Voices From Beyond

Whenever I have dreams of my dad, he never speaks. I told my mother-in-law about it and she said that sometimes when you dream of those who have died, they don't speak. That's how you know they are dead. She said that she had a dream of brother's widow in Vietnam and she just stood there soundlessly. She called her parents back there and asked about her. They told her that she had, indeed passed away (under very politically suspicious circumstances - as did her husband - but that's another story), but they hadn't wanted to tell her.

There was only one time when my father spoke to me in a dream. And it's so spooky, I'm almost afraid to share it.

It was right before I was to marry Jethro. I was a wreck. I was pregnant and ill and nervous and I had no idea if I had any right to force Jethro to live with me indefinitely. When I went to sleep, I had a dream that I was about 10 years old, and my sisters and I were at a flea market looking for winter mittens. There were hundreds and hundreds of mittens in these barrels and you had to dig through them to find the pair you wanted.

After digging through them and finding a pair, we left. I started second-guessing immediately about whether or not I had picked the right pair. I was fretting and moaning and really working up to a good whine, when my dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It'll be alright."

That was it. I woke up feeling reassured.

I never expected to feel my father's presence after his death. And, with the exception of this dream, I haven't. I don't feel ignored, however. If you believe in any way in spiritual "warfare" (for lack of a better term), you would know my father had bigger fish to fry. We all knew what was expected of us and I think he would have been miffed if we distracted him from his larger task by going off the deep end (which I did anyway). But in that one moment where I desperately needed some reassurance, he came through. And I've lived by those dream words ever since.