My Dad

I had a dream about my dad about a month ago. In it, I was travelling up to my parents house, and there were people everywhere, it was like a huge party was going on, people were not only in the house, but camping out in the woods. Most of these people I didn't know or were not a profound enough part of my dream to make an impact. I walked up the road, and into the house (which was transformed into a huge white colonial with black shutters and a captains walk on top), inside I turned to my right and walked through french doors and my Mom and Dad were standing there amongst all these people..and as I was walking up I was looking at my Dad...and I said to myself (because at this point in the dream I knew there was something wrong...but couldn't pinpoint what ((that he was dead in real life)) exactly) "He looks pretty good for just having a heart attack". He was wearing his blue jacket and his Intercourse Pa. hat..but part of his face was red..or plum colored..and I remember his nose looking like it has veins on it...like an alcoholics nose, but in my head i attributed it to the recent heart attack and possibly the meds he was taking. He wasn't smiling, and I walked up and put my hand on his arm and said "how are you doing?" and he looked at me and kind of shrugged in that way he used to shrug as if to say "eh..I've been better".

I've been feeling sad today, I don't know if its because I went to visit my mom yesterday and she had a rough week. She refinanced the house and took my Dad's name off of the it and the bank accounts. She's moved onto the angry part of grieving and its taking a toll on her I think. We talked a lot about grief counselling and anti depressants or other meds that might help. She has an appt with her Dr. on Wednesday to talk about things. She broke down and cried at work on Monday, and even though I told her she's entitled to do that, and her work completely understands (they're like her family there which I'm so happy about), she wants to get it under control. She doesn't like to show weakness.

Anyway, back to the dream...She asked me if he had visited me at all and I told her about this dream. Hesitantly, because once I woke up I recognized the redness on his face as bruising. I didn't want to upset her, but I had to know as well, if that's what he looked like...and if there was any bruising like that when she found him. I described it to her...red/plum coloring..on the middle/left side of his face with almost a marbling effect. She took a deep breath and teared up a little..and nodded. I knew he had fallen forward, but beyond that we hadn't discussed what he looked like, and if there was any hypostasis (blood pooling at the lowest point of the body after death) and I didn't ask because I didn't want her to have to keep reliving it.

That wasn't the only dream I've had, there was another one afterwards. And again he looked sad or upset. I think he just doesn't feel very good about how he left the world..or, more precisely, how he was found and that he didn't get to say good-bye. My mom would like him to visit her and doesn't understand why he hasn't. I don't know what to say, maybe she just wants it too much, or maybe he doesn't want to upset her anymore than she already is. Maybe she just isn't ready. I don't know. I don't even know if what I experienced is a real visit or just my brain making sense of things. I tend to lean toward a visit because of the hypostasis..but can we ever know for sure? I guess that's where faith comes in. Such a hard thing with a skeptics brain. I could very easily be an atheist and believe that after death there is nothing, if it weren't for the personal experiences I've had that my brain cant explain away. An out-of-body experience under the age of 1 is the biggest one. I remember (yes.its a memory I've always had growing up) floating above my tiny body, I was laying on the bed in my grandparents back room, I must have fallen asleep in the car because my white fuzzy jacket with pink trim was still on me..but it was unzipped. I was wearing a light colored dress, white tights and black patten shoes. The things that cements this the most for me, is that the memory (and bear with me..this is going to be hard for me to explain ) I have of that incident..is the memory of someone older than a one year old. I've had this memory for my entire life..and it wasn't until I was an adult that I could understand the maturity in which I saw those things..like it was an adult looking down on a baby..not a baby looking on a baby...I had conscious thought like a reasoning adult, I was not limited by my toddler brain...I found it strange growing up..and a little disconcerting because I didn't understand it. I feel as though if that didn't happen to me though, I would not have had the interest in the occult that I have. So is it something that needed to happen to help balance out my skeptic brain? I don't know, i DO know that my whole life has been inundated by things occult..my grandmother had a Ouija board, my dad used to sit and do automatic writing while he was eating dinner and he bought the first deck of tarot cards id ever seen. There were books on all kinds of different belief systems in my house and my Dad loved to sit and discuss things like that..for hours on end sometimes. We used to call him the Walking Encyclopedia of Useless Trivia and Facts.

So what is this all about? *laugh* I guess I could have summed it up in four words and saved my fingers from fatigue : I miss my Dad.
“Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love. It can't take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death.”