Forgot (the dreams of forgotten sheep electrified to oblivion).

Three-year old boy holds popsicle in front of his face on a warm summer afternoon

He stumbled out in a cheerful daze, pajama clad, hair electrified blond and fighting for position to all points of compass.

His elder (and only) sister greeted him with warmth.

What did you dream about?

he asked her.

I don’t remember,
she said kindly.
What did you dream about?

He responded groggily, sunshine splitting the space below his nose and between his ears.

I don’t remember either.
he paused, contemplative.
Can you help me remember?
I had a dream but I don’t remember it and something was chasing me.
Do you remember what it was about?

——

What a wonderful thing to want help with,
and
what a wonderful thing that each of us is blessed with the ability to have a simultaneously fragile and robust memory, and to possess the ability to

keep others out of our minds.

I have told our children many times:

“You know who your parents are. We ask questions, we carry on conversations, we care about you and your lives and nothing’s ever gonna change that. We’ll always do our best to appropriately respect boundaries you need to have at different stages in your life, but always know this:
We’re never going to stop asking how you’re doing, and checking on you, and simply engaging and conversing and asking questions.
So when it seems like you might be struggling with something, or have something on your mind, or be grappling with an emotion or situation that’s tough, then we’re gonna ask.
We’re not gonna sit on the sidelines. You might need to ask use or tell us, that you need space, you need privacy, you need us to be on the sidelines. And that’s okay. It’ll be tough - it is tough. But we’ll try hard to respect that. But you gotta have the confidence to speak up and tell us.
Because we’re not gonna assume that you’ll just come to us every time with something you wanna talk about, or something you’re feeling, or something tough. Of course we want you to know you always can, always, always, always. But it’s tough to know how to bring those things up sometimes, so that’s one of our jobs right now, is to bring them up and be proactive about asking.
We’re gonna ask. We’re gonna ask, and we’re gonna care, and we’re not gonna preemptively assume that if something’s not okay, you’re gonna bring it up to us every single time. So we’re gonna ask.
But here’s the other thing: we’re gonna ask. But it’s your head. What’s in your head, your heart, those are yours. The thoughts, the feelings, the emotions. They’re yours. Nobody, nobody, not even us, nobody has the right to force their way in there. It is your mind, your heart. You open up when you want to open up.
Just know that we’ll keep knocking on those doors your whole life, and sometimes we’ll be annoying about it, and you’ll have to tell us to get off the front porch, out of the yard, and just vacate the area for a bit.
That’s okay.
So when it comes to the idea of helping each other out, well, there’s a lot of different ways we can lean on each other; a lot of different ways we can provide support.
I love, love the idea that a three-year old would ask for help remembering his own dream.
And I am so, so grateful that it’s something that nobody has the ability to help him out with.
His memories are his to remember, and his to forget, and