I had a dream about my dad the other night. It's been awhile. I was in my mom and dad's house upstairs in the kitchen. I was facing the sink looking out the window when my dad walked in. He was looking for something, a screwdriver or something.
I don't know what it was.
I turned to look at him and said, "Hi Dad, I haven't seen you in a long time. How'd it going?"
He didn't turn to me, I suppose because he rarely did when he was doing something. Dad had a one track mind. Plus, he was an engineer. So when his one-track-mind was being applied to working on a problem, well, good luck in distracting him.
So I was looking at my dad. His hair on top was black with gray on the sides. And he was wearing his old horn-rimmed glasses. He must have been in his late forties or so. I don't know why I dreamed him at that stage of his life, but there he was, late forties, pulling a screwdriver out of the drawer in the kitchen.
He found the screwdriver and said something to me about trying to fix something, or being busy. Then he headed out of the kitchen. So I followed him, wanting to talk to him.
"I haven't seen you in a long time," I said. "What are you working on?"
"I'm kind of busy," he said, as he started down the stairs. So I went with him.
In all my previous dreams about my dad, he was about the age he was when he died. And he was walking along with me, trying to talk to me while I carried boxes and boxes of stuff to my car, or from my car into my new house which I had just bought in my dream. He was trying to give me advice, like he so enjoyed doing. Only I couldn't hear him. I could see him speaking and I was aware that I was listening, but I couldn't hear any words. I don't know what he was saying. I only know that it seemed important to him to talk to me, perhaps to say "goodbye."
The house I dreamed about moving into, I dreamed long before we found the house we live in now. And when I bought this house, I realized that it was almost the identical house from my dream. It was as if my dad helped me find it and wanted to make sure I bought it. Or perhaps he was warning me not to? I don't know.
Once I bought my new house and moved in, all dreams of my dad stopped. He was just gone. And I began to become increasingly aware of how many things I only ever talked about with him. I had so many things I wanted to tell him, or show him, but he was gone and now I have no one to talk with about any of it.
2 years later and I dream about my dad again, but he's 30 years younger and obviously too busy to talk with me. I'm following him, wanting desperately to talk with him. I can hear him this time. I can hear every word he's saying.
I don't know what my dad was working on. It seemed mighty important to him. If there's anything to dreams and people who have died appearing in your dreams then I'm wondering what was so important that he needed tools and had to run downstairs.
But the main thing I remember from that dream was how everything had gone back to the way it was before, when I was a little kid and he was still a relatively young and healthy man, back when I would follow after him trying to get his attention. It never occurred to me how things had switched around before he died, how he wanted to talk to me, wanted a few minutes of my time to talk, and how I was always so busy and impatient and irritated when he couldn't hear me or understand me because his hearing was going.
I don't know if there's anything to dreams. I don't know if dead people showing up in my dreams has any significance or is simply my memories and imagination combining to make images that make some kind of sense to my brain. I just know it was nice to see my dad again. And I wonder what he was doing that was so important.
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