Dreams

[rahirah]

I dreamed about my father last night. I don't dream about him often; he died when I was sixteen, of the same cancer that took my sister last year. On the rare occasions that I do, it's usually an anxiety dream about the last days of his illness. But last night was a little different. I don't remember a lot of the details now, but I remember that in the dream Kathy and I were going somewhere in a strange city, and she'd gotten a block or two ahead of me somehow. Suddenly my father appeared from around a corner, and said he'd drive me to catch up with her.

I could tell he was sick. Not last-days sick, but last-few-years sick: frail and easily tired. I wondered if I should drive, but decided that it would be better for his pride to let him, since he'd offered. I put my arm around him, and he put his around me, and I could feel him shaking a little. But he looked... happy. At peace. I asked him how he felt, and he said, "I'm hopeful." We started to walk to the car, and I asked him if he'd ever been to New York before (I guess the city we were in was New York.) He said yes, and I said I hadn't been since I was a teenager, and went to visit my aunt. (Which isn't true in the real world; I went there again a couple of years ago.) We walked together towards the car, talking about New York, and I woke up.

It doesn't sound like it when I describe it like that, but it was a strangely uplifting dream.


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