December brought the Christmas holiday. We decided to drive home in the Corvette. We could fly back to school in January. We had to fly out of Houston the next day heading to Thailand. It felt so good to get home! Our parents had first class tickets for everyone. Amie told me later that the tickets were about $80,000 each. I was stunned. Our bags were packed also, so we really didn’t have a lot to do. That was good because we needed rest.

We took a shuttle to Bush Intercontinental Airport the next day. We got out bags checked in and went to wait at our departure gate. There were dozens of planes at arriving and departing at different gates. I got tired of waiting and sat down and closed my eyes. I was awakened by Amie. “Oh my God, Jamie look at our plane,” I stood up quickly and looked at the huge jet pulling into the gate. It was an “All Nippon Airways” jet. It was all white and blue with bold letters on the side and tail: “ANA”. I stood with my mouth opened, then turned to Amie. She was grinning. “Your dream is coming true.” I had to sit back down. My mind was racing. I had never heard of “All Nippon Airways” before. Yet, in my dream, Amie was wearing a white smock with the letters “AMA” on the nametag. Was my dream a prediction? What good is a prediction if you can’t interpret it? Maybe it was a warning? Were we going to crash? I was in a daze. My mom was heading to the gate and noticed I wasn’t following. She turned and beaconed, “Come on, Jamie. It’s OK.” Her exact words from my dream! She walked back and took my hand and pulled me through the boarding process.

***NOTE TO READERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ ABOUT “THE DREAM”, READ “AMIE AND JAMIE – CHAPTER 5 – LAUREN”.

“Jamie honey, what’s the matter?” my mom questioned me as she pulled. All I could do was look at her blankly. A pretty Asian woman greeted everyone getting on the plane. I vaguely remember her saying, “Welcome to All Nippon Airways”, but pausing to look at me as if she knew me from somewhere, but couldn’t recall where. The atmosphere changed when I got into the plane. It was cooler, and there was some kind of “hissing” sound. First class was definitely that. They seemed eager to make sure we got our $80,000 worth. I heard Amie tell the flight attendant that she was cold. The attendant almost ran to get something to keep Amie warm. I was seated next to my mom and we were in the air and “free to move about the cabin” before I finally regained my composure enough to tell her about my dream.

“It’s all a lot to take in,” my mom declared after hearing the details of my dream. “First, I find out I have a daughter instead of a son…and believe me, Jamie, I’m thrilled about that…now I find out she’s psychic.”

“Mom, it’s just one dream, but it is a little spooky.”

I was turned to the left, looking at my mom and a voice to my right said. “Hello, ladies! I told them I was cold and look what they brought me.” It was Amie. She was wearing a white smock with the letters “ANA” on the front.

I put my head in my hands. “OK. This is just too much. At least you don’t have a sword.”

She put her hands into the pocket of the smock. “Well, don’t you believe the pen is mightier than the sword?” She pulled her right hand out of the pocket and produced a ball-point pen. The top half of the pen was shiny silver and shaped much like a sword.

My jaw dropped. In a stage whisper, Amie said, “Jamie! If you keep doing that, people are gonna think you’re a ‘mouth breather’”!

I clamped my mouth shut and turned to my mom. “Mom, I don’t need to go to college if I’m gonna be a psychic.”

“Tell you what,” my mom replied, “finish high school, college, then law school or maybe medical school. If you still prefer being a psychic you can give ‘readings’… or whatever they do…out of the house.”

I smiled. “This is gonna be fun.” They both knew I wasn’t serious.

Amie went back to her seat and I lay back and put on the ear buds to listen to music. The song, “Morning has Broken”, by Cat Stevens was just beginning. I braced myself for what was to come. Soon, I heard:

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass.

The tears began to flow. My mom touched my hand. “Jamie?”.

I tried to explain, “Mom, it’s just so…” but my voice broke. I pointed at my ear bud and she nodded her head. She understood me and my music. I was listening to what I consider the most touching version of one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I thought about Cat Stevens becoming a Muslim a few years later. Then the face of the little girl on the website about the bombing came back to me. Tears began to flow uncontrollably. My mom handed me a napkin, which soon became soaked and had to be replaced. I thought to myself, “Yeah…you wouldn’t have made much of a man like this.” Men can cry, of course, but they better have a damn good reason or it just looks weird. Can you see a man weeping and saying, “Oh goodness…this song is so beautiful.”? See what I mean?