I have four sisters. Two dropped in a my dream last night, along with Mom. Time was spent thinking about Mom yesterday.86, she’s on a slow decline, but she fights to stave everything off and keep going. ‘How long can that fight continue’ is the natural question. I’ve witnessed it with others. I segued into thinking about Mom when she was my current age, remembering how she was at that time, comparing her to me, a flimsy exercise at best.

The dream started with Mom at my age. Twenty years younger, I was visiting her. She was bustling around as Mom spends her waking hours doing. She has lists and cleaning projects and her daughters and grandchildren. It was a busy scene. Not any home I knew from RL, I went up into Mom’s room during a still moment. A small white, square sink was in the corner of her room. Going to use it, I discovered the drain was heavily sealed with white tape. Odd, I thought, but they obviously don’t want it to be used.

I found bathroom downstairs. A double white sink, also square, was along one wall. I went to it and found those drains covered with white tape just like Mom’s sink.

I left the room and encountered my young sister — the little sister. I asked her about the drains. She replied that, yes, they had a clog.

I was appalled. And this was their solution? They needed to have that taken care of soon because winter was coming. If total plumbing failure came in the winter because of a clog, they’d have a real mess and it would be more expensive to address.

Everyone except Mom left, leaving Mom behind at home, and went to another sister’s house. Also a younger sister, she was my ‘little sister’ until another was born six years after her. She was deep into her career in the dream, as in RL, a banking VP. She handed me her black briefcase as we chatted. Goofing around, I opened it and found VHS and audio cassette tapes, along with her lunch in a brown paper bag. (The last is true for sis, too; she usually took a brown batag lunch to work. Still usually does in RL.) The lunch I understood, but the tapes? Oh, I get bored, she told me. Why didn’t she take an iPod or CDs or something? She didn’t know what those were. I realized I was thinking of things that were still in the future, and this dream was taking place in the past.

Leaving my sister’s house as a chattering, happy group, we headed down the street and across to a university. Arriving there, we encountered a group going through orientation. Focused on safety, they were talking about how people crossed the street, point out that the large crosswalks (which I was using as they said this) often go unused. As I reached the other side, my sister told me that she’d forgotten something and could I go back to her place and fetch it for her. Sure.

I turned around, checked traffic, and ran across the street. As I did, I heard the orientation leader say, “Many young people first arriving here often cross the street just by running across it wherever they are, regardless of traffic.”

Well, I was using the crosswalk, I told myself, even though I was amused, so I’m not like them! I ran down the street to sis’s place, found the forgotten folder, and jogged out. She called as I did, telling me that they’re at another location, and gave me directions for how to get there because I was visiting and didn’t know the area.

Well, I was the crosswalk by that point. I didn’t have the light but I checked the traffic and veered off the crosswalk at a easy jog as the orientation group stood by, talking about proper safety when crossing the street. At that point, I looked at the leader and realized it was the young man who married one of my nieces. Confusion fell on me because the niece and her future husband weren’t born yet, although my sister — the middle youngest one — was pregnant with the girl and was due in a few months.

With that in mind, I hailed him, confirming his name and saying, hello. He replied that he wasn’t ready to meet me yet, and that wasn’t going to happen if I crossed the street unsafely as I’d just done. My phone rang at that point with my sister asking me where I was. Holding the phone up, I used it to find her and shift myself to her location.

Dream end.