Mysterious Ways – August 2019

10 GUIDEPOSTS.ORG

My three-year-old son’s cries

jolted me awake. I rushed to his

room. Michael was sitting up in bed

and crying.

“Bramble, Mommy,” he said

through tears.

I pulled him to me and stroked

his soft hair.

“It’s just a dream, Baby,” I told

him. “Bramble isn’t real. He can’t

hurt you.”

For weeks now, my son had

been having the same recurring

nightmare—about a bald man

called Bramble. In the dreams, Bram-

ble stood in our backyard, staring

in Michael’s bedroom window. He

never tried to harm Michael in the

KYLHTZI\[T`ZVU^HZ[LYYPÄLK0[

had gotten to the point where he

was afraid even to lie down in his

bed. I hated seeing him like this.

My husband, Mike, thought Mi-

chael’s dreams were so strange

that he began researching the word

bramble. He checked to see if

someone by that name used to live

in our home or in the neighborhood,

I\[OLJV\SKU»[ÄUKHU`[OPUN/L

even walked to the cemetery at the

end of our road, looking for a tomb-

stone for someone named Bramble.

Maybe Michael had noticed it some-

how. Again, nothing.

Finally, Mike and I sat down and

Googled the word. We found a

KLÄUP[PVUMVYbramble—a prickly vine

or shrub—but there was more. Be-

ULH[O[OLKLÄUP[PVUP[ZHPKSEE ALSO:

CANCER DICTIONARY. The words weren’t

clickable. We didn’t own a cancer

dictionary. We had no way to get

more information. But seeing the

word cancer sent shivers down my

spine. What did a bramble have

to do with cancer? And why was our

three-year-old having these dis-

turbing dreams?

A few nights later, Michael again

woke up screaming, and I was sure

he’d had another nightmare. But this

time when I got to his room, I found

him clutching his right ear.

“It hurts, Mommy,” he said. “My

ear hurts.”

We went to the doctor the next day,

and Michael was diagnosed with

a routine ear infection. But after a

week on an antibiotic, he was still

holding his ear and crying. Between

By Angie Curley

TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA

QRESCUE & PROTECTION

bramble