Nightmare

Last night, or early this morning, I woke up from a terrifying and very real nightmare.  I guess what makes a nightmare all the more terrifying is that while you are asleep your brain believes what it is seeing.  However, I was still terrified when I woke up because my daytime brain has actually wondered if something like my nightmare could happen.  The possibility of it makes it even worse.

**This disclaimer is to let you know that I do not claim to have prophetic dreams, where things I dream about then become reality...so continue reading at your own discretion and understand that I am not foretelling something terrible, just relating a what caused a horrible night's sleep.***

In my dream I saw my family having some sort of family celebration at my home.  It was warmer weather since some people were out on the back patio, and the french doors off the dining room were open.  I was out on the front lawn with Nephew #2 and we were chatting about something I couldn't understand.  Suddenly nephew's dad drove up and parked his truck in front of my house.  His new wife and young son were in the passenger side.  They stayed there while nephew's dad got out and angrily walked to the front door with a gun in his hand.  Nephew and I ran in after him, yelling for people to watch out.  Our warnings were never heard as nephew's dad opened fire on the group in the back of the house and on the patio.  Nephew and I were screaming together and suddenly the sound stopped and the next moment I was awake and panting for breath.

It was horrible.

Now, I don't have any idea what all this would mean to someone who buys into dream analysis, other than I am afraid of my ex-brother-in-law.  And I probably, if I was honest with myself, wouldn't put it past him to do harm to those in my family.  He is a pretty angry guy, and since their divorce he seems to believe he has cause to be that level of "angry".  But I have not really considered this playing out like my nightmare showed me.  I woke up panicked and terrified and distressed.

I quickly recognized that it was just a dream, and therefore I didn't have any reason to get upset by it in reality.  But the thought was still there, deep set in my subconscious.  That can't be good.

I go to court with my sister in early March again.  Each time I do I worry about the outcome of the day, of the ineffective words of the judge or commissioner, of the legal costs of the day and the preceding preparation by my sister's attorney and the emotional costs of the day that will have to be paid over the next weeks and months as we deal with the fall out of another's choices and the lack of accountability with which he is held. 

That is probably the worst part of it.  I simply don't think the system works.  I don't believe the judge when he "lays down the law" because for nearly four years is hasn't mattered.  The threats are empty and hollow.  And she still has to cope every day with angry boys who are being told opposite things from their parents.  She deals with the financial deprivation that comes with fighting a good fight. And we all deal with the emotional investment of years given to attempted understanding and support for something we can't see the end of.

I woke up with chills, a headache, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I know it was only a nightmare, and I only have to deal with these feelings each time a court date draws closer, but she lives this every day.  She copes with decisions made by others every day.  She lives with her boys and must endure the repercussions of their feelings when they are being lied to and fed a steady stream of anger, mistrust and blame pointed at their mother each time they visit their dad.

Is she blameless in this scenario?  No, not completely, but I know how hard she is trying to do right by her boys since this whole thing started.  And I also realize that I have not heard his side of the story, but I do know he lied to me too many times to count, so I am leery to want to know his side in general, and certainly not the particulars.  I am already too close to the situation to be objective.  Which is why I feel physically ill every time I go to these legal things.

Now even my sleep is disturbed by the terrible "what if" scenarios.  I just pray for peace for all the parties involved.  And with that, I hope that means me as well.