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I had a very surreal dream last night that my dad was teaching me how to drive a motorcycle. Nevermind that I sort of already know how, or that he's been dead for over 3 years, it was nice. I don't have dreams like that very often, and I remember them even fewer and further between. Sometimes I think about how that folder in my brain is more or less closed. Aside from the occasional story from one of his friends or an older relative, there isn't anything else I'm going to experience with my dad to pad that up. A dream like the one I had is like some little appendix to that folder, it it's nice because it means I get to pull it out of my file cabinet of a brain, dust it off, and page through it fondly. I've had the luck to do that twice in a few hours last night; the dream came just a few hours after my sister told me a story from last summer that was downright chilling. Not in a malevolent sort of way, but in those "LIFE AFTER DEATH!(?)" ways that might cause you to look over your shoulder late at night without realizing it. It's not a story I feel comfortable publishing on the internet, because technically it's my neice's, but ask me nicely and maybe I'll tell it in person.

But back to the motorcycle. My dad never had a motorcycle. Aside from a picture on my grandmother's wall back home, I've never seen him on one. In that picture, he's on some little dirtbike, in St. John's or St. Bart's or one of those places that I've lumped into a liturgical micronesia in my geographically challenged brain. He looks happy and healthy, and it's always been a favorite of mine, and more than likely the inspiration of my dream.

Anyway, my dad never had a motorcycle. He did, however, prolong his life significantly when some anonymous motorcyclist* with an organ donor card crashed and died, giving him a liver to replace his diseased one. I've thanked that guy a thousand times, and once considered tracking down any family that may have survived him to show them that his death wasn't entirely in vain. (Donate your organs, people).

This morning, I remembered the dream suddenly and blurted it out to Carrie over breakfast before it could slip back into my subconscious, and she reminded me where his liver came from. Then, she remarked "maybe he wants you to ride a motorcycle because he's after your liver".

This is the kind of thing that probably anyone else would find unsettling, or even ghoulish, and understandably so. But it made me laugh and I bet it would've made my dad laugh if he heard it. It was also a pretty fucking great reminder of how lucky I am.

I wanted to post that picture of my dad on the bike, but to be honest I'm not even sure if it survived the move from my grandmother's house. Maybe I'll find it someday.

*weird, right? I feel like "biker" might not be appropriate, either. I mean, they can't all be Hell's Angels or Malcolm Forbes.