In the dream John had come back for a holiday. It was a universally recognized holiday that everyone celebrates and it felt completely normal ........ in the dream.
In the dream it was the holiday that marks the return of a lost loved one. John was there, healthy (he has never been sick in one of my dreams, always without oxygen, always smiling). We were all eating at a nice restaurant and we were happy to be spending this time with him, to celebrate that John had come back, how Christ like, especially for someone who didn't particularly subscribe to the whole son of God thing. And yet, there he was breaking his bread, laughing with us and telling us stories. We were elated and of course because it was a dream most of the people in the dream were not familiar to me, but I knew John, and I knew my mother.
At the end of our dinner I went to take a nap, knowing full well that this was only a temporary thing, that John would need to go at the end of this day, this holiday. Still sleep was somehow more important to me in the dream.
As I drifted off, John called me to tell me to come. That this was important. That I was supposed to be doing this thing, dealing, facing this hard deep profound sadness and longing. That I could not run away from it. That as many miles as I ran or laps that I swam or books that I read or naps that I took, I could not escape the truth that John was gone, that John died and he will continue to be dead, to die again and again in my dreams and in my days.
I woke up wanting to stay in the dream. I tried to put myself back to sleep, to place myself back in the dream, back there holding John's big bear hands or hugging his broad shoulders.
But I couldn't.
I realized that in that dream John was my father.
He is my father.
He is the man who tells me to do things and steers me in the right direction
and saved me when I was falling off of a cliff
and there he was again
in my dream
holding out his hand to me
pulling me to do the next right thing.
