Have you thanked your pediatrician lately?

So I had another of those strange dreams where: 1) I was dancing, and 2) I knew I was dreaming. I was attending a ball at the old STC Social Hall (why oh why does my subconscious looove my icky high school?), and was dancing, no, waltzing with one of my friends in the office---the one who stoops and whose hair perpetually falls into his eyes. And who was so fluid and slippery he turned into a fish in my arms.

Covered in fishy muck, I was pulled away from the crowd by my mother. Suddenly we were walking in the old Lungsod ng Kabataan, which made me panic. This chidren's hospital, with its life-size paintings of Imelda Marcos and hundreds of kids frolicking on the walls, fueled my childhood fears of doctors and injections. Not to mention Imelda. I wanted to wake up from the dream already, but my mother nudged me and said we were going to see Dr. Bibiano Reyes, my pediatrician.

I looked at my watch. "But it's 10 p.m.!" I said. She said, "Oh, he's sure to be up working late. You have to see him." So we rounded the corner, with the painted Malakas and Maganda coming out of the bamboo stalks on the walls, and I went into his office. It still held framed pictures of The Muppets and Kermit the Frog on one wall. And Dr. Bibiano, who was my tita's pediatrician before me, looked even more emaciated than I remember, his hair pure white, his eyes sunken, his hands bony. As a kid, I was terrified of him. In the dream, I wanted to hug this tired old man, who could have been the grandfather I never knew.

He motioned to me to move outside, and I saw two patients on hospital beds at the end of the room. He explained that the hospital was running out of rooms, and he had to take care of these dying kids overnight. Then he said, "How are you? I hear you're a writer now. I even have a copy of your book." And sure enough, he was rifling through a tattered copy of Reluctant Firewalker the chapbook.

I got teary-eyed from guilt that I'd never once thought of saying hello to him after my last check-up, when I was 16 and embarrassed at still being in a pedia's office with all the infants and pre-teens. I woke up for a few seconds, rubbed my pillow, and willed myself back into the dream with such frenetic urgency I felt like I was slammed back into my seat in a braking car. I patted Dr. Bibiano's back and gave a sappy monologue, thanking him for saving me from typhoid and bronchitis and dengue fever (twice!). He took both my hands in his, sighed, and said something I couldn't hear.

And I woke up. Looked for his number, but we don't have a copy of it anymore. I have the strangest feeling he might be dead.