I had a dream the other night where I came upon a departed loved one who was deeply involved in doing something, but I demanded his attention none the less. He turned to me and told me that I had “Peabodied” him; in essence I had shown up unannounced and taken him away from something important, demanding his full attention.  He was good natured about it and let me know that he would in fact return this in kind, he would “Peabody” me sometime in the future, without warning, he would arrive and I would have to stop and deal with his demands. His smile was disarming, and I actually look forward to this.

However, our dreams are often symbols of our waking life, entangled in our unconscious reaching out to us in ways our waking life cannot always decipher.

I realized this morning, after the most recent episodes of seizures and auras that my son had this week that Epilepsy has become our “Peabody” in life. It arrives unannounced, at any moment, demanding my attention and my son’s.  It is an uninvited guest that disrupts the rhythm of our days and nights, often rebooting the course of the events we had planned.

It is an invisible enemy, elusive and uncontrolled, neither medications nor brain surgery has eradicated it from my son’s life. It has become the expected unexpected. I still believe one day it will slip away, initially unnoticed, tired of the game, releasing its grip on our lives, for this I pray daily.  In the meantime, together we will endure being “Peabodied”.