Around 7 pm yesterday Sandra, Silas, Amber and myself stopped by Sentry Hill to visit my Dad. We had spent the afternoon in Worcester with Nathaniel. We picked Nathaniel up from Clark University and drove to a park near Worcester Polytech. It was a perfect afternoon, 75°F and sunny. Sandra had made a picnic lunch and this is how we celebrated Easter.
The night before I had a dream with my Father. We were on a wharf or a large deck. There was no day light, maybe moonlight. We were both moving freely to the edge. There was no rail and as we got closer I could see no bottom beyond the edge. My Father seemed to be in the same state of mind that he was 10 years ago. He was lucid, quick to react and in control of his surroundings. Although he was moving very fast toward the edge.
As it appeared he was going to fall over the edge I grabbed him and pulled him back. I held him in my arms and he embraced me. I told him I loved him more than once. I woke up crying. I was sad. My Dad had become very much like a child. I had dreams similar to this when my children were younger. They would take off down a sidewalk, fall off a bridge and in those dreams it took all I had to rescue them. Or I would wake up before I had rescued them. Those dreams always put me on a heightened awareness in the real world and I would be perhaps overly cautious with my kids due to these dreams.
The dream with my Dad was so similar except my children had their whole lives ahead of them and my father is 81 and has a terminal disease. In this dream I had become the protector. But the most significant aspect of the dream was the embrace, the holding on and his mental state.
I had thought about the dream throughout our trip to Worcester and was anxious to get back to York to see my Dad. We found him sitting in a chair in a partial daze. It seems to take a while for him to realize who we are and that we are not strangers. He referred to me as Kev and asked if he could leave with us at the end of our visit. It is heart breaking to tell him he must stay as he is trying to pass through the door with me.
