Closure

I dreamed about my dad for the first time in my life last night. In the dream he was seriously ill, but exactly as I have seen him in pictures. I was just a child when he left this world, so I don’t remember him very well in real life. I never really got to know him as a person.

I remember him smiling. His hair was almost black, he was tall, slim, well-groomed, handsome and friendly. I somehow never got to say goodbye to him. I don’t think I visited him in the hospital the last days he was alive. I did not attend his funeral either. My mother probably did this to shield a child from grief and reality. And it probably did then and there. But it also meant that I never got closure.

He was sensitive, warm, caring and beautiful in the dream. But terminally ill. I have no recollection of what his voice sounded like in real life, and he didn’t say anything in the dream either. He smiled the whole time with a caring look in his dark brown eyes. The eyes smiled too.

It was as if a sorrow I had carried all my life had been released when I woke up.

We said goodbye last night. If only in a dream 53 years too late.