I heard my father protest like this once, “I’m a dreamer. I’m not the other kind.” I’m paraphrasing that last sentence – I can’t remember the word he used for ‘the other kind’. He might have said ‘shaman’ for all I know.

According to Frank Speck’s paper – the one that reassured me that I wasn’t delusional – this is a common protest amongst people like dad and myself. We’re not ‘the other kind’ because the other kind came to be viewed as evil the more the European culture influenced our own. Not completely understanding why that would be, I’d always wished I was the other kind. I wanted to be able to set things on fire the Dad could. I wanted to be able to capture spirits, as I saw Dad do, and move things in the physical world. But try as I might I never could, at least not on purpose.

I’m pretty sure that makes me a Dreamer. I WANT to be the other kind – I mean what the hell. People see me as evil no matter what I do, so I might as well go for the gold.

There’s a super power with being a Dreamer, though, that can out-span everything else. We can be warned about the future. We can gather intel – which is why the government still to this day has covert operations that recruit soldiers with an extra sense (I know this because my husband had been reached out to.).  People think to know about the future is just that. The media has been careful to craft that here in the states. But there’s a motto I’ve always believed in: The beauty of knowing the future is having the power to change or enhance it.  Forewarned is forearmed.

I had a dream two nights ago. I can’t remember where I was. Out of what looked like a small body of water just off to the distance rose a giant tidal wave – I can’t recall if something splashed into the little pond or if it just started to happen. There were people there that didn’t pay attention. I did, though. I fell on my back and I watched it rise, and rise. I didn’t think it could get so tall because there wasn’t enough water, but it kept going until it was towering over me on it’s way to splash down and crush me.

I thought to myself that I was going to have to wait until the last second and hold my breath. I worried that the power of the wave would wash me cruelly up the shore and that I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from being sucked to sea. And then I wondered why I wasn’t running.

When I told my husband about this dream, he did as he always does. He listened politely, and then the topic was turned to something else. I only have one person in my life who takes my random super power seriously. She’s usually just as powerless about matters as I am, not to mention she’s not of the personality type to do much.

Last night part two of the warnings came. A person from my distant past, Daniel, and my husband had become friends. They were hanging out a lot while I was off to the side doing whatever it was I was doing. I have to note that in this dream we were different people. My husband was very skinny, covered in tattoos, and Daniel was… well he was skinny, too. My husband wasn’t wearing a shirt. I have no idea what I looked like. I always see myself as skinny even though I’m not.

Tim said to me,”I’m going off with Danny to talk a walk or something.” I could tell he was going off with Daniel to do things that we’d agreed he wouldn’t do. I could tell he might not come back. So I said to him as I shut the door, “Don’t come back.” I was angry at him for breaking promises again.

I was already waking up when my phone rang, but I wasn’t awake enough to answer. When I finally did come to enough, I realized wait: Daniel’s dead.

Also, there are two dead people from my past who share that name. Daniel. Danny. Both were romantically connected at one point in time, although Daniel’s connection is more nefarious.

I told my husband that Daniel had taken him away. He was at work, but I think even if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have taken that seriously. How do you get someone who was raised outside the medicine spectrum to understand how serious that is? In my dreamworld, the dead will take their next target away on a walk. They always walk away. The warning might be years in advance. It might not be. I have no way of knowing.

Later today I realized that tidal wave was my husband’s death.

My husband has hemochromatosis, diabetes, and fatty liver. It’s not clear if one’s causing the other, vice versa, or if the iron problem is hereditary. On my end, the only thing I know for sure is that my stupid husband expects a pill to fix everything like magic and refuses to eat the things that helps him. I know following a diet helps him because I was able to get him to follow it once. But he hates fish (tries to claim he’s allergic to every single fish on land and water), dairy, and greens. He wants to only eat red meat – a thing that aggravates hemochromatosis – and drink gallons of Mountain Dew. “My diabetes is managed,” he says to me as an excuse for insisting on this, but meanwhile his blood count has dropped to 40,000 and he’s tired all of the time.

“Friends” tell him to lie to me because the fact that I handle the money is somehow viewed as bad because I’m the wife. He did lie to me for a while, and we nearly got divorced over it. I caught him when he was dying of covid – that’s the only reason why we’re still together. I couldn’t just dump him when he was in a room at the VA hospital. Even so, my trust of him died a permanent death. And my credit? Well let’s just say me having to compensate for him “going to work” and not giving me enough to pay the bills killed that as well.

For those that get defensive when their family members want them to eat right – especially in the case of spouses – I always have to point out that when you’re in a marital relationship, it’s not just YOU that gets hurt by the disease. It’s not all about you. You’re a unit when you marry. Two sides of the same coin. What one does effects the other. I had said this to someone who couldn’t understand why I didn’t want Tim hurting his knees. Well, he did what he wanted and now he’s paraplegic and those family members whose feelings he ignored are left to help care for him. Hearts have probably been broken, and his future isn’t that great. It’s not all about you. It’s never going to be all about you, not when you’re in a family unit.

This goes both ways, by the way, before someone tries to bring up the shot debate here. As the person who would like Tim to remember I’m part of the equation, I also should not be expected to harm myself for him. TWO sides of the same coin. BOTH ways. Not one way just because you have an ideology.

So the tidal wave to swim is his resistance to caring for himself. If I want to get his blood problem back into control, I have to stomp the soda out of his hand and get him to eat a damn fish once in a while. Chicken’s on the list of foods to eat, but it’s not as high on the list. Also. Just chicken isn’t enough – you have to vary your diet.

I’m left with working on my comic book while I think. And wish I had more people in my life with the power to help that would hear me without marking me insane. Maybe I should contact Roseanne Barr. She at least would understand some of where I’m coming from. Pffft. Just joking. Although I think Barr and I would have a neat conversation, what on earth could she do seriously. And who am I to ask her for help when we don’t know each other from a hill of beans. I just listen to her podcast sometimes, so she’s on my mind I guess.

So I sit here forewarned. But I’m not forearmed.

I’m not sure where to go from here, so I’ll make art and hope I get told.