Serving Six: Dreams

I don’t normally remember my dreams. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I wake up with a panic so real that I’m afraid I’m not actually waking up from a dream and my greatest fear in this journey has come true. Sometimes I wake up overjoyed after a much anticipated day and know that I’ve definitely just woken up from a dream. It’s funny how they are so different. But about the same thing.

When it comes to my brother there are two kinds of dreams.

The first, the happy. Every single time. It is the day he comes home. The day we have been waiting for for so long. The day that my parents and I walk in to that prison and my brother walks out of it with us. As a family. For the first time since 2006. For the first time we don’t have to leave him behind. We don’t have to see the deflated look on his face as he turns to walk back to his inside life. The first day in a really long time that we can sit down and eat a meal that doesn’t come out of a vending machine. Simply put. It is amazing. And I hate waking up. It’s sad to wake up from that. Because that happiness it still so far away. This dream. This currently unfulfilled dream is one of the things that I hate the most.

The second, the bad. Something bad happens. Not always the same thing. He’s been in a fight, hurt, stabbed, killed, you name it and I’ve probably dreamt it. They are frightening. Horrifying. And I’ve had more of them than I would ever care to count. They’ve gotten fewer and farther between in the last year or so, but they are never a welcome addition to my slumber. E V E R. I usually wake up crying from these dreams. And in a slight panic. I stumble, mostly still asleep, and check my phone. Just in case. Thankfully, I’ve never had a missed call of that sort. Once I realize that all is well I feel much better, but I do kind of worry about my brother until he calls next.

Dreaming. It’s a really hard part of this journey. And one I will not miss when it is finally over.