A prelude

Last night I had the most vivid dream I have had in a long time.  In it my in-laws were visiting here in Arkansas, except for some reason Arkansas was now ocean adjacent.  They had rented space on a small ship and wanted Ray and I to get married there by the captain.  The night they arrived I went to see the ship and the small city where it was harbored, and I was totally captivated by it all.  There was a cathedral lit up in the night by hundreds of candles, an ocean that was glowing an irredescant bluish green, punctuated by the bright white ship.  I went into the ship with Ron and Linda because I had put Gloria to bed in their room earlier, and as soon as we entered the room she woke up and started doing her half-sleep stumble across the room towards me.   Suddenly, this strange and wonderful dream took an awful turn as Gloria somehow managed to get to the deck and tottered on the edge of the ship.  Linda ran to catch her and I had the feeling that they were both falling in as I jolted awake.  It was the kind of dream  that kept me awake for some time pondering the depth of the beauty, and trying to shake the uneasy feeling that somehow the most beautiful things in life are sometimes a prelude to the most tragic.