A repeating dream born of a yearning for solace. No, not really a dream.  More a nightmare of a different sort where the sudden appearance of a dial phone transforms me into a relentless pursuer.  A series of events, where I stumble over one into another, the phone line is silent; “this number is no longer in service;”  I can’t recall the number as I dial; a nearby phone book opens up to blank pages; I have no coins; my mind goes blank when I pick up the receiver.  Failure becomes an enemy which I fight, again and again, until waking releases me.

Are these incessant-themed dreams a telling of memories when the house settled into night?  Those moments of private passage where thoughts and images become ethereal and reality is colored by deep silence and blinding darkness?  And then…unexpectedly consciousness responds to a gentle, “ring ring” with, “hello.”  Uninterrupted exchanges between sisters, separated by darkness—confiding, sharing, questioning—creating our night time stories and lulling us into sleep?

Within a family of deafness, it was you—the eldest—who heard my night cries…my first spoken words.  And in exchange, it was I who acknowledged you as I heard your voice especially within the stilled silence of night. 

Are these dreams an attempt to reconnect with childhood moments of friendship, of sisterhood, of validation?  Or, an obsessive voice calling for another in the darkness of despair?   A child’s soul—voiceless—hidden within the darkness of absolute silence decrying the definite disconnection by death?  

Within this day of remembrance, I wish to know that my prayers pierced death’s barrier and you hear my deep gratitude for the solace you nourished within our childhood as well as my hope that these foundations of our sisterhood that have intertwined within the passage of time will awaken to a renewed togetherness.