I had a great dream a couple years after I was excommunicated. I dreamed I went down into the rabbit hole (think Alice). In the hole was a place we used to go to every summer with church members: the tall trees, the cabins, the people. I was carrying on my back a very strong but sickly, bony, pitiful, demanding child whose name was the one I was given at birth, a name I had not used in decades. She gripped me around my neck and by her skinny legs around my waist, and she heckled me, demanding that I keep her, carry her, never let her go. As I hurried down the path, groups of people looked at us, whispered, and called to me, also demanding that I keep and care for the child. I kept hurrying until I came to the bottom of the rabbit hole, where was a white miniature of the Washington Monument. I grabbed her legs and wrenched her off me, sitting her down in front of the monument while she screamed and raged through her gritted teeth, grasping at me, while I jumped back from her grip. She could not move without me, so she was stuck there. Many of the people started screaming at me, demanding that I pick her up and care for her, but I hurried past them, up, and out the rabbit hole . . . then I awoke.