I had a multipart strange dream last night. I missed a flight to which I had already checked in and was standing by my assigned seat for a time. I helped a lady and her friend find a rainbow. I set up a marketing display for an unknown product in an unknown location. And I talked to another friend who was in the process of building a croquet court for her parents. All the people were faceless and nameless, except I knew I knew them. Odd.

And that’s just the essence of the dreams. There was a lot of rich detail. I found the rainbow, for instance in the rain glancing off the side of building at night in the light of a nearby bulb. The marketing display was in a posh retail location on the top floor of an atrium building and involved a wet material that dried into interesting shapes. The space felt nearly abandoned and one of the tenants was in trouble for not paying rent. The croquet court builder had exacting plans for the mallets and wickets. We examined them. The plane had a malfunctioning bathroom.

All of this dreaming, I suspect came about because I was tired from a day of helping shepherd my grandson and the children of a dear friend, who was kind enough to organize an adventure day for her children that involved me and my grandson. We ate lunch at their house. Swam in their home pool. We rode the train at Landa Park in New Braunfels. We swam in the Olympic pool. Dove off the side. Learned to blow through our nose when putting our head underwater. Slid down the slides in the kid’s pool area. I counted to three and threw children in the air to splash down in the water. Laughing children hung on my neck and shoulders as we splashed about. I was a dad again. It felt good. I came home and dreamed. Now I write, and the grandson sleeps. And today will be another day.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale