Did I ever mention I used to be a chef? Well, OK, Actually more accurately I was a cook. Damn it though! I produced chef quality food.

Wash the peppers.

Dry the peppers.

Core the peppers.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

Push a perfect pile of little red and greed rectangle pepper strips to the side of my board.

Noung Yow: "JAMES! Wha maher wit you?" "You no pay tention?" she scolds me in her cute Thai accent.

I look at my pile of red and green rectangles realizing that they are probably just a millimeter to thick. Maybe even less.

Me: "Sorry." I meekly reply

She takes the knife from me and slices.

Noung Yow: "You foget how? You seepy?"

Me: "Yeah, I did not sleep well. I was having bad dreams.

At this she takes the knife from me again.... "Ohhhh." She says. This was an Ohhhh filled with understanding, and genuine concern. We stopped. She made me stop. "You tell me your deam."

I do.

I tell her how my best friend from Junior High and High School Died in a Helicopter crash. How he keeps popping into dreams. Happy dreams. Dreams that he is out of place in. Dreams that my dreamself wonders 'Why is mike here?' I wake up sweaty, in tears, and a pit in my chest.

But back to Noung Yow. I relate one of these dreams to her. This is a very serious matter to her. She tells me that in Thai culture. Mike appearing to me in a dream is very important. That this was Mike's soul, his ghost if you will, inserting himself into my dream. If I was Buddhist she says I should burn incense and pray that he finds peace, that his ghost leaves me Alone. That I should also ask him in my dream what he needs to tell me so he can go away. She tells me, since I am not Buddhist, that I should pray. Figure out what he is trying to tell you. Why is he coming to you?

I know why. I have known why for a long time, and I have felt guilt. Guilt for something that is not really my fault. Is it my fault that I gave an 8th grade boy a dream that would later kill him?

Probably not.

But in my heart it still hurts.

1988, 8th grade.

I'm a fat awkward looking boy who constantly gets mistaken for a girl. ANDROGYNOUS would have been my perfect descriptor. I have the BIGGEST crush on Mike. An athletic, quiet, not your typical jock guy. (He also had a brain. You know calculus, 0 hour classes before school started when we got to high school) Anyways. We are friends. Good friends. I'm the little gay boy that has the crush on his straight friend, but it doesn't matter anyways. I'm too young and shy to know what to do with those feelings anyways. So, were friends, we hangout, we go to the movies.

The Next year I am planning to go to my cousins wedding in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. They are also having a huge air show that weekend. My parents say that I can bring Mike, if his parents will let him come.

Of course the let him go. Maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe it is better to die fulfilling your dream. Then to live without a dream. I don't know. I know my heart still aches. I know the tears still flow. 3 years after his death, after he still inserts himself into dreams that he should not be in. But back to my story.

We are both SO excited about the air show. The Army Golden Knights Parachuters are going to be there. The blue angels. The New Apache Attack helicopter does a distant fly by. We explore the cargo holds of B-52 bombers together. We have fun! We get autographs from those devastatingly handsomeGolden Knights. MMMMmm! (that was me biting my knuckle=)

Then like the 7th graders we are. While the red barren is doing his daring acrobatics. We were playing with our rubber band launched Styrofoam and plastic airplanes. It was a pure moment. Two boys having fun, goofing off. Both dreaming of being pilots. My dream was momentary and inspired by the air show, my dreams of cooking and being a chef soon returned. Mike's dream of flying was permanent.

May 1994 to the present:

He got into the air force academy. Even though he had an almost undetectable case of sculliosis he still went. Knowing he would never make pilot, but he could be there with the planes, an officer.

Mike really was outstanding. He must of blown somebody away with his talents. On Graduation day he finds out that his dream is about to come true. He receives his pilots slot. It is a day of joy for him and his family. For all of us, when we here the news.

A couple of months later it would all be over. Not only was Mike given his pilots slot. He was also recruited by... oh damn I can't remember the groups name. Basically they are the armies search and rescue group. Very elite. A very great honor to be selected by them. Mike was at Dulles Air force base, you know, where area 51 is supposed to be. He is riding along as an observer with this group in a helicopter, when two of the helicopters slam, unexpectedly, into the side of a mountain.

His life was over. His dreams were gone. I'm not sure if it is any consolation that he was finally doing what he wanted to be doing.

You know, I just realized.

Three years later, it finally dawns on me!

I just had an epiphany. I'm crying like a whaling baby! A total catharsis of emotions.

My subconscious just slapped me upside the head!

I don't know if I have ever felt a release of emotions like this. My dad cried like that when his Dad died, but not until his best friend arrived at the memorial. My Dad embraced him, and a bone shivering howl errupted from my Dad, as he began to cry in the arms of his friend.

I just realized.

Mikes dream ended.

Mine began!

He died. My boss would not give me time off to go to the funeral. I quit.

My childhood dream of learning a cuisine, being a chef, began.

I walked into LEMONGRASS. Noung Yow took me under her wing and taught me all her secrets. I was her apprentice. I was a Chef.

Because of Michael's death, the end of his dream, my dream was realized. I may have never even applied if I had not quit to go to his funeral.

I can say that I have done it. For a year my dream was realized.

Maybe that is what Mike wanted. Maybe that is what his dreamself has been wanting me to realize.

No there is no Maybe.

I KNOW.

Now I finally know.

P.S. I saw Mike's mom in the grocery store when I went home for the holidays last year. We both got weepy eyed when we saw each other. She hugged me and said, "It is so good to have a hug from a boy child." I'll never forget that. Those few words summing up her feelings to me. I never know what to say. I think now, if I really wanted to, I could tell her what Mike gave to me.