The dream started out hearing of my Aunt's death, who is very much alive. My immediate family and I went to my Uncle's house for the funeral, but it was a huge complex. They live in Alabama, and I've never actually been there, but in my dream it was a huge place with it's own parking garage built into the side of a gigantic river valley. If you stood at the top of the valley it was probably 2 miles to the other side, with a wide river running through at the bottom a good mile down.
I remember walking through the interior of the complex, through parking garages, up and down stairs, and visiting with family members. It was a lot like my Dad's wake, uncomfortable, and a lot of milling around. At one point one of my Uncle's encouraged my brother, my mom, and I to go outside to watch an air show. We climbed a few levels of the parking garage, up two flights of stairs and out a stadium style entrance near the top of the valley. There were hundreds of people scattered about, and I emerged just in time to see a wake boarder dropped out of an airplane into the river below.
My mom gasped, thinking that he was surely dead, but I assured her that he probably did that sort of thing all the time. We made out way over to cement stairs and the grade of the hill was incredibly steep, almost vertical. I struggled to keep my footing, holding on to the handrail coming from the stairs. I told my brother to go ahead in front of me and as he did, he feet slipped out from underneath and he hit his head on one of the steps. The grade was so steep that his foot caught a crevasse and flipped him head over feet. He landed limp on his face and slid hundreds of feet down the hill. I tried chasing him, yelling the whole time, "Please someone catch him!" but no one saw and no one stopped him.
I woke up at 5am this morning to a strobe light in my window. Lightning flashing over and over again. I closed by eyes and saw my brother falling, I opened them and was blinded by continuous lightning. It was almost 2 hours before I was able to fall asleep again.
Then I was back at my parent's house and we had just finished installing a hot tub in the back of their property. My dad and my brothers were all there, and I got really excited that I would be able to ask my Dad some of the questions I never got to ask. I went up to him, but before I opened my mouth he said, "It doesn't matter." I knew it was 2005 and I asked him why we were here. He said this is when it happened, that reality split on this day, and since then, there was nothing we could do to change it. Things were as they should be. He told me that I should always go first so that I will be there to catch my brothers when they fall. You can't support someone if you're above them, you have to be beneath them.
And then I woke up for the second time. The lightning had been outshone by the sun, but it was still raining.
