My young son has begun to talk about his dreams; strange dreams to him. He's falling and calling out to someone below, Please catch me, but they can't hear and they don't answer.  In his terror he falls until he awakens.

He stands before me now, cut on one knee, an elbow, and both of his hands. This time it's his lame leg, not his dreams, that sent him tumbling head first. As he throws the heavy limb ahead of him, he sometimes throws it too far to the right and the cross up sends him sprawling on the grass if he's lucky; on something less forgiving if he's not. Gravity is his enemy, always conspiring with the roots of trees and the shoulders of washout stones To bring him down.

He has fallen in the drive this time. The bloodied skin is raised like Braille from the impress of the gravel. While his sister sings to him, I minister to his wounds, visiting the stations of his pain with alcohol and cotton.  I gently wrap the gauze around the backs of his hands and he turns his palms upward in a saint-like gesture, blessing me with a smile.

Then I go inside to write a long overdue letter to a friend. I tell my friend  I've been on a kind of precipice myself, fearing the winds that threaten to sweep me off the ledge I'm clinging to.  There are days when life with my son is challenging, and a dark horizon looms three hundred and sixty degrees around me.  And then there are those days of singing blue sky,when I know I'm a lucky to have him.  On those days my heart is an eagle's feather and I am made for rough winds.

My friend is trying to be helpful when he says he's there for me. He says to call if I need him.  I would call, but my voice is lost in the chasm between us. The closest of friends can drift apart under duress.

What can I tell you, son, about those dreams that alarm you?  This flesh is too heavy for the spirit's wings to lift us. Each of us in his way is a child of the falling-dream, an echo of the unanswered call, and ours is a constant prayer for the sudden awakening.