I am remembering a dream

I am starting to remember a dream I had last night. I know that I kept waking up and then falling back to sleep into the same dream, and I was aware that I was dreaming. The dream was about my dad dying (which I have pretty frequently since he passed away in February). Normally when I have these dreams I wake up anxious and despondent, like he died just yesterday and I have to get used to it all over again. But in this set of dreams, I was keenly aware that my mind was trying to allow me to work through the grief and get used to the idea of him not being around. I would wake up and sort of marvel at the fact that I wasn’t panicking, and I would fall back asleep into the same time/place as the last dream.

When he first died I would have dreams of him being alive. One dream I had of him as a ghost, or an angel, really. I was doing a show and had come out afterwards through the stage door where the audience gathers to say hello to the actors. In the dream I was a little upset that I had not had a good show, but then I saw my mom behind the velvet rope smiling and waving. My dad was standing next to her but in front of the velvet rope, which seemed odd. I ran up to them and threw my arms around my dad and then as I did so, I realized that he was no longer alive and probably no one could see him. So, I turned to my mom, who was smiling at me, and asked, “What did it look like I just did?” She said, “You hugged the air.” I told her, “I was hugging Dad,” and she said, “I know, honey.”

Now I just have dreams of him being dead and I wish I could somehow go back to the other dreams, where I know he is dead but he is still alive in front of me. It’s weird (and hard) losing a parent. I had no idea until I lost him just how often I think about him during the day. And I am more acutely aware of how who he was affects who I am every day. The magic of parenting is starting to make sense to me- how two people can create a child and then influence them so completely that when they become adults, they are a complete person comprised of 3 parts: 1/3 self, 1/3 dad and 1/3 mom.

I might have to go cry now...