist, thus he will not exist.
Small comfort, though.
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