There are some unforgettable dreams so strange or so beautiful you find them difficult to share with others. But one dream I must tell about, for I believe it was from God.
Some years ago when I was living in Portland, Oregon, I dreamed I was a famous musician. A young reporter from New York came to interview me. She was beautiful, with lustrous auburn hair and warm, friendly eyes with crinkly laugh lines.
I awoke with my heart pounding. Though I doubted I would ever be famous, I felt certain that God had shown me the woman I would marry. I called her my Dream Princess.
Marriage, however, seemed distant. Even though I was 39, I still hadn’t made much of my life. My ambition was to become a published writer. I had written stories, plays, poems and books, but none had seen print. To support myself, I worked for an auto dealership, washing and selling cars. In my spare time I refereed at school athletic events.
Because I firmly believed the promise that God would guide me, I decided to move to New York City. That’s where the publishers are. Friends and most of my nine brothers and sisters ridiculed me. “You need contacts, Joe,” warned one. “The city will eat you up,” said another, laughing. “You’ll be glad to come back to Portland.”
My answer was to buy a one-way Amtrak ticket to New York. In late June 1991, I boarded the train after saying goodbye to my sister, brother-in-law and nephew. One of my two suitcases held all the books, stories, plays and poems I had written, along with $400.
On July 4, I arrived in bustling Penn Station. I set down my suitcases to check the hotel address. When I leaned over to pick them up, the one with my manuscripts and money was gone! Astonished and dumbfounded, I found a policeman. All he could recommend was to file a report. “Welcome to New York,” someone said, snickering. All I had left was $100 in my wallet. I checked into a hotel and started looking for work. A few days later, on an evening stroll, I was mugged. I lost my cash and ID. I couldn’t believe it. Twice in one week! “You gotta be careful,” advised the hotel clerk, shrugging his shoulders.
Meanwhile, no publisher was hiring. I searched for any kind of job, but it seemed hopeless. I felt I was at least becoming streetwise, until I went to the restroom in Grand Central Station. Once again I was mugged. This time I was slammed against the wall, and a shiny blade was pressed against my stomach before my assailant fled. Penniless, I went to Traveler’s Aid. They advised me to call my family. No way, I vowed. I couldn’t face the “I told you so’s.” With no place to live, I joined New York’s homeless and hungry. The aroma wafting from restaurants tied my stomach in knots. I stared hungrily at half-eaten food in street-corner trash baskets.
Someone said that the Church of St. Agnes near Grand Central Station had a drop-in center where some 400 people gathered to eat every night. I felt fortunate to join them, but I didn’t feel right sleeping there. It was still summer, so I slept in doorways and on park benches. Sometimes I rode the subway or walked the streets all night. I soon learned to wrap myself in newspapers and lie on top of cardboard to stave off the night chill. But finding a job without a home address or identification was hopeless. That was the worst of it—feeling useless, not having anywhere to be, getting awakened by footsteps of lucky people hurrying to work.
Sometimes I thought of my Dream Princess, but now she too seemed a fading illusion. Desolate days blended into a gray emptiness. Some evenings found me in an all-night McDonald’s near Times Square, writing my thoughts in a notebook. Occasionally the manager let me sleep in the closed-off upstairs section.
Fall was coming on and one cold night I trudged through Herald Square. Despite the crowd, I felt alone. Sick at heart, I looked up into the murky sky and wondered if God had forgotten me. I thought of the Psalms my mom had had me memorize, in which the psalmist continually expressed his faith even in the grimmest circumstances. Leaning against an iron fence, I sighed: “Thank you, Lord, thank you for taking care of me today. Thank you for what you are going to do for me tomorrow. For whatever comes into my life, I thank you.”
I had no idea he was going to answer so quickly. Within a few days I was assigned a bed two nights a week in a shelter in Astoria, Queens.
As I signed in at the table, a young woman walked in from the kitchen. I looked up and my heart skipped a beat. There was my Dream Princess! I stared at her lustrous auburn hair. She had friendly eyes and there was a glow about her face as she walked across the room. My hands trembled and I began composing a love song in my mind.
Haltingly I struck up a conversation. Her name was Carol Ann Perkins. She was a volunteer worker in her mid 40s. She was polite and we talked a bit about my writing aspirations; then she left. But before she was out the door I had finished her song in my mind. A few days later I went to another shelter, at the Community United Methodist Church in Jackson Heights, where I had come to know the pastor, the Reverend Austin H. Armitstead. He gave me a typewriter and I typed out the song about my Dream Princess.
Meeting Carol Ann sparked a positive change in my life. I found a part-time job refereeing high school and college athletic events. My self-confidence grew.
Three weeks after meeting Carol Ann, I was again a guest at the shelter where she was a volunteer. Having saved a little money, I asked her out to lunch. For a moment I was afraid she was going to turn me down. Then, smiling, she hesitantly said yes. We went to a Roy Rogers and over hamburgers fell into easy conversation. I could see there was hurt in her eyes, and I cautiously drew her out. She said she had just ended a relationship with someone and then quickly changed the subject. We parted as friends, but that was all.
Even so, I excitedly phoned my mother about finding my Dream Princess. She said she would pray for her. I asked Carol Ann out again, and this time I brought her a single red rose. For the next four months our relationship continued over lunches, but always on a casual, friendly basis, and obviously not going anywhere. I, of course, was head over heels in love but didn’t want to push myself.
“Oh, Father,” I prayed, “this is the girl you showed me in my dream, but she doesn’t seem interested in me at all. What should I do?” It turned out I didn’t have to do anything. A few days later I discovered a new Carol Ann. I sensed a special warmth in her green eyes, and when she placed her hand on mine as we talked, I was ecstatic.
Later I learned that a friend of hers was making a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Carol Ann had given her a prayer petition to take, asking for “someone who is kind and gentle, good and loving and only has eyes for me.” It was then she realized that the one courting her was all of those things.
On February 12, 1992, I got down on one knee and with a red rose in hand asked Carol Ann to marry me. Our wedding was officiated by pastor Armitstead and Bishop Douglas L. Trees. A friend, Frank Scafuri, sang “Dreamer, I Wanna Be With You,” the song he and I composed from the words I wrote after I first saw Carol Ann.
Since then we have made beautiful music together, and every week my Dream Princess still receives a single red rose from me. Carol Ann and I are both working and we volunteer at the two church shelters where I once slept.
Every so often someone down and out looks at me with pain-filled eyes and asks, “How can you possibly understand what I’m going through?” I sit down with him, put my arm around his shoulders and explain I know exactly what he’s going through. I tell him God gives each of us a dream. And if we follow his will, pray and hold on to our faith even through the darkest times, our dreams will come true. Then I tell him about Carol Ann.
