I see them in my night dreams, two sisters of mine. They are interwoven through my dream stories and sometimes their children are there. Often there are more children than I knew about and the dream story becomes about that. When I awaken, if I have time, I think about the dream, and wonder if the children represent all the events and tidbits I don’t know about in their lives anymore. It’s odd. I never thought, when I was younger, that I would be a person who doesn’t speak to

Sometimes life just ups and punches you right in the gut. And then as your body automatically jerks forward, with an oomph that lets much-needed air out of your lungs and you struggle to get a breath, life comes down hard on the back of your head and this time, you fall forward all the way to the ground. You take more than a few seconds to raise your shoulders, wincing as you push down on your scraped palms, and as you painfully raise your head, life slaps you across the face