Dead Man’s Hand

The minute I saw the guy I knew it was time to end this thing.

The guy in question was a former friend and fellow blogger whom I had not communicated with in three years.

But then here he comes walking back into my life and I say to myself, enough already, just go over and talk to him. Life is too short for this nonsense.

So, I approached my friend, stuck out my hand, and said I was sorry that we had disagreed.

He returned my handshake, and for a few seconds, I was feeling pretty good.

Until I realized he was dead.

Well, all right, the guy isn’t dead in real life. This was a dream, so none of what I just described actually happened.

I had met this man through blogging several years ago. He was so supportive and friendly and he always left these wonderful comments on my posts.

I’ve been blogging for nearly 20 years now—oh, God, is that possible?—and, to be honest, there were times along the way when I felt like calling it quits.

But then I’d read one of his glowing comments and I’d get my passion back.

I've connected with other bloggers through him, and I even met him a few times in person a few times when he visited New York. I felt lucky to have such a good friend.

Then a few years ago, I noticed that he had stopped commenting on my posts. At first, I thought he was taking a brief hiatus, or that perhaps he was just too busy to read my blog, and he'd back sooner or later.

But he didn’t return--and this was a guy who had commented on nearly every single one of my posts for years.

Keep me posted

I was concerned that I might have said something to offend him. I had left a comment on one of his posts about wearing masks that was meant to be funny, but maybe I had overstepped my bounds?

Several years ago, I had a good friend ghost me. I couldn’t bring myself to contact him to find out what the problem was, and I regretted it. Perhaps if I had spoken to him, we'd still be friends.

That seems unlikely, but I just wish I had that effort.

This time I decided to do things differently. I emailed my fellow blogger telling him that I valued his friendship, that I missed him, and that I was terribly sorry if I had hurt his feelings in any way.

He wrote to back say that, no, he was not offended by my comment. Rather, he’d stopped commenting on my blog because he’d found my posts to be too angry.

Seriously? After all these years, all the laughs we had, all the good times, he was ditching me over something like this?

I checked my blog going back at least three months prior to his response and the only posts I could find that exhibited any kind of anger were two columns I had written about a pair of mass shootings.

What can I say? There’s something about innocent people being gunned down in schools, churches, nightclubs and just about anywhere else in this country that makes me upset.

Hey, look, I know I’m angry guy. Every single day I battle with my rage the way an alcoholic fights the craving for booze.

I guess it’s not surprising that some of that anger might show up in my posts, but the whole point of blogging is to reflect who I am.

I enjoy reading my friends’ blogs because they’re my friends and I want to support them. That’s what makes the blogosphere such a cool place to be.

I never responded to my former friend’s email. What’s to say? I’m not going to change my blog in hopes that he might come back. Then it’s not my blog anymore.

I’ve learned the hard way that trying to please people to keep them around is opening the door to disrespect. If people are not meeting each other in the middle, it’s not a friendship.

I never had any further contact with my friend after that--at least until the other night when he popped up in my dream.

I had been thinking about him earlier in the day and how hurt and angry I was after he cut me out of his life--even after all this time.

Now in this dream, he was walking and talking, but I knew he was dead. But not like a zombie horror flick, but more like someone who had died in another time zone but was still alive in mine.

It was if the Grim Reaper hadn’t caught up to him yet.

The Investigation

The scene shifted and there was a crowd of people gathered outdoors, presumably for the funeral, now that my friend was properly expired.

I thought how bizarre it was to be speaking with a dead man and what a great story that would make—when I saw another mourner scribbling in a notebook.

When I asked him what he was writing, he told me he’d had a similar experience with the departed and was writing it up.

I ashamed to say that I was really upset about this--more upset than over than my ex-friend's dream demise.

Okay, so what do we have here?

The handshake seems to be a desire to let go of the pain and anger associated with losing the friendship.

The fact that this man was dead is disturbing. I’m half-Italian and we don’t even mention death for fear it will be taken as an invitation for the guy with the scythe.

Clearly some part of me is still resentful about being rejected and I conjured up this hostile scenario.

But death in a dream doesn’t automatically mean you want someone to croak. Perhaps it means I want to end the pain associated with losing his friendship.

One website says death in a dream can reflect stress or anxiety, dealing with grief, or—aha!--unprocessed emotions.

Since it is widely believed that you are every figure in a dream, maybe I was bidding farewell to some part of myself.

As for the writing competitor, that might speak to how I am constantly worried about losing story ideas.

This dream is also a warning about holding on to anger and living in the past, something I've been trying to address.

I don't see me and former friend ever getting back together, which is a damn shame. But if I ever do run into him, I won’t hesitate to put out my hand and say, “put it there.”