At Ben Bradlee’s Funeral

My dream time had me at Ben Bradlee’s funeral this morning. With numerous others I was helping to set up for the reception that would follow the memorial service.

How odd, caterers and waiters would have been tending to this task. But somehow in my dream it looked more like a Shabbat service with an Oneg Shabbat at our local synagogue. (Oneg Shabbat is the gathering after Jewish Sabbath services, often with food and socializing.)

Most interestingly was that there was a table for beverages, alcoholic and otherwise, at which I was placing a Jewish brand of whisky with English lettering of a Jewish man’s name. Even more intriguing is that the name had the initials of my father!

No Hebrew writing, as I recall, but then there might have been in smaller letters that I just didn’t happen to notice. Nonetheless it was a distinctly Jewish brand. And that fact alone held importance for me.

The feeling accompanying the dream was one of warmth, richness, community conviviality.  Absent qualities at gatherings I attended in Washington with much too much on the superficial power game playing level.

However, in this scene the theme seemed to be one of interweaving parts of myself into wholeness and well being. Also there was a sense of something having to do with the inheritance of my two children, now grown, Elisa and Eric.

How very interesting it all was and somewhat unusual as I had only met Ben Bradlee one time, along with his wife Sally Quinn.

The occasion had been a rather intimate brunch, as I recall, at the home of my former sister-in-law when she was writing for the Washington Post. The Omelet Man, entertainer and cook extraordinaire combined, had been our chef, if I remember correctly.

Dreams are so revealing, if one can make use of them as messages from the unconscious to guide one’s personal emerging of clarity.

Being so inclined I have been taking time to do just that since.

Strange the fragments of me, yearning for unity, now coming into my conscious mind from this dream time adventure at this still early time of the day. By interpretation I have, thus far, included these clues from my unconscious was signaling --

• My prophecy-predicted return to Washington;
• The anti-Semitism in myself, finally reversed after decades, that was, no doubt, heightened by my fast track years in D.C.;
• Unfinished business with my former sister-in-law;
• Concern for the legacy I will leave my children.

As the day is still early now. What will this dream herald for me as my day goes on?

What guideposts will I recognize as this dream continues to work its way through my psyche, like the gift of wisdom from a place somewhere beyond that dreams always bring, if one allows?

On the level of earthly reality, a man of great stature and contribution to the betterment of our society (and politics, one would hope) has now passed beyond our mundane world. And, I am grateful to have shared a brief moment of time with this man who made a legend of the Washington Post in exposing the Watergate break-in.

This was an enormous gift for me, personally. I will never forget the model he represented for me of someone who relentlessly searched for truth and had no fear of revealing it, as big and bold as anyone could.

For this I am, apparently, so grateful that I even brought myself to attend his funeral in absentia on a day that I, in actuality, was traveling to Johns Hopkins battling, once again, to save my very precarious eyesight.

On that score, my eye infection crisis, “we are heading in the right direction,” my doctor says while I, concurrently, continue to navigate my return to Washington, as my prophecy predicts, at least in my dreams.

So I take from my having attended Ben Bradlee’s funeral that celebration is unfolding, even in times of loss, especially if a Jewish brand of whiskey, honoring my tribal heritage can show up for the event.