Dream of my Father's Death
Jan. 22nd, 2004 04:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosAccording to my computer clock, it's 4:01am. I've been awake for 45 minutes now, and am unlikely to get back to sleep before my 5:15am alarm. 45 minutes ago, I woke from a vivid dream of my father dying, and it's highly unlikely that I'm going to be able to go back to sleep in the next hour.
It began as a wedding. At first it was like I was watching a tv show: from a bit of a distance, not really in the scene. A young groom dressed in a light gray tuxedo was leaving the sanctuary with his groomsmen and the pastor (who may well have been either one of my ordained uncles-by-marriage). The ceremony had not yet taken place, and the groom was singing about going to meet his bride.
Which, I realized upon waking, was strange, because normally the groom waits for the bride inside the sanctuary.
When his back was to me, I saw that the neck/collarpiece of his vest wasn't the pale pink or lavender I expected, but the bright purple of royalty or the clerical vestments of Easter. And it was not a narrow band, designed to fit under a collar, it was wide, like a stole.
Then I was sitting in the audience, with my father, mother, and younger sister, waiting for the service to begin. A frail, elderly woman took ill, and had to move past me to get to the aisle. She was accompanied by a married couple who were older than I am but younger than my parents. When the old woman reached the aisle, she collapsed to her knees. Several people, including my father - looking about a decade or so younger than he does now - jumped up and went to help her. A call went up for a doctor. (My father has two doctorate degrees: one a doctor of divinity, one an Ph.D in education.)
Several doctors converged, but as they started to work on the woman, Dad suddenly sat down abruptly in his chair with chest pains.
One of the doctors, who was Chinese and a friend of his (Dad instituted a sister-school program between a high school in our home town, and a Chinese school, and has visited China several times), came over and started to examine him. He looked worried. Dad tried to relax and appear unconcerned, but it didn't work very well.
Another spasm hit, obviously painful. The doctor said, "I've seen this pattern before. It did not end well."
That's when I got up from my seat and went to kneel before Dad and take his hand. He had been holding the heavy gold ring set with a square diamond that Mom, my sister and I had given him many years ago. I saw that it had been cut. At some point during the rest of the dream it seemed to explode into vapor. (Maybe a symbol of his heart?)
As I held Dad's hand, he looked down at me and said with great intensity, "When you are a pastor, don't tell people not to fear death. . . " In the dream, he was cut off by another heart spasm, and now I can't remember the little more he said on that topic. Something, perhaps, about that not respecting or honoring peoples' very real fears.
Then he said that it was okay if he died then -- but it was clear that he didn't want to, that he did not want to leave his wife, his daughters, and his very full life.
Another spasm, the strongest and most painful yet, shook him, and he stiffened in the chair. I jumped up, threw my arms around his neck, and said urgently, commanding, to my sister, "Tristan, pray!" I was vaguely aware that I was preventing Mom or anyone else from being close to him, but I didn't care, wanting only to be close to him myself. Dad embraced me tightly and whispered, "You will be all right."
"I know!" I whispered. "Because I am your daughter, and you are the most amazing man. Your intellect - "
And then, before I could speak the next words in my mind, which were about his heart and his love, it was as if I was thrown out of the dream, and I woke up.
On one level, it's a very straight-forward narrative. But it's set at a wedding, and my father's wedding band is brought into prominence. Maybe it's the RRR essay on the ordination of men that I posted yesterday, which refers to the wedding imagery of the church which brings the symbol into this dream, which is about death and the union of the soul with God. The groom is leaving the sanctuary to find the bride. My father's spirit was leaving the sanctuary to go to God. My father and mother have been happily married for almost 50 years. About 15 years ago he stopped wearing his wedding ring to wear instead the diamond band that my mother and sister and I gave him for his 60th(?). To have it cut off his hand and then explode certainly seems to suggest his heart breaking on all kinds of levels.
That I could speak only of intellect, not love, before the dream ended, was a caution to myself, and my own tendency to favor mind over heart.
There's also my ongoing struggle to balance the life I want to live with the rather more conservative and cautionary stance of my father - who left the ministry because of an existential crisis before I was born. To dream of his death is to dream, in part, of ending one kind of influence he has over me. The kind I need to outgrow.
Then there's the simple acknowledgement that my father, who I love and respect more than anyone else in the world, is getting older, and will die. Probably not very soon -- but it's visible on the horizon now, especially after the death of my uncle (his other, non-pastor, brother-in-law) last spring. I have a hard time coping with the growing awareness of his mortality.
And it's not something we've talked about. I kind of want to, because it's important, and I want to understand how he feels about it. But he's a private man, and has always kept his fears and doubts private from his daughters, unless they touch us directly - which is very seldom. I'm afraid of what I'll find out if I raise the subject with him. Part of me is still a little girl who wants my Dad to be the strong, brave, powerful figure of my childish needs.
Now, finally, I'm crying.
It's 4:30 now. 45 minutes to my alarm going off. I think I'm going to back to the bedroom and lie down next to my daughter, and let her warmth and my love for her ground me.
That, and the Circle of Life. . . .
It began as a wedding. At first it was like I was watching a tv show: from a bit of a distance, not really in the scene. A young groom dressed in a light gray tuxedo was leaving the sanctuary with his groomsmen and the pastor (who may well have been either one of my ordained uncles-by-marriage). The ceremony had not yet taken place, and the groom was singing about going to meet his bride.
Which, I realized upon waking, was strange, because normally the groom waits for the bride inside the sanctuary.
When his back was to me, I saw that the neck/collarpiece of his vest wasn't the pale pink or lavender I expected, but the bright purple of royalty or the clerical vestments of Easter. And it was not a narrow band, designed to fit under a collar, it was wide, like a stole.
Then I was sitting in the audience, with my father, mother, and younger sister, waiting for the service to begin. A frail, elderly woman took ill, and had to move past me to get to the aisle. She was accompanied by a married couple who were older than I am but younger than my parents. When the old woman reached the aisle, she collapsed to her knees. Several people, including my father - looking about a decade or so younger than he does now - jumped up and went to help her. A call went up for a doctor. (My father has two doctorate degrees: one a doctor of divinity, one an Ph.D in education.)
Several doctors converged, but as they started to work on the woman, Dad suddenly sat down abruptly in his chair with chest pains.
One of the doctors, who was Chinese and a friend of his (Dad instituted a sister-school program between a high school in our home town, and a Chinese school, and has visited China several times), came over and started to examine him. He looked worried. Dad tried to relax and appear unconcerned, but it didn't work very well.
Another spasm hit, obviously painful. The doctor said, "I've seen this pattern before. It did not end well."
That's when I got up from my seat and went to kneel before Dad and take his hand. He had been holding the heavy gold ring set with a square diamond that Mom, my sister and I had given him many years ago. I saw that it had been cut. At some point during the rest of the dream it seemed to explode into vapor. (Maybe a symbol of his heart?)
As I held Dad's hand, he looked down at me and said with great intensity, "When you are a pastor, don't tell people not to fear death. . . " In the dream, he was cut off by another heart spasm, and now I can't remember the little more he said on that topic. Something, perhaps, about that not respecting or honoring peoples' very real fears.
Then he said that it was okay if he died then -- but it was clear that he didn't want to, that he did not want to leave his wife, his daughters, and his very full life.
Another spasm, the strongest and most painful yet, shook him, and he stiffened in the chair. I jumped up, threw my arms around his neck, and said urgently, commanding, to my sister, "Tristan, pray!" I was vaguely aware that I was preventing Mom or anyone else from being close to him, but I didn't care, wanting only to be close to him myself. Dad embraced me tightly and whispered, "You will be all right."
"I know!" I whispered. "Because I am your daughter, and you are the most amazing man. Your intellect - "
And then, before I could speak the next words in my mind, which were about his heart and his love, it was as if I was thrown out of the dream, and I woke up.
On one level, it's a very straight-forward narrative. But it's set at a wedding, and my father's wedding band is brought into prominence. Maybe it's the RRR essay on the ordination of men that I posted yesterday, which refers to the wedding imagery of the church which brings the symbol into this dream, which is about death and the union of the soul with God. The groom is leaving the sanctuary to find the bride. My father's spirit was leaving the sanctuary to go to God. My father and mother have been happily married for almost 50 years. About 15 years ago he stopped wearing his wedding ring to wear instead the diamond band that my mother and sister and I gave him for his 60th(?). To have it cut off his hand and then explode certainly seems to suggest his heart breaking on all kinds of levels.
That I could speak only of intellect, not love, before the dream ended, was a caution to myself, and my own tendency to favor mind over heart.
There's also my ongoing struggle to balance the life I want to live with the rather more conservative and cautionary stance of my father - who left the ministry because of an existential crisis before I was born. To dream of his death is to dream, in part, of ending one kind of influence he has over me. The kind I need to outgrow.
Then there's the simple acknowledgement that my father, who I love and respect more than anyone else in the world, is getting older, and will die. Probably not very soon -- but it's visible on the horizon now, especially after the death of my uncle (his other, non-pastor, brother-in-law) last spring. I have a hard time coping with the growing awareness of his mortality.
And it's not something we've talked about. I kind of want to, because it's important, and I want to understand how he feels about it. But he's a private man, and has always kept his fears and doubts private from his daughters, unless they touch us directly - which is very seldom. I'm afraid of what I'll find out if I raise the subject with him. Part of me is still a little girl who wants my Dad to be the strong, brave, powerful figure of my childish needs.
Now, finally, I'm crying.
It's 4:30 now. 45 minutes to my alarm going off. I think I'm going to back to the bedroom and lie down next to my daughter, and let her warmth and my love for her ground me.
That, and the Circle of Life. . . .
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 10:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-22 10:43 am (UTC)I sure needed hugs this morning.
It's funny how powerful and unsettling a dream can be.
The good news is that when I did call my parents house (at a civilized hour), Mom told me that Dad was off lifting weights at the gym. He's very healthy, and has always taken good care of himself by exercising and eating well. It was a very nice contrast to the dream.