He rarely comes when I want him to, but sometimes, just sometimes, he does something to surprise me. The last couple of nights, I’ve been seeing Ed here and there in my dreams. He doesn’t come in an obvious way, but rather when he does show up, he pops in for a moment, just enough for me to know he is there, and then he leaves. In my dream, I am standing in a large room with massive displays on each of the long and wide tables. I can see my uncle wandering around, taking a look at some of the displays and quickly walking by others. But there is one that I take notice of, and it’s of a huge dollhouse that is two stories tall, has at least four bedrooms, and has a large living and dining area that includes many miniature Christmas decorations. The staircase leading up to the second floor is covered in Christmas lights, fake Christmas tree branches, and snow.

“So, where is your dollhouse now?” Ed says, randomly and unexpectedly appearing next to me as I glance inside the house. “I thought our father said he was going to build it for you.”

I pondered that. I’m 33 years old today, and the very last thing on my mind is the thought of a dollhouse, still unbuilt, in a box that was given to me by “Santa Claus” when I was five years ago. That means that dollhouse has been sitting unopened in a box in the basement for the last 28 years. While yes, it is literally a symbol of broken promises as we’ve discussed many times before, I’m really past it and have gotten over it.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say back to him, looking at him in the face. “I shouldn’t care about something that never existed in the first place.”

He looks back at me with a straight but warm face. He isn’t smiling, but his eyes are looking into mine, trying to figure out the meaning of my words. His eyes soften, and he seems to smile a bit.

“If you say so,” he says. Then, he walks across the room to look at some other displays, and then disappears from the corner of my eye.

I am still trying to decipher the meaning from that.