Dream: My Grandson, Me, and the Warship

I have a sense of this being THE dream for me right now. Here we go:

Both I and my grandson (13 year-old Brennan) are in the navy and serving on a warship. The ship is big, complex with many decks and equipment. It is heavy, huge, massive and powerful, armed with great guns.

Brennan and I are both in service within the ship and it—we—come under attack. The ship is wrecked, not sunk, but ruined and we are among the survivors who have to struggle to escape the torn metal and flames.

I know I’m out, but for some time I can’t find my grandson, Brennan. I feel desperate and helpless. Later, he is found.

Much later we are assembled and waked through a ceremony to be awarded medals for our honor, our valor. I look at Brennan, both of us conscious of each other and the ordeal, we weep bitterly, amazed of the immensity of what we’d been through, the suffering, and the absolutely amazing relief. In the end we’re both okay, and more than okay. We’re together, we’ve made it, and we’re free.

At first I saw this literally. My grandson, Brennan, and I had always been close. I was the only one who could settle him, we were tight, we respected the sound of my voice. Six years ago I was married to Diana, and in our household we had 3 kids and two grandsons (from the eldest daughter.) Then, between launching a kid, a divorce, then seeing who could handle what teenagers, it was soon only myself, my son, Joseph, and my grandson, Brennan. After launching Joseph—by the time Karen came into my life—it was just Brennan and I and he’d had quite an emotional ride watching the family fall apart (not that it was really “together” before that.) But he and I had watched the destruction, if not sinking of the ship—our family as we’d known it.

But then Karen offered something that I missed entirely. Something that connected perfectly within me as I heard it: In the dream Brennan represented me, my child within. And I, as witness, watched the rescue and saving of my own “child.” The ship was my old “way of being,” with all it’s grand structure, bulk and momentum. I have been feeling so open and vulnerable lately. I’m out of the ship. My freedom is my reward for the valor of “holding on” and making it. Right now I just want to cry.