It Wasn’t a Dream

It was around midnight Saturday night and I dreamed that I heard police cars and fire engines.  As I awoke from my slumber, I heard a voice outside the door that said, “Get back in the apartment”.  I went to look outside my boyfriend’s place and saw two police men squatted just below his door. A couple of second later, they ran to the left.

I went and woke my boyfriend up and said something was going on outside.  As soon as I spoke, there was a loud boom and voices of the police saying “put your hands up, put your hands up”!  By now I was scared and unsure of the chaos happening. My boyfriend told me to go lay down in the bathtub.  At first I didn’t feel a need, but after the second loud boom I knew that was the best place for me to be.

He called 911 and we were told that 15-20 SWAT were in the area and that there was also a fire.  We were told to stay put.  The tech guy/gal in us both had us surfing the internet on our phones looking at the websites of local tv channels in his city for information.

Long story short – couple gets in an argument at Mexican restaurant a block down the road. Girlfriend calls police.  Boyfriend walks to their apartment.  When police arrive, he refuses to come out and shoots a shotgun at the police.  SWAT is called in.  Boyfriend decides to set the apartment on fire.  The apartment explodes (reason for the boom sounds).  The guy then runs out of his apartment (reason for police saying put your hands up) with burns and jumps into the pond in front of my boyfriend’s apartment.  The guy doesn’t resurface for 5-7 minutes and they soon realize he drowned.

All of this happened just feet where I should have been sleeping. This wasn’t a dream or an action movie, it was my reality.  (I could make that up if I tried.)  I realized two things – 1) you never know how your life can end up, so appreciate each moment and 2) my boyfriend genuinely cares about me.  I thought about the recent baseball clip where the guy runs to avoid a baseball coming his way and it hits his girlfriend.  My boyfriend did the opposite and looked after my safety before looking after his own.

I definitely mourn for the girlfriend of the guy that drowned but further value the things and people in my life.  Here’s a link of the video coverage.

M.Y. August 2010