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"I had a dream," my pappy told me. That, of course, was long after MLK Jr. had his unrelated vision. It was a relatively mild summer the year my brother was to be married. I was just a kid then, but I felt the need to instruct him in all things sexual that I had only recently learned. He smiled and messed my hair a bit and said thanks. He gave me a coke and I smiled.Just after his engagement, he came down with hepatitis so graciously shared from cup to cup at a rebbe's tish. Even though he was feverish and weak, thankfully he was able to drag himself to the Brooklyn HIP center. There the top notch physician wrote him a script, which he diligently went to the pharmacy to fill. The pharmacist told him this was an Rx for a placebo because the doctor thought he was a drunk. Instead of accepting this miracle cure, he chose to check into a local hospital where his condition deteriorated. That's when pappy had his dream.
As I recall it being told to me directly, pappy had seen his friend, Joe, appear to him at night in a dream. Joe was the first of his childhood friends to pass to the other side. Joe solemnly informed my dad that tonight Joe was to take his son (my bro). I don't know how my dad comes up with this stuff so fast, I guess he was FAST asleep but his response without hesitation was, "Take the cat as a Kaparah (atonement)." With that the dream ends and the laws of the universe are forever altered.
Come morning, the cat was found dead. Zoinks! I have a sneaking suspicion my dad sleepwalks but I have not seem this myself. When talking with my brother, he claims that, that night he gave up and prayed to be taken away but somehow things took a turn for the better the next day. For him, that is. I'm sure the cat would have an entirely different perspective and now after umpteen years of marriage I don't know if my brother would have taken that deal.
Many years passed. I was dorming at YU when I noticed my next cat crying outside by my seventh floor window. I was dreaming of course. I let her in and she seemed relieved to see me and climbed on my bed and went to sleep with an apparent grim as if she was comforted being my presence. There was a knock, so I opened the door only to find two cats, looking just like her, beckoning her to come with them. She did. They walked down Rubin hall together and just faded away.
A few days later, I got a call that my kitty had disappeared (coincidentally) the night I had the dream. Can you figure it out yet? Not only had the cat died but my uncle was mysteriously cured from an ailment that no doctor could successfully identify or cure! He had suddenly developed an uncontrollable diaphram spasm causing him to hiccup incessantly. They actually had to start his heart a few times as a result. Apparently my dad had a dream that night as well. In his dream, he was saying to himself, "As much as I love the cat, I choose my brother."
The only thing my family could figure was that my grandfather, the butcher, used to feed all the neighborhood cats to rid the area of mice. As a zechus (merit),these cats have come back to sacrifice their lives for our holy lineage.
I'm not a big believer in stuff like this when people tell me but there truly is something about cats and my family. The main thing really is that if you're a cat, stray far far away. I do have sleepless nights wondering if someday, if we are not careful, they may issue a cat-wah against us.
We are finally coming to the real point of all this. I told my son that I was feeling very ill because of the cat-asstrophy. I apparently made a bit of the show of it to discourage him from playing with the cat. He took it to mean that I was seriously hurting. And out of the mouth of babes..."Dad, if you want to feel better, someone should dream about the cat and you'll be OK!"
That'sa my boy (Italian inflection)
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