I dreamed last night that our soon to be 19 year old son was back in elementary school. A bunch of us parents were standing around, kids milling all around us, so it must have been a party or the end of the school day. Kids at that age make a sea of noise and movement, and parents sort of carefully wade through it without trying to disturb the energy too much.

One parent was there without their child. He had gone missing a few days before. The mother and father were asking us questions. Had we seen anything? Did we know anything? When was the last time our child had seen their son?

Suddenly one of the parents, a father, started crying out. They couldn’t find their son either. It was broad daylight, with dozens of parents and teachers about and his boy had just disappeared.

I had one of those frozen moments of fear that you get when you’re a parent. The thought of loosing your child goes through your bones like a knife. A sense of panic rises up taking over your mind like a tsunami, and it cannot be quelled until your child is in your arms. I grabbed our son and hugged him, picking him up off the ground, and what was going though my mind at that moment was the worst kind of selfish relief. I could sense the panic of the father calling out to his lost son, but at least I knew our boy was safe.

If you’re a parent, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Its a feeling of equal parts  terror for the parents of the missing child, mixed with relief that your own child is safe.

Then in the way that dreams go, a very cinematic sequence occurred in my mind. I was looking at a sign, a name made of white lettering painted upon a black background. It was one of those many projects that kids do in elementary school, the paint and the writing were done by the children. The name on the sign I was looking at was that of the first boy that had gone missing. As I watched the name of the second boy joined the first, like someone was keeping score. All of this was superimposed upon the scene of children milling around an elementary school, and a father trying not to panic while calling out for his missing son.

I knew in that moment that his son was lost, and the father would never see him again.

Then I woke to my alarm, groggy and stiff.

The emotions from this dream were still echoing fresh in my mind as I headed for the kitchen to start my coffee. It took me a few seconds to process what I had been dreaming, trying to piece together the setting and the emotions, when suddenly I recognized the names of those missing boys. They weren’t some random children, they were Black boys that our son had gone to school with. We’d had them over to our home for birthday parties, we knew their parents by their first names. These were families we knew, and liked, and we enjoyed their brief connection with our son.

At this point I doubt that anyone reading this will be surprised. This dream came after a terrible week where a Black man, George Floyd, was essentially executed in broad daylight by the police, and the resulting protests and riots that followed. The week was like living through the 92 Rodney King riots again, only this time it was more diffuse with protests in hundreds of cities all across America and the world, and not just contained to a small part of LA. And there were far more white voices and bodies joining in the march. Oh, and let’s not forget the specter of Covid-19 looming everything like a horror movie scene in the back of everyone’s mind. So not just protestors, but masked protestors, facing ranks of masked and helmeted, police officers. The street of our believed nation filled with smoke and with fire, looking at times like a war zone from a third world country.

So yeah, there is plenty of fuel to build horrific dreams.

Since our son attended our local elementary school, two more black families have moved to our block. Successful families too, as the cost of owning a house in our once blue collar neighbor has doubled and then tripled. They are friendly, they have nice children, we talk to them fairly often, especially the neighbors across the street, and I can’t help but think they have the right to feel their children are safe too. That their children will not be taken away from them on the whim of a man with a badge and a bad attitude.

The other day Teri was talking with a checker at a grocery store, and the young lady asked Teri how the current unrest differed from the 92 riots. It’s a tricky question as were much younger then, and much more selfish. I hadn’t met Teri yet. At that time she had been dating Black men for years, so she was intimately familiar with the LAPD and how they treated men of color, especially with a white girl in their car. I was seeing someone from my apartment complex who had lived through the revolution in Iran, and was terrified it would come here. I probably wasn’t very good comfort, being both young, and dealign with my own insecurities as this was before I went through therapy. I also didn’t know anything about PTSD or how to help someone with it, things I am much better prepared for now.

So I guess my dreams answered the checker’s question for me. What’s the difference between the 92 riots and now? This time it is personal. It is not just Black boys in danger, it is Black boys we know and like. And we’re no longer interested in allowing their deaths to continue so white families can maintain their perfect bubble of ignorance.

Things are going to be uncomfortable for a while, especially for white families. We’re going to have to deal with topics that we usually do not talk about. We’re going to have to talk about race, and what that means, and what parts of our past we still carry unknowingly in our hearts like a poison that leaves wounds which cannot be healed. The unspeakable will be spoken, it must be if we are ever to find peace.

Because no parent should have to live through the horror of calling out their child’s name, never hearing a reply.