Nameless

NAMELESS

Surrounded by darkness, I awaken as if from sleep. I have not dreamed, and have no memory of yesterday, or any other day. I see nothing, and hear nothing, and yet there is no awareness of these things being missing. Seeming to float, I have no well-defined awareness of my own physical form.

I have awoken in a place that is somewhere between spirit and body, a place where my senses have begun a journey towards focus. At first, I'm only marginally aware of myself, but in time, I develop a sense that I am not alone. It is difficult to say how this discovery makes me feel, because I have nothing to compare it to. It is my reality. Somehow, just beyond my ability to say how, I know that someone is with me.

What begins as a spiritual sense develops into something new. Someone is here, and a hand touches me on the shoulder. I have no clear idea of what time has passed. It seems that I have awoken many times: sometimes carrying a faint memory of a previous time of wakefulness, sometimes not. The world I seem to be in is a world of the perpetual present, where little reflection occurs on what is or what will be. In spite of this tenuous hold on the past, time begins to bring a sense of the familiar, and a sense of expectation. During this time, I feel a hand on my shoulder, on my face, or sometimes clasped in my own hand. This is the world that is. Although I cannot see, I have begun to reach out with my own hand to find my companion. The world that is seems to contain two people. While I couldn't put it into words, my heart felt a touch more profound than the touch of the hand.

Sounds. A sensation so new. Something repeats over and over without ever stopping, and underneath that sound is another like it, but somehow smaller and quicker. When I notice these sounds, I am aware of the fact that I have been hearing them without noticing them. Other faint echoes seem to filter in. With little sense of what meaning means I find meaning in the sounds. My mind isn't focused enough to find meaning to my intellect, but I find some sounds have meaning to my heart: that part that has been awakened by my companion's touch.

Emotion. It becomes a bridge that spans time that cannot be spanned by the memory span that is still short-lived. Somehow there is a continuity that is now successfully connecting the times when I am awake. I cannot name my companion: somehow I don't even know what a name is. And yet, while my mind cannot, my heart begins to think of her as the one who makes the smaller sound, the fainter drum-beat. When we are close, I hear it more clearly, and when I wake up, the sound comforts me.

Taste and smell steal upon me in much the way sounds did. I don't notice at first, but sometimes, there are changes and I would notice. Sweetness, bitterness, things in between that hint of something larger than my experience.

My world seems to be shrinking. It's more crowded. My companion and I seem to be side by side constantly now. Often we wake and sleep at the same time, but sometimes she is still, and rests her head on my shoulder.

Sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, and now: something new. Shadows without form. Patches of light. A silhouette.

Touch and sounds, smell and taste, and sight. Under it all, another sense, an emotional intelligence. The beginnings of focused reason, and still, underneath, the heart of hearts.

She stirs, and pulls closer. Her touch on my hand is different. Since I first awoke, change has been relentless. A change in touch is yet another change. I reach out and touch her face and she pulls away. Without ever talking, we have talked. Without knowing myself, I have come to deem her as part of me. Separation, although brief, is my first memory of pain. What is, is, right? I will adjust.

The taste and smell have changed, and the sound as well. I taste bitterness, and I smell pain. The physical pain is not mine, but I sense and share her distress. I take her hand, and sense that her spirit is struggling for freedom from a body that has somehow been broken. The drum-beat she makes seems quickened.

Then, somehow, in a dreamlike state, I see and hear clearly for a moment. I see her and myself, not as we were, but standing in a place of light. Beauty is all around us. There is no pain in her eyes. She looks at me, with her hand in mine, and clearly says, "Brother, I love you. Thank you for keeping me company." She smiles at me, then turns to go.

In this place of beauty, I see joy and healing, and the pain from a moment before is gone. I step to follow, but my steps do not carry me forward. I tighten my grip on her hand, but it seems to dissolve in my grasp. Falling down, I begin to remember the pain. As it was at the beginning of my memory, I am making a journey from spirit to body. This time, however, I am aware.

I begin to descend, and as I do, I can no longer see her. I begin to realize that she will be forgotten. My mind still cannot name her, and I know she is lost to me. At the same time, my heart has received a mark, a brand. In the moments that follow I know that as I begin to forget, the pain will remain. It will be a pain without a name. How long? When will I remember? Will it be as I see my other sisters? When I fall in love? When I have a daughter? I do not know.

What I do know is this. Some day, I will make another journey, from body back to spirit. When I arrive, she will be there, and I will remember. Today, what I do is to guess, to suppose. I try to give her a name. Today, questions remain unanswered, and pain remains unnamed. Tomorrow is another story. Perhaps not today's tomorrow, but definitely some other tomorrow's tomorrow, I will be there. What is broken will be healed. The tears will be wiped away. Tomorrow.

Goodbye, my sister. I'll see you later. Thanks for keeping me company. I love you.

Dear God, sustain me til these tears are wiped away.
Your adopted son.