A Dream to Teach Perspective

I won't make up any names or descriptions of faces. I'll only tell this dream as I saw and heard it almost a year ago. I've procrastinated in sharing it. I remember I could almost feel the dust blowing through her shattered home. I'll describe every detail, making the dream seem longer, but it only flashed before my eyes a little more than 10 seconds.

The first thing I heard was the bitter cracks of her cries and slow, aimless sweeping. Air escapes from her clenched teeth in sharp breaths. Her feet slowly slid around shattered tables, chairs and the shelves that fell from the walls. There was not much a broom could do, but she swept in short strokes, sometimes barely touching the floor, and she didn't seem to notice. Much sunlight illuminated the swirls of brown clouds around her, more than what would come from any window - up above, most of the roof was gone.

she paused, just for a second - there was a sound, the tiniest of sniffles, no whimpers, just the sniffles of a child.

Holding onto the cracked wall, she made her way around and over the rubbish that used to be her furniture to the door. There, standing in a heap of palm leaves was a small girl of about 7 with a bloody, outstretched arm towards no one in particular, shivering. And as she halted there, holding her black veil against the dusty wind, I felt she was hopeful beyond her understanding. There was blood on the houses, blood in the streets but this tiny child, also bloody, gave her hope.

In a second, I saw them back inside. The woman had set the child on her kitchen counter, and begun to stitch closed the long, deep cut in her small arm. Amazingly, while a needle pushed through the child's tender skin, her eyes gazed upon her heartbroken caretaker. The child's eyes were large, fixed and full of adoration and as her skin was sown shut, she made not one cry and her eyes stayed fixed on the woman as they were wholly concentrated one on the other. And that's the last I saw of them: The child's eyes, like a doe, fixed on the woman's face and this woman hunched over the child, tending to her deep wound.

There is much comfort in tending and being tended to without excessive focus on our hurts and wounds. This dream helped me to understand someone I knew, and it helped me better understand my own heart. In grief, this woman still had the need to be needed. The child had a greater need than the deep slash on her arm: the need to be nurtured.

Sometimes is hurts to be helped, there is a sowing and stitching of the flesh and it feels like its taking forever. Can I be helped with patience and gratitude? Can I help and be comforted by the opportunity to help? I can't say I'm consistently able to.

This dream wasn't meant to preach to me or anyone else. Just Imagine the eyes of that child on this woman, large with wonder, both of them completely occupied with the other, submerged in compassion and gentleness and feel something about it if you can.

On a realistic note, a small child that age would be squirming and whining in such situations- I know that. but I hope this can be bypassed to see something deeper. Her adoration warmed my heart. The hope in the woman's heart in response to finding her spoke something to me and I hope it means something to someone else. Compassion is powerful.