My life changes because I see with new eyes in my dreams.

In a dream, I walk up the old stone stairway from the driveway to Nanny’s front yard.  My head is bowed, not in the scaredy-cat way of my little girl self, but in an honoring way of my adult self.  I am calm.  I know that this will not be the last time that I walk up these gray slate steps, cut by my grandfather.  I look to the left, across the street.  At the back of the stone house, near the garden, is a gravesite that holds two graves.  It’s Mom and Uncle Pippi.  I am calm.  They are at peace.  They are together.

In a dream, I am in a dark room in Nanny’s house.  I am calm.  In the next room are my sisters and Mom.  My sisters are adults.  Sunshine pours in through the large livingroom window and fills the room.  They are laughing and I want to join them.

I know that I will be with them in a minute.  I bow my head and suddenly before me is an image of Mother Mary in the darkness.  I see her from the waist up.  Not in human form.  Her body and veil is made of strands of twinkling white lights that sway up and down, a moving motion of bright waves that take shape.

It is Mother Mary who sways me to see in a new way.  I am calm.