​Dreaming…. A Short Story

​Thirty years ago, in the month of May, my sister Maggie married Gary. When they met, Maggie was a postal worker delivering mail on the streets in central Phoenix. Gary was a police officer working the same neighborhood. He recalls seeing her one day walking her route from house to house delivering mail and it was love at first sight for him. Two years later they married. Blending their families together with adult children and a teenager still at home to raise, they went through the adjustments of matrimony and committed to each other for life. 
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After their wedding, Maggie stopped working to manage their busy home life and Gary left the police department after his parents relentlessly insisted he leave the department. They worried about his safety. He then followed his lifelong desire to become a master woodworker. With a skill for large, complex wall sectionals, cabinets, and furniture, including our Pluma Studio custom cabinetry, he has an eye for detail and spatial configuration with anything wood related. He is talented.

Maggie and I talk and text often. Our baby sister Connie passed away two years ago, and our mom passed five years ago. Our mother was ninety-one and died of elderly related illness and our sister died of cancer after fighting the battle for several years. During the last years of her life, Connie would often ask Maggie, “Aren’t you tired?” Maggie, a high energy, busy and healthy, and matriarch of our family, would always answer, “No, I’m not tired.” I sensed Connie was projecting her exhaustion toward Maggie, voicing her own tired state of mind after years of cancer treatments and setbacks.  

This year, on Monday, the day after Easter Sunday, while talking on the phone, Maggie had a story to share with me. That night, on Sunday evening, she had a disturbing dream. In her dream she was lying in a bed with both mom and Connie, she lay between them, laughing and joking with each other, not uncommon for the women in our family. We have always been very close physically and emotionally. 

In her dream, while lying between them, Connie turned to face Maggie and asked, “Sis, aren’t you tired yet?”  Maggie came out of the dream, sat up startled and anxious. The dream was so real that her heart was pounding. Quietly, not to wake Gary, she got out of bed and went to the kitchen.  She had a panic attack and waited to calm down before going back to bed. She could not stop thinking that Connie was coming for her. A frightening thought in the middle of the night. 

She went back to bed and tried to fall asleep again. In the morning, going through their usual routine, Maggie and Gary sat on the family room sofa for their coffee. She had decided not to mention her dream to Gary. She was over the fear and had concluded it was only a dream. Within a few minutes of sitting beside her, Gary said he had a dream that evening and wanted to tell her about it. 

He began; “Last night I dreamed about my father and brother Phil.” (His father passed away years ago and brother passed a couple of years ago.) He went on, “I was sitting in a chair somewhere when I saw my father and brother walk by me. Dad was walking in front of Phil. I stood up to follow them and walking behind them I put both my hands on Phil’s shoulders. Phil stopped for a moment, looked back at me, and smiled, and then they both kept walking away from me.”  

They sat on the sofa as Maggie shared her dream with Gary. What were the chances of both dreaming of their deceased parent and sibling on the same night?  Maggie and Gary have a strong commitment to each other. Their marriage is a partnership to support each other, and they do most things together. They know what they are thinking and at times they finish each other’s sentences. And in this case, dream together.  

A dear friend recently said not all of life can be measured. How does one assess or evaluate a moment in time that is out of our sphere of understanding? There are no coincidences and there are many approaches to interpret dreams. And life continues to be mysterious and full of wonder. 
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There is so much in our lives that we cannot measure. But we can wonder beyond the limits of what we think we know. 

Love you Sis,
Hilda