So August, for a long time, has not been a happy month. And when I was a child, before any of those bad things happened, it was dreadful because it was the end of summer.
August is a time of reflection for me, to remember all this stuff. There's nothing to learn from it really, nothing to gain except making myself sad.
And because I've been thinking about my dad a lot, since it's August, it's not surprising that he popped up in a really weird dream the other night. In the dream he came back to life, and he wasn't so dementia-y (is there such a word?) although he wasn't 100% back to normal, and he lived a few more years. I was walking up Route 5 going from car dealership to car dealership telling everyone that my dad was back alive again. Because it did seem like he had died and been cremated but somehow came back from that. And in real life, there is just about every car brand known to man available on Route 5, from BMW on the North Haven line to Cadillac and Hyundai on the Meriden line, and my dad worked for a lot of them in his 40 years in the business. Why I would walk that 10 mile line instead of calling people is another dream mystery! Then he died again, in the dream, and we had to hold his memorial service all over again.
And I woke up thinking, I never saw my dad dead. When I got to the nursing home his body had been removed from his room, and if it was still there (I imagine it was, it had only been an hour or so) they didn't offer to show me. At the funeral home that afternoon, the director went and got me my dad's Alzheimer's alert bracelet, and it was cold like it was in a fridge, but again, I didn't see him.
Now I start getting all paranoid. Did my dad really die in 2007? Even though his bed was empty at the nursing home and he was in it 15 hours before, unresponsive, maybe they had moved him and it wasn't him who died...and he's been alone and unvisited for 5+ years in the nursing home...
Gods, how awful would that be? I can't even imagine it.
I think it's a common wish-fulfillment kind of dream. We're getting to the time that my dad SHOULD have died. He was diagnosed in 2004 and they said he'd live 9-11 years and that was 9 years ago. He should have still been with us. And maybe if he hadn't hit his head twice, he would still be here, who knows? Or he might have killed my mom or someone else. No way to know.
If there are other dimensions constantly spawning off, the lands of opposites, maybe in some of those worlds my dad's alive and okay.
And maybe he's just in the Elsewhere Bar, having a birthday beer.
Happy birthday, happy anniversary, wherever you are, Dad.
