Last night I dreamed.......

.... thatI got a call. It was just a dream, but it felt very real since something very close has happened before. In this dream call, I was told that one of my children had a 4 month prognosis for life, no margin, no possibility of doubt.

In my dream, everything was so real and clear. I remember:

• How I felt at the detached, dismissive, bureaucratic tone of the caller. I remember asking what we could do to work against the prognosis, and what we could do to make the child more comfortable. I remember the impersonal, indifferent answer.
• How I wrote down the name of the disease and determined to research and fight. Done that before, with my intellectual soldier husband, and sometimes it made a big difference.
  
• How my vision for our next few months of family life suddenly clicked onto a different track. One geared towards the preciousness and respect and care for the child's life no matter the outcome. That has happened before, too.
• How I knew exactly who I would call, and why
  

I know why I dreamed this last night and that's why I'm writing it out here. I woke up feeling not so much relieved that it was a dream, but convicted that I need to live more as if I had just a few months to live. There are so many things I would not so much DO differently, but hold in my heart and spirit and soul differently, if I knew there was a time limit. It was just a dream last night. But we have been on a road like that before in reality, and there are people in the world living it now.

So, please say a prayer for Nicole and her little family. There are others out there too, living that pain and sorrow and suspense. There is a very fragile curtain between our lives and theirs. In so many ways, through the Communion of the Church, they are our own family even if we do not know them personally. Hug your children, and offer your little sorrows and trials for the sake of those ones.