It was the briefest of dreams but it crackled and was as tangible as my eighty- pound black fur snoring machine that lay next to me, and it made me smile. Even after Howard Stern started to give me his gentle nudge that he does every morning, I wasn’t thrown into the usual early morning ice skid of the truth but I was smiling, and fulfilled.

Usually the covered wagons don’t settle down long enough to build a fire for a dream, and in the past two years and two months, to the day, there’ve been woefully few that featured Billy as the star attraction. But this morning, at dawn, for a few fleeting moments…

At no place in particular, I was standing a few paces away from Billy and we were facing one another. We approached and I took his face in my hands and we kissed; the staccato rhythm was all our own. He was warm and real, and when I woke up, I could swear I still felt that familiar little tickle of his mustache. Yeah. That made me smile. And thankful.