Theresa Lewis

When I am tired during the day I seldom go to bed for a nap, unless I am sick. My favourite place to nap is in my overstuffed pink armchair. I have had some awesome naps in that chair. Usually, I tuck my hands under my legs and go off to sleep. That is how it was one day a few years ago.

I was in the twilight stage of sleep when images flood my mind as sleep is taking me to a deeper level. Suddenly, I saw my brother falling backwards onto me. I shot my hands forward and caught him and effortlessly stood him back up again. I actually felt his physical being in my two hands. I woke up and my heart was pounding out of my chest. I couldn’t wrap my brain around what had just happened. I told my husband who said it was a dream, but to me it felt so real. I looked down at my hands and knew I had felt him.

I immediately called my brother and asked him if he was okay. He assured me that he was just fine and wondered why I had called. I asked him if he had just fallen and he said no, he had not, but then he clarified his statement.

He said he had been standing on a moss covered rock while explaining something about his farm to his new manager. He said the moss split and he slipped backwards, but, he said, the strangest thing happened. He said he was able to right himself without falling. He said it was the first time he can ever remember starting to fall and being able to save himself. I told him what I had just experienced. There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. He was freaked out by what I told him. I told him to be more careful where he stands because I might not be there to save him the next time.

My brother is what some might call clumsy. In our family, we always said he is an accident looking for a place to happen. He is the sort of person who trips over his own shadow. Whenever he trips, he lands face down on the ground. There is no saving himself. So for him not to have fallen that day was, in his mind, nothing short of a miracle.