The early morning hours...

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart so long. 

If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can

be together all the time.”

- Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbs

It was…as usual…GREAT to see her. 

Through many of our years we have been close to one another and for many years as children and adults, lived in the same house.  There were periods of time when we were separated by school or work, but even then we never failed to find some one-on-one time we treasured.

Same family, same name…

As youngsters we didn’t much value family.  You know the kind of thing that happens.  You grow up in the same house and that is pretty much your entire world. 

In the beginning, you come to the planet ‘…first come first serve…’  For some reason, life doesn’t take dinner reservations.  In fact, when you come to the party, there is no way to know who will even be there!

When I arrived, there was already a ‘place holder’ in the family unit.  My older sister Anne had made her entrance two years earlier – I soon discovered she was the life of the party.  At first I didn’t even realize she was there, but slowly it became apparent someone other than me was getting attention in the space I had come to occupy.

Wait...what about me?

A short two years later, I found myself in the same position as my older sister, when Nancy appeared on the scene.  Quite unexpectedly, one day in May, mother went away for a few days.  She returned with another little person in tow…who invited this person to the dance??  I mean, for two years it had been a struggle getting the kind of attention I wanted in the presence of a more mature and experienced sibling.

It’s hard to say exactly what my older sister felt when suddenly the singular attention she had been receiving turned in to a 50/50 profit sharing deal – I do know what I felt when it became 33/33/33.  My stock had been diluted without a moment’s consultation on the part of my parents…mildly free floating anxiety describes it best.  I mean, what if the shares got further diluted to say 25% or 20%?

Time…what a deal!

As the years passed, this rivalry for attention seemed to shift from:

“Hey, what about me?” to

“Hey, what are you up to?” to

“Hey, you are kind of interesting,” to

“Hey, what’s been going on in your life?” to

“Hey, I’m looking forward to seeing you on the holiday,” to

“Hey, you have no idea how much I love you!”

And so here she was once again.  All Nancy had to do was get out of the car, walk in the room, turn on the smile, slip her arms around me and all was right with the world.  She has the gift you know…the kind that no amount of childhood rivalry or seeking for attention can overcome.  Two things happen every time I see her, even without her speaking a word…I feel a sense of assurance, and for some totally unknown reason, a sense of confidence that whatever has been challenging in the given moment can be overcome.

Family – a team sport…

It was like this today.  She had been gone on business for a while and was coming home.  If you ever played a team sport you will understand the relationship I have with my sister.

At first, in any game, the key is to learn the fundamentals.  This is a totally self-focused task – learn to dribble the ball…run drills…do certain plays from the recipe book…try not to look silly.  Then the game begins.  Early in the process, many mistakes are made…passes dropped…shots missed…other players not being where they are supposed to be.

Once the fundamentals become part of the skill set – winning is the goal!  Mistakes aside, winning is what it is all about isn’t it?  The attention goes to the winner!  What could be better than that??

If you are fortunate to play the game long enough, however, something magical begins to happen.  Without realizing it, you know where the other players are almost by instinct…dribbling, passing, shooting…all of that, simply vehicles for a more mature experience…the experience of love – love of the game.  No, that’s not right…a yearning and love for the integrated play with others as if you were one body, one spirit…simply ‘one.’  There is power in that kind of ‘one.’  Reminiscent of Christ’s prayer in the garden near the end of his life “…make them one, as you and I are one…”

My relationship with Nancy is like that.  So when she came by last night it was all of the above and more.  The ‘knowing’ as it has been for decades…the unspoken feeding we share with one another from a game we have nurtured and grown and understand so well.

A dinner date…

We had some pizza, but that was only an excuse.  Pizza…geeze, we both have an unnatural capacity for the stuff.  I try to keep away from it because I like it so much…I have almost no control – nor does she.  We have this addiction, so it’s usually best to simply stay out of the danger zone – the pizza parlor!  Last night, we bit the bullet and ate our hearts out!

She brought me up to date on a couple of her projects.  I told her I was trying to write some, but it wasn’t easy.  Somehow, I felt I didn’t have the words to express the things I felt.  She looked over the table and said what she often did, “You can do it kiddo.  It just takes a little determined focus.”  We laughed a little and shared another story or two, catching up on people we both knew. 

She was telling me about one of the guys at work that had been giving her a hard time.  This narrative has been part of our family dialogue for all of my life…the difficulty women have…in particular the issues professional women often face, to which men seem oblivious…frequently promote.  While a mild irritant, she never complained, but didn’t hesitate to fill me in on the ‘…girl’s perspective…’

Something was wrong…

She was just getting to the point of her story, when I felt a little disoriented.  I wondered for a second if maybe something in the pizza had disagreed with me.  I tried to focus on her conversation, but felt the room slipping away…I tried to get up, but couldn’t.  Someone was tapping me on the shoulder as I fought to stay alert - "...no, no wait a minute..."

Through the mist that accompanies the moments of moving from sleep to awake, I realized it had been a dream.  How could it have been, it was so real…I tried to get back to the pizza parlor to no avail….the ‘person’ tapping me on the shoulder was Leah, one of our cats, reminding me of our morning ritual …was she the dream and Nancy the reality?  I love that cat, but damn – the morning had come.

REM sleep is the part of the cycle that ushers us in and out of the deep sleep necessary for undistracted maintenance and healing to take place in our bodies.  It is the time, going in and coming out, where the dream world fills us with possibilities.  It is a place where the strangest of circumstances seem to be absolutely real, with an odd sort of order.  There have been only a few times, when my dreams have been so reality based…where waking has appeared to be the illusion.

Last night was one such dream.  I have little doubt this night vision could be explored for deep-rooted psychological analysis – I have little interest in that.  Waking to the reality of Nancy’s devastating illness was like finding myself in a bare room, in a small building in the middle of a bleak desert.  An emotional reality  – with all the issues surrounding this – I do not allow myself to fully embrace.

There is just a little more…

Dreams have a way of healing sometimes, or at the very least, help bring vibrancy to moments that are otherwise unwelcoming and overwhelming.  In moments like this, I tell her quietly in my heart, that I am trying to cope, but don’t have the words to express the way I feel.  I sense her looking over the table and saying what she so often did, “You can do it kiddo.  It just takes a little determined focus.”


- ted