Ink through water
Dreamed of dad last night. He was in a workshop, working wood. I knew I was dreaming, of course. I always do. I knew it was a dream of him.
What is the difference, I wonder, between me dreaming of him and him being in my dreams?
I knew I was dreaming, and I knew that I desperately wanted to hold him, because of course I did. Every time I dream of him, I want to hold him.
Grief is heavy on me today, or today I am full of grief. I'm in Costa munching on an egg bagel, on a wonky chair feeling tears prick my eyes, my throat catch. Some days are more full of grief than others and I guess one of those days is today.
Yesterday was dark depression, thick black ooze, bitter and sour, the kind which would poison my blood if it lingered; it didn't. Chased away in the night with a long deep sleep, chased away by a haunting dreadful proto-nightmare, chased away by a dream of my dad, smiling.
Awoke in the spare room at mum's, visions of nightmare men with ghastly voids in their faces, the sound of shuffling outside, light shining through the cracks of the door, the sound of shuffling outside. Got up to shake off the feeling of dread, the sound of shuffling outside. Flick the light on and it doesn't come on, flick the light on and it doesn't come on, oh I know this trick. Real as it all feels, the bed the room the light through the cracks, the shuffling the sound of shuffling outside, real as if feels I rip myself out. Tear pull rip myself out and I'm in bed in Sheffield and I'm awake. Put on a podcast and hug myself back to sleep.
Stood in a white room looking at a white sign and the sound of sawing behind me, and there is dad working away. Oh I know this trick, I think; run to him and pull him close and, and his smile, his smiling healthy face, his eyes bright and
A few months after he died, I was stood at mum's in the living room in a dream, and he was there, frail and ill, like he was in the last year. I knew it was a dream, I always do; I went to pull him close and hug him, and I remember how solid he was even as he was wasted away to nothing, just skin and bone, he felt so so solid under my hands between my arms against my chest. I woke under covers with his ghost briefly in my arms.
Last night he was happy and smiling and, under my arms, only as solid as memory.
I am sat in Costa and I am full of grief and on this tender edge of always almost crying. A full bodied grief which rolls and roils like thick fog, like incense, like ink through water.
I remember in the hot first weeks of grief, the strangeness that it didn't feel bad. It felt devastating and agonising and it destroyed me every moment, consumed me, but it didn't feel bad.
The day after he died, I saw him. Lost and confused, but genial; he puzzled about the back garden, wondering where he was and where to go. I made to climb up the steps to help him on his way, and a black shape poured like oil from over the garden wall, placed itself between me and him. Keep to your side, said its eyes and its claws and its jaws.
Dad didn't see me. He was busy trying to puzzle his own way forward.
I don't know what to do with all this grief, which is OK because I don't need to do anything with it. I maybe wish I could love louder, more freely. Be more sincere.
I always tear my way away from nightmares, and the sensation is never pleasant. They have their own warping mental field, so pulling out almost always feels violent, nauseating. I have not had a nightmare for decades on decades. I wonder sometimes if that's healthy.
I know what was shuffling on the other side of the door. I know what was casting a shadow through the light cast under it.
Nightmares are dreadful as long as you turn from them, as long as you dread them. But facing up to that dread is a hard task and, violent as it is, it is so much easier to rip myself out, back to bed.
Dad could never sleep, his final months. I stayed at their home and at night he would wander the house with a torch, not understanding where he was or what was happening. I got up one night and put on some Chopin in the living room; he passed through and saw me there. "This is the only room which feels sane", he said, lost and frightened and confused. I tried to settle him with a photo album, but it didn't work. He got violent, in those months. Violent and spiteful and cruel, and terrified, and fragile, and
Nightmare men with terrible voids where their faces once were. A dark room and shuffling, the sound of shuffling. I know what's on the other side of that door.
I want to hold him so much, one last time, again.