I have pretty vivid dreams, but lately I've not been able to remember many of them. I remember last night's, though. Last night I had a dream about my dad. I've had four or five dreams about him since he died, and until last night only one of them left me feeling comforted. The others left me feeling angry and frustrated because either he was dying all over again in the dream, only in new ways each time, or he would appear and I'd go to hug him only to have him disappear. In one dream he called me on my cell phone to let me know he was okay, and that one was a good dream. As painful as some of these dreams have been, a part of me is fascinated about how the mind and body process grief. It's absolutely exhausting and overwhelming, but it's also built to protect you by slowly seeping in more and more. To process everything at once would be unbearable.
In the dream last night, I was walking into a room full of people. I'm not sure what the event was, but it was someplace where I didn't recognize anyone. I saw my dad (who looked a little bit like my dad, but not really) and I ran up to hug him. Then I immediately started crying in my dream, and I was telling him about how hard the last few days had been. And the great thing was that in my dream he was comforting me and telling me that he knew what had happened, and he was proud of how I handled the situation. In my dream the voice sounded exactly like my dad's, and everything about the conversation -- his phrasing and the nicknames he would call me -- sounded like my dad. Even though it was such a short dream, it felt like a gift.
I'm trying to think of the best way to articulate how these dreams feel, and the best description I can come up with is this ... when the dreams about him are bad, it feels like losing him all over again. It's this wave of abandonment that lasts for a few days. I relive so many of those painful last moments ... like racing to the emergency room and then having to say goodbye to my dad as the doctors are still trying to revive him. And holding his hand and not having him be able to hold mine in return. It's too much to process, it's the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced, and it's so painful to think about during the day. It's even worse when those exhausting emotions enter your dreams at night.
But when the dreams about him are good, it feels like he's still a part of my life, and there's still his "dad" presence that worries about me and loves me and wants the best for me. I miss him more than I could have imagined, and having that connection -- however brief -- keeps me going and helps me heal.
I wasn't prepared for what an isolating experience it is when you lose a parent (or anyone else close to you). For me, there have been many times when I've wanted to talk about it, just to work through my feelings and process this huge loss that's reshaped my life, but the conversations are usually stopped short because people just don't know what to say. But that's really okay, because how could they unless they've experienced it? What I've realized is that I can't fault anyone for not being a mind reader and knowing what I need for them to say or do at that exact moment, because most of the time I don't even know what I need. Everyone's grief is different, and everyone's needs are different. I'll just keep talking about my dad to anyone who will listen, but even just writing about him here helps me get some of those thoughts out of my head so that I can move forward.
I was talking to my mom about this tonight ... My biggest fear for the past few years was that something would happen to my dad. It's a very weird thing to live through your worst fear and then realize that while nothing is ever going to be the same, and a part of your personality is changed forever, you're going to be okay. Two weeks from today, on August 15, it will be a year since my dad died. Unfathomable because I don't remember much of this year at all. As I've said to my friends, it's like someone took a calendar and ripped out all of September through January, then took out about two weeks from every other month after that until June. And I remember the few pages that are left. The rest is a haze.
I feel like August 16 will usher in a new phase to my life. I will have made it through every milestone for the first year, and there won't be that painful anticipation of the first Christmas, first birthday, etc. without my dad. I know that those days were horrible, but I guess it's a blessing because, again, I don't really remember them.
I'm hoping I'll continue to have more dreams about my dad. If not, I'm hoping August 16 will begin a new phase of peace and acceptance.
