Joyce:
Soul mates? I believed it. I knew there was someone out there for me. It was 1971. I was sixteen years old. I had only attended school the equivalent of two semesters in the last two years. I was ill with a disease that had no name and no ready cure. Two years of tests, terrible tests, had brought me no relief and no answers. My parent’s insurance had been cancelled because of the money it had cost to keep me alive. They had mortgaged the house again and again.I remember lying in the hospital room as my body was wasting away. I heard the doctor talking to my parents, telling them that the new medications he’d tried hadn’t worked. That it was only a matter of time. There was nothing they could do. My skin was gray and the whites of my eyes were yellow. I was 5’8 and weighed one hundred pounds. I was in constant pain, moving restlessly, constantly, to try to keep it from hurting. I only felt relief when they said they were going to take me home and do what they could for me there. They taught my mother to give me injections and sent a home health nurse. I lay in my bed and looked at the ceiling while they checked my vitals and shook their heads.Because I was confined to bed, I lived in my own thoughts and dreams. When I first got sick, I began to dream about a young man. He would walk through my thoughts at night. He was tall and thin with reddish brown hair and blue eyes. He had freckles on the bridge of his nose and his name was Jim. So many frustrating times, I would be watching him and someone would call his name and I would wake up. I knew his name and the sound of his voice. I saw him walking through the crowded city streets. I heard his laugh.When I’d first seen him, I’d been well enough to look through book and catalogues. I knew he was about six feet tall. Clothing catalogues told me men about his size wore a 14-inch collar on their shirt and had a 32-inch waist. He would wear size nine shoes. I put together as much information about him as I could. But mostly, I dreamed and wait to see him.I wrote it all down because I was afraid to tell anyone. I thought they might think it was the disease. I didn’t want to see their sympathetic eyes or hear the pity in their voices. I knew I would never meet him. I knew I wouldn’t live to really see his face or touch him or look into his eyes. But I knew that he was alive somewhere. I knew that he was my soul mate.So many times, he turned when I tried to speak to him in my dreams. As if he could faintly hear me but couldn’t find me. He would look around the room, then shake his head and go back to what he was doing.It was warm that year for February, even in the south. The roses near the house were blooming. Their perfume was so sweet in the moonlight that it made me cry. My 17th birthday was a few months away. I wasn’t sure I would ever see it. It was hard to breathe and there was a rattling sound in my chest. I was so scared, not of dying, but of dying before I had ever had the chance to live.I read later that dying people sometimes do strange things. That night, the only thing I could think of was that if I could just find the man in my dreams, I could live. I didn’t know how I would find him. I had no idea what his last name was or where he lived. But I knew I had to try.I had to use both hands to write a note to my parents. I pulled the IV needle from my arm. It took all my strength to get up and get dressed. I rested for a while then walked slowly out of the house and into the moonlight. It was like a dream being outside with that strong white light shining down on me. I walked down the road to the main highway that was about two blocks away. I’ll never know how I managed to do it. But I just kept putting one foot in front of the other with my soul mate’s face before me.When I reached the road, I stood still, trying to catch my breath. A car slowed down and stopped. The man inside asked me if I needed a ride. I said yes and climbed into the car. He said he could only take me as far as Virginia since that’s where he was heading. I told him that was fine.Jim:
I remember hearing a voice calling my name. I had the strong feeling of being watched, even when I knew I was totally alone. At night, my dreams were strange and disjointed. There was a girl. She had curly blond hair and big blue eyes. She was crying. I wanted to ask her what was wrong but when I tried to find her, she was gone.I was 19 years old. Home on leave for a few weeks before I had to report back to the army at Fort Meade, Maryland. My parents weren’t particularly happy to see me. With five kids still at home, they were afraid I’d put a burden on their finances again. Three of us had already left home.It was weird sleeping in my old bunk bed. Even the army had given me more privacy than I’d had at home. We lived in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in a building that had seen its best days twenty years before. Every sound any of us made was amplified. My stepfather still didn’t like noise. He drank heavily when he wasn’t driving his truck and we still had no love for each other. I wondered why I’d bothered coming back at all.She was there in my dreams that night. She was with another girl. They were standing in a park and trees were blooming around them. The ground was covered with pink blossoms. She wasn’t crying this time. She was talking to the other girl. She looked up and there was this funny look on her face. She looked at me and said, “I know you.”I woke up in a cold sweat. The next day when a buddy of mine said he was going to Washington, D.C. for a few days before we had to report back, I packed my stuff and got in the car with him. My mother cried when I left but she didn’t ask me to stay. My stepfather didn’t say anything because there was a football game on TV.We drove down with a few other friends. There was still snow on the ground in Chicago but as we got further south, the skies cleared and the weather got warmer. Grass was starting to turn green. We took turns driving and playing the radio too loud. A few guys got stoned in the backseat. Three of my friends were going back to ‘Nam’ for another tour of duty. Because my birth father was dead, I had stayed in the states when I’d been drafted. I didn’t mind. The stories I’d heard about Vietnam were bad. A lot of guys went because the pay was good. I couldn’t imagine any pay being that good.A friend of mine had shot himself in the foot to keep from going over there. Times were tense. Guys my age had been killed protesting the war at Kent State. I just wanted to have a week of peace and a few parties before I had to report back. I didn’t know if the war was right or wrong. I only had a short time left before I was through with the service. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do but I had dreams of building something. Maybe a house in the woods. When I was a kid, we used to play that the tall weeds in the vacant lot next to our apartment were trees. I wanted to live somewhere that there were real trees.Was there a girl in the picture? I thought right away about that girl I’d seen in my dreams. She was pretty but so thin. She looked sick. But her face haunted me. I kept seeing her crying, those big blue eyes watering like they would never stop. I felt like I knew her. I knew that I hadn’t met her but there was still that feeling.I crashed with some friends of my buddy when we got to D.C. The city was inupheaval because of the peace rallies and protests. It was early March of 1971. People were living on the streets in tents and burning pictures of Richard Nixon. My buddies and I didn’t wear our uniforms because we’d heard reports of guys being beaten by crowds of people. The anger over the war had come to include the men and women who fought it. We weren’t scared, but we weren’t stupid. Besides, it was nice to wear jeans and t-shirts. My hair was too short to blend in but no one bothered me.We walked up to the store for a pack of cigarettes and some coffee early one morning. I kept thinking how the cherry tree blossoms were all over the sidewalks and the streets, just like in my dream. I saw two girls walking towards us and it was like time slowed to a standstill.Joyce:
I looked up and saw three men walking towards us. They were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Their hair was short and they walked like tough guys. The one in the middle was wearing a light blue shirt. He had blue/green eyes and reddish brown hair. There was a dusting of freckles across his face.I stared at him. I couldn’t help it. It was him. It was the man from my dreams.Jim:
One of the girls was very thin. She had curly blond hair and blue eyes. She was staring at me. She was wearing blue jeans that were too big for her, no shoes, and a white t-shirt. My friend next to me nudged me when he saw that she was staring at me. He said something but I couldn’t hear him.Joyce and Jim:
“I know you,” she said breathlessly. “I know you!”“Who are you? Where did we meet?” he asked. “We haven’t. But I know you. I know your name.” “My name is—”“Jim. Your name is Jim.” “My name is Jim. Who are you?”“Joyce.”“You won’t believe—” he began.“That you saw me in a dream?”“You wanna get some coffee?”“Yes.” “Now?”“Sure. But there’s one thing I have to tell you.”“What?” “I love you,” she said simply.“It sounds crazy but I understand. I don’t know how. Coffee?”“If you need to do that first.”“I feel—”“Me, too.” “Let’s go.”* * * * *
Editor's Note: You will find Jim and Joyce Lavene's story, "The Drifters," in the twin soul section of the book, Romancing the Soul. This story perfectly exemplifies the twin soul relationship. If you would like to read one of the stories in the karmic soul mate section, click here and if you would like to read one of the stories in the companion soul mate section, click here. Remember, every soul mate that comes into your life, does so for a reason and is no more important than the others. May all your soul mate dreams come true!
--Dorothy Thompson, editor & co-author of ROMANCING THE SOUL
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