Selling the Family Business

This dream was unusual.
My family in this dream
wasn't my family in real life.
In this dream,
all of these people were unknown to me real life.

My father was a tubby Greek gentleman.
And I had three brothers.
(In the awake world I have two brothers.)

We had a family business
that was going under.
I'm not sure what it was,
but I think it had something to do
with pet supplies or pet food.

I worked in the family business,
but I also had a job outside of the business.
So,
I didn't depend on this for my income.

An offer came from a large company
to buy the family business.
Except for one of my brothers,
no one in the family wanted to accept the offer.

I think my brother only saw the dollar signs.
He really wasn't too concerned
with what was best for everyone.
He just knew that he would receive
a significant chunk of change
if the business were sold.

I had another brother
was running for City Council.
He didn't want to sell
because he was using the family name.
He really had no business running for office.
He just wanted the fame of being in local politics.
Selling the business
wouldn't be good for his political name,
or so he thought.

Another brother didn't really want to sell.
But also realized that some sort of comment
needed to be made to the public.
The press had gotten wind of the offer
and started to follow us everywhere,
asking if we were going to sell.
He made some comments to the press like,
"we're examining all options,"
"we're taking all things into consideration."
He didn't really say anything.

A secretary who worked for us
always avoided the subject of children.
We never knew why.
Another of our workers found some candy
stuffed in the cushions in the couch in her office.
Only he realized that it wasn't candy at all.
It was drugs.
He said this is how the drug pushers
sell to children.
He wraps it up as candy
and then the kids get hooked.
The secretary burst into tears.
Amidst her weeping
she told us that that is how she lost her child.
Her son had died after a drug overdose
taking what he thought was candy.

At that point my father realized
that we had to sell the family business.
It would give everyone a new start.
It would bring jobs to the area
(something my brother running for office
could use in his political pitch).
And it would just give us more time
to be family,
not just business partners.

And I don't know what this means,
but my father wore white throughout this dream.
Sort of like that white suite Col Sanders wears. . .

So,
What does this all mean?
What's up with that white suite?
What does a family business symbolize?
Who were these people who in real life aren't my people?
And what of this child that died?

Dad, The VA, and Court TV

I had another unusual dream last night.
To me,
a dream is unusual when something
just isn't quite right.
O, I know.
Dreams are always
full of imagery and symbols.
I guess this particular dream was unusual
because it's another dream with my father
who is deceased.

I dreamt I was volunteering
in some sort of nursing home.
Acutally,
it was more like a veteran's hospital.
Everyone there was a vet.
Everyone.
They all had a story to tell.

I was volunteering
with lunch duty.
I would help serve the food,
poor the juice and what not.

It was getting so the place
expected me to be there
almost every day.
It started interfering with my job.
So,
I let them know that I would not be coming
as often as I had.
They would need to make other arrangements
for others to volunteer and help out.

I told them that I would only come in
on certain days.
And on those days
I would be coming in to visit with my father.
I had been working there so much
that even though my father was a resident there
I never got an opportunity to visit with him.

On the first of my visits to my father,
I had to miss work.
But I didn't mind.
I just told my pastor (I work for a church)
that this was something I had to.
He didn't like the idea of my missing work,
but he understood.

When I went to see my father,
he was sitting in a chair watching TV
in some sort of community room.
In my dream,
my dad had had a stroke
and so could no longer speak.
But I could tell that he was sad.
And then I saw that it was the program on TV.
I switched it over to court TV.
Dad always liked stuff
about court, detectives, politics, etc.
And with that channel switch
he became very happy.

The other residents
who were in the room
weren't too happy.
But then I told them to calm down,
that it was only for a little while
as I visited with my dad,
then I would switch the channel back.

In real life,
my dad was a veteran,
though he never had a stroke.
Nor was he ever confined
to any place like that as a resident.
Also,
my dad died several years ago.

So,
what does it mean
that he wanted me to visit him?
What does it mean
that even though I spent time with him
he could not speak?
Why was I working all around him,
but not with him?

The Voice Mail

Last night I had a short,
but rather interesting dream.

I dreamt that my cell phone beeped
letting me know that I had a new voice mail message.
So, I listened to it.

The voice was that says,
"You have one new message,"
was actually the voice in the message.

She said that my father was going to call me
on the phone at such and such a day
and such a such a time.
Sadly, I don't remember the day and time
that she said this would happen.

I remember thinking that it was weird
the "voice mail voice" would give me this message.

The thing is,
my father died several years ago.