Last night I had a dream that I went to another reunion to meet J’s family. I dreamt that I couldn’t find them. Every time I sat down at a table or showed up at an event, I would find out that I had just missed them. Finally I found everyone posing for a formal picture.

“Wait!” I said. “I have Madison!” I reached into my purse and found Madison’s favorite doll, Baby April (named because I sat her on my desk and would look at her while J was pregnant and think about how the baby was due in April and by then, we would know what happened next).

“Maybe they won’t notice,” I thought. “Maybe it will turn into Madison after awhile.”

So I smoothed Baby April’s vinyl hair and handed her over — floppy body, plastic grin. Then I woke up.

I had the dream because J had us all over for dinner yesterday. She has a great new apartment and wanted to show it off. She made us pizza, salad and tea.

You can climb out her window to stand on the roof, which is an expanse wider than her own apartment. If you step up a bit, you can stand under the billboard that flashes out on the busy street below. Noah was fascinated. He spent most of the evening out there playing with J’s cat.

J joined the army. She’s leaving the first week of August. She’s been thinking about this for some time and finally took the plunge right after we got back from our trip out west. She’s been gearing up for it since the holidays, getting in shape to meet their requirements and rethinking some lifestyle choices. She decided to join now because her life is going so well and she was afraid that she would flake if she put it off ’til fall like she originally planned. If we weren’t at war, if we didn’t have a monkey for a president, I would think she made a responsible choice but now I’m just worried. I’ve been kind of in denial that they won’t send her over. She scored really high on her ASVAB so I figured that they would at least keep her out of the trenches. And they have but still, she knows she’ll go over because 98% of the troops who come through her base go over.

“Dawn,” she said last night. “You’re just going to have to accept it.”

I’m so proud of her. This hasn’t been an easy year by any stretch of the imagination and she has been so determined and brave. I’m not saying this in a “pat the little fellow on the head” voice (credit to Beverly Cleary’s Amy); I’m saying this because she has been heroic. She went through one of the most difficult things anyone can and she decided that she would make something of her grief and pain. She decided that her tribute to Madison would be taking charge of her own life.

“I did NOT give up my daughter to put up with this,” she told her slacker, loser roommates. “My life needs to be better than this!”

So now she has this beautiful, light-filled apartment. She has two jobs — the one she began just weeks after Madison was born and another less stressful one, which she loves. She looks brighter, more determined, more proud than she did a year ago or — if pictures don’t lie — than she did before Madison was even a thought.

We were standing in her over-heated kitchen last night, chewing on the pizza bones (crust) and talking. I told her that we should go see a psychic because I think that we’d find out that in a past life we were all family already.

“That would creep me out,” she said. “But do you think so?”

“It’s too perfect,” I told her. “We all mesh together so well.”

I didn’t expect to love J this much. I expected to love her as Madison’s first mom but from a distance. I didn’t expect to love her like a sister. I didn’t know that I would care about her above and beyond Madison and that sometimes I would feel torn by roles that sometimes clash. (J says to me, “I made the right decision; she wouldn’t be as smart and happy if I had kept her” and I want to say, “Don’t put yourself down — you could have been a wonderful mother.” Instead I say, “You’re blessing is the only one that matters to me.”)

I feel angry that she has to go into the army. My little sister has decided to major in photography, which is J’s passion. My sister is heading to a little school that ironically sits in the same state where J will be stationed. My sister is going to get hand-holding from an attentive freshman staff and won’t have to work. She is getting this even though she is ambivalent about school and has a GPA to prove it. And here J is giving up 8 years of her life (4 active, 4 reserve) to get the same opportunities.

It’s not that I don’t think my little sister deserves it, it’s just that I think J deserves it more and I feel so angry and sad that she can’t have it.

It seems like after all she’s been though, the universe ought to give her something. Like a Lexus with a big red bow on top only better and more useful. I know that she’s gained compassion and wisdom but you know, I just wish she could be safe. Her life has never been easy and I wish so hard that she could have a reprieve to fall in love with herself a little.

We drove her to meet her friends after dinner was over. She was all dressed up and beautiful in a flowing black skirt and an Indian print halter top. Madison has her big, delicious eyes and wide smile. We drove past downtown into the crowds on the main drag.

“You can drop me off here,” she said at the light. “I love you guys! Thanks! Bye!”

She hopped out and sashayed down the sidewalk, glowing with anticipation of the night ahead. We watched her go, Brett and I, feeling helpless and proud.

I’ve been crying on and off about this all morning.

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