Until the age of 8 I lived in a suburb of Chicago. It was a typical suburb, with tract homes in various models, nicely kept lawns and safe streets. Our little community was full of kids. It seemed that everyone who bought a house in our neighborhood had young kids so there were lots of choices of playmates. I could ride my bike up to the cul-de-sac and back and find other kids out playing. We had a nice yard, with a swing set and flower beds designed by my parents. I suppose our neighbhorhood had been farmland before it was turned into housing. It was perfectly flat and the only trees were the young ones planted by all the new homeowners.

In 1977 we moved from suburban Chicago to California. My dad had a new job. All our neighbors were envious of us and the truth was, we were happy to be going to warmer weather and my mother was happy to be free from the confines of our old neighbhorhood, where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Our new home in California couldn’t have been more different than our old one. It was built on a hillside with about an acre of land around it. We could hardly see our other neighbhors. There were very few kids in the neighbhorhood. In fact there were more deer grazing the hillsides than kids. My brother and I were happy with the arrangement though. We loved to have free reign of the hillside. There was a seasonal creek running through the property and lots of old oak trees to climb in. Our neighbhor had a goat they kept penned in a shed and we would bring it apples to eat. I spent a lot of time wandering through the open hills, exploring the stream and the flowers. Around the age of 12 I had my first real sense of God one day as I sat on the hillside taking in all the beauty. I just somehow felt God’s presence and an overwhelming sense of peace. I still go back to that spot from time to time and remember that moment.

There was not much danger on that hillside except for possibly the deer. Some of the deer had huge racks and they could be scary up close. Once a deer had kicked my dog in the mouth and it lost a tooth. One day my brother and I wandered far down the hill of our property and climbed through some thick underbrush. There we discovered where the deer slept. Under the shelter of some thick low brush were swirls of matted grass, evidently the place where deer bedded down at night. Even in the daytime this place was almost totally dark, like a cave, and the darkness scared me. I couldn’t wait to get out of that cave and back into the sunlight. I never again explored the deer cave but I had recurring dreams for years about it. In my dreams I would be playing happily and somehow I would end up in the darkness of the deer cave.

When I went off to college, back to Chicago, I missed the beauty of my Californnia home. I missed the sound of the stream outside my window and the way the fog would create different views. One night I was up late studying and dozing off and on in my little apartment when I was awakened by what I thought was a fog horn. We could always hear the fog horns from our house. But how could I have really heard a fog horn in Chicago? It sounded exactly like one to me. Was it a dream or was it real? I’ll never know.

Years later I moved into my own home. It was quite a big step, owning a home for the first time. It was an even bigger step given that when I moved into the house I was three days away from giving birth to my first son. The boxes had yet to be unpacked when I went into labor at 7 am. My water broke as I woke up in bed, soaking an entire towel. It was clear we needed to get to the hosptial. That morning, November 26. 1997, was rainy and we had to drive all the way from Berkeley to Walnut Creek, where I had planned to have the baby. I remember the discomfort of sitting in the car with the driving rain storm creating traffic in the tunnel. Once I got to the hosptial I was checked in and began the process of managing the contractions. I walked the halls of the hosptial for as long as possible believing this might speed things up and then I got into the shower. The shower was the best thing. I spent what seemed like hours in the shower. Finally it was time to push and I hated having to lay down. It didn’t seem right to me but I did it anyway. The pushing was the hardest part and I went through a mental list of all the women I knew who had given birth as a way to encourage me that this could be done. At the last minute, the vital signs on the monitor were going down and they didn’t know why. They said I needed to push harder. As it turned out the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck and they deftly clipped it off just in time. It was now 2:30 in the afternoon, not a terribly long labor, but I was exhausted. I spent one night in the hospital learning how to breastfeed and hold my baby and feeling overwhelmed by my new responsibility.

Driving home the next day it was sunny outside and I felt awkward getting out of the car with a car seat in hand. Since it was Thanksgiving, my mother had prepared a dinner for us but I didn’t really enjoy it. All I wanted was to lie down in bed. I couldn’t quite believe that I was now responsible for the life of another human being. How could I manage that. Perhaps out of my concern, that night I had the most memorable dream of my life. I dreamt that I was in a boat with my brother and mother and we were being ferried through a great channel. We had come out of a tunnel in our boat and were now trying to make it to the other side. We were in the River Styx and I worried where our destination would be. Suddenly the boat image disappeared and I was floating in a light-filled chamber. Above me was Jesus, with his arms outstretched. The chamber was the most still, quiet place I have ever experienced. There was no noise of any kind and the filtered light felt like the light that comes through stained glass. It was as if all time had stopped in this chamber. Just as I floated up to touch Jesus, I woke up. I was convinced that I had seen Jesus for real in that otherworldly space and, on further reflection, I decided he had given me that vision as a comfort. No matter how worried I might be about taking care of this new baby, Jesus would be there for me and would not leave me. I held onto the memory of that dream for a long time.

Since that time I have hoped for other visions of Jesus but none have occurred. Maybe God knows when we need these kinds of visions and maybe some are meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In the meantime I treasure those times when I simply feel the presence of God, which is usually in nature, just like that first time when I was a child sitting on my hillside.