An event occurred two nights ago and I am wondering how it might be connected to the dream I had on Monday morning. Somehow, it helps me connect dots between the various confusing points of interest in what happened, which was this:

My husband was assaulted by two of our neighbors, apparently a father and his teenage son. I was in the house at the time and am still learning of the details, bit by bit. There were no witnesses other than family members of the attackers. A woman, presumably the man's wife (but this is still unknown), saw and participated in what happened. It was three against one.

What started the conflict was the woman speeding down our alley and swerving toward my husband, who was standing in our driveway, as she sped past. He has a high-powered flashlight and pointed it at her car, to get the license plate number so he could call and report her. Following her was another vehicle, a truck, driven by the man; he was also speeding and again, my husband shined the light on his vehicle, too.

When the man got to his driveway, two doors down from us, he got out of the vehicle and came walking toward our house. My husband meanwhile had begun walking toward the man's house. They faced each other in the alley between our houses. My husband had his cell phone in hand and was about to call the police to make the report. The man began cursing him for shining the flashlight on them. More words were exchanged and he came at my husband with his fist.

By that time, a teenage male had come out of the house and joined his father in the assault. My husband was hit at least three times, hard, in the face and on the side of the head. To stop him, my husband pulled his gun (carried legally), telling him to back off, which the man did. As he was lying there in the alley, still reeling from the beating, the woman attempted to steal his cell phone which had fallen onto the ground. My husband pointed his gun at her and ordered her to drop it, which she did. After that, he called the police and they came out.

Meanwhile, I was in the house preparing to settle in and do my schoolwork. The dogs were in the back yard. My husband walked in the front door, came into the room where I was sitting, and asked me to bring the dogs in. I looked at him and saw his face bleeding. It looked like he had been attacked by a dog, or hit by a car. I had no idea of what had just happened.

I went out the front door to the porch, where he was standing with our next-door neighbor. After going back in the house to put on something I could wear outside, I returned to find both my husband and the next-door neighbor (our friend) spread eagle against the back of one of our cars, being searched.

Since a gun was involved and details of what happened as yet unknown, the police were treating them like criminals. At one point, one of the policemen demanded to come into our house so they could search for the gun. I wouldn't let them, believing they were overstepping boundaries, not only of law but of decency, too. After all, we weren't criminals and didn't deserve that kind of treatment. After some time, they gained access to the house to get what they were looking for (they gave it back later); but the way they wanted to go about it at first was humiliating and unfair.

What the police didn't know then was that my husband had spared these people's lives! He would have been completely within his rights to shoot in self-defense. It is to his credit (and a mercy to all of us) that he didn't allow himself to pull the trigger in the heat of the moment of being severely beaten.

An ambulance arrived and paramedics got to work. Fortunately, the injuries weren't severe enough for him to have to go to the hospital; although he was urged to go, he chose not to. [01.31.07 Amendment: I wrote this before realizing his injuries were indeed more serious than we realized. He was disoriented that day and wasn't able to articulate that he had sustained a head injury; he should have been transported to the hospital right away for treatment.]

The story told by the other family is quite different from the story my husband told to the police, so it was determined that each party would be issued citations for disorderly conduct and let a judge determine the outcome in court.

Race is involved here, too. My husband is Arab American and the other family is African American. We sensed racism in the behavior of at least one of the policemen, too, who kept spitting on our property and acting very unprofessional and arrogant.

As it stands now, after consulting with some other people within the police department, my husband is planning to sue this family.

[02.21.07. Once again, I must amend this. The lawsuit is not against the family, as I first thought; it is against the city. The incident with the neighbor is a different issue from the investigation of the crime. But the prosecutor who has the authority to get the charge dropped is twisting things so that it looks like the issue is between neighbor and neighbor. That is not the issue. The police did not accurately depict what happened and my husband had to hire a lawyer simply to force the police to do their job in an orderly way rather than the way they did it, which resulted in an honest citizen accused of being "disorderly" now having to defend himself and to bring to justice those who have disrespected his civil rights. It will be heard by a judge next month.]

I now wonder how and if justice will actually be served. It would be good to work it out between us but the animosity is too great. I suspect the family is poor, and suing them might serve one purpose; but it also might plunge them deeper into poverty, thus making their situation worse.

Additionally, this family keeps three mean dogs chained up in the backyard. I mentioned this to one of the policemen and he urged us to call animal control. To me, the dogs represent a way of life for them and I wonder what has happened in these people's past to make them so hostile and aggressive, and to keep dogs like that, in that way.

I feel afraid now, like we have to watch our backs. Yet as upsetting as this whole ordeal has been, it also clarifies our roles not only in the family but in society as well. My husband was cooperative with the police, despite their harsh treatment of him, especially at first. (Once his side of the story started coming out, they behaved with more civility.)

I also think about how we co-create our lives with the Universe. Each person played a role in bringing the scene to reality. It confirms that what we focus upon becomes reality, it comes to pass.

Thanks for listening.