Month: February 2019

Dream or is it a reality?

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It always seems to happen when I am feeling that my life is good. No, let me rephrase, it always happens when I feel as though my life isn’t just going good or well, but great.

It sneaks in through the night using a cover of darkness and a weakness associated with slumber. Knowing the intended victim (myself) doesn’t stand a chance because there are no walls, no observance of its presence until it is too late.

Sometimes it masks itself using my family or friends as an intended target. Other times it drags up memories of the past, the atrocities associated with a long career such as mine. Either way it has a way of tearing me down, leaving me feeling spent both physically and mentally. Other days, it leaves me wrecked beyond belief and I wonder just how much more one man can take. I am confident and strong, I always have been, but there are days I want to curl up and cry for no reason at all.

Dreams of death.

Last night as I slept, Jake my second son came to me in a dream. I was fishing and he appeared in front of me from nowhere.

I said: Jake what are you doing, how did you get here?

Jake: I came to say goodbye dad

Me: Where are you going?

Jake: It’s time for me to go, just wanted you to know I love you

Me: what are talking about?

Jake: Goodbye dad (as he vanished)

The rest of the dream consisted of me doing everything I could to get home! To find my son! And as with most hectic, disorganized dreams every obstacle was put in my place! When I finally got there, he was in fact dead. Gone from this world. It was a nondescript death, a combination of every horrible thing I have witnessed over the life of my career. It was horrendous.

I haven’t been able to shake it.

Here is my problem. I know what it is, I know what these dreams manifest from, I know that it is not a reality.

But

I also knew every single thing about my first wife’s death before it happened because I had in fact dreamt about it over a several year period. I knew everything about where to go and what to do at Stanford Hospital because in my dreams I had been there even though I had never set foot on the property once.

I knew after my second wife was diagnosed with Leukemia that it wasn’t going to go well. Oh at first I believed it was my cynical side, you know that part of us that is carefully crafted from years of getting burned?

But as we went along I did my best to keep faith, to suppress my feelings of dread, to be the most important person in her life during every hiccup or stumble. All the while knowing, not guessing or having a feeling, but knowing she was in fact going to die. Why? Because I dreamt about it over time. From the hospital visits to the pharmacy runs, to her addiction to opioids. I dreamt it all. I knew she would die at home, I knew she was going to suffer and I knew she would leave a huge mark on this world. Not just because of who she was as a person, but because it always came to me in a dream. The only thing my dreams got wrong was her dying in our dining room. In my dreams she died surrounded by family at her dads.

So what is it about me that this happens too?

Is this a curse that only I can live with and if so, do I embrace the knowledge or cower from its implications?

I have so many wonderful people I talk with about my life, my emotions and how to deal with the past.

I have someone very close that I love who lets me talk openly about those last two years while watching the woman I cared for deteriorate and die. The ramifications of being alone but not alone, a caretaker, a warden, a nurse, a pharmacist and surviving nightmare after nightmare. Who listens to everything and anything that comes to mind while I am venting about these crazy notions in my head, understanding completely without thinking any less of me as a person. A beautiful safe space in my life.

But these dreams, these damn dreams, I just need them to stop! I’m weary of death, I am weary of pain, I no longer wish to carry the sufferings of so many in my head only to be replayed over and over again at the whim of nightfall’s grace.

So what do I do?

I do what I have always done.

I write about it for you.

If you are suffering in the slightest I need you to know you are not alone. I need you to understand it doesn’t feel ok, but it is and you are fine. I want you to feel as though you can talk about it, express those very same feelings without judgment or remorse.

I am blessed with the ability to write, to share, and to explain things in a way that you can understand. Everyone has a gift, a talent, something they are particularly good at, I have been told this is mine. Writing allows me to get these feelings out, to purge them from my mind, to let them go even if it’s just for a little while.

If you have something that allows you the same freedom you need to act when you feel down, you need to grab whatever gift you have been bestowed and make it your ritual. It will help I promise.

If you can’t, please find a professional to talk with, to council.

Now, I am going to try and call my son, I think he is out of class by now.

I just need to hear his voice.

Time

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What is there to say about time?

“Don’t waste your time with explanations, people only hear what theywant to hear” ~ Paulo Cohelo

“It has been spoken that time heals all wounds. I do not agree, I believe that time distorts the remembrance of pain teaching us how to survive, to move forward as we begin to live again” ~ Betty

“The past is gone, the future is yours and yet we are collectively mired in the moment. It is yours to grab a hold of and thrive or cower and fold” ~ Betty

“Time is the longest distance between two places” ~ Tennessee Williams

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you’d better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you’ll never understand what it is saying” ~Sarah Dessen

I chose in December to not allow time, or the perception of-time to dictate my future. To not allow those mired in their own perception of pain and loss to coerce or change my direction. I am a man of great conviction, faith, perseverance and inner confidence. I was raised that way, by a man who I didn’t always see eye to eye with, yet marveled in his ability to consistently reinvent himself, his family and his life. My father never gave up. Ever.

In the end he was tired, worn out and felt at times a failure. I learned from that too. My father taught me so much and he never knew I was watching. Watching his every move, the way he reacted, plotted, planned and did his very best to succeed.

It is why I strive to be a good man in front of my children all the time, not just some of the time. Because I know in time, they too will be faced with adversity, struggle and hardship. They too will need to draw upon a mental reservoir filled to the brim with lessons never taught but learned through observation. Life is filled with so many lessons and people to help teach them to us. I believe with all my heart people come into our lives for a reason and when they are gone their job is done. Just as I believe when I am gone hopefully I helped many and my job will be done as well. We just need to learn to listen to that voice guiding us constantly. I believe there are souls or energy that travel through space and time, allowing us the ability to find each other again and again hopefully creating a more perfect being assenting towards heaven.

I hated dad’s lessons that were heart to heart, always choosing instead to do things my way, the hard way, alone. I have one of three sons that is following in his father’s footsteps in that regard. He is in for a long uphill battle this I know but in the end he will be strong and wise, hopefully casting a larger shadow than his father did for him. Always helping those who need it through actions not words.

By watching and learning from my father I refuse to let life bring me down, to hold me back. There is a world to see and I plan on doing so.There are people to meet, to love, to keep close and there are those that will fade away. But I will have done my best to be a mentor, friend, and a man who loves with his heart and mind.

So what does time mean to me?

I don’t want to miss a second of time. If anything has hit me harder than a brick after losing not one, but two wives is that we only have so much time on this earth and none of it is guaranteed. Time with my kids, time with my family, time with friends and people I choose to love. Not one second or opportunity will I miss.  

Every day I wake up, put my feet on the floor and take a step forward. Every day I look for the good in everything and everyone. Everyday I pray at work I won’t see another human perish. I know that’s an impossibility but it’s nice to want and wish.  Every single day I willingly choose to make it better than the day before, to lead the way.

Jacy made me promise to live my life, to not mope around or feel despair, to fully recognize that her suffering was over and so was the 5 year struggle within our family. She made me promise to take care of our children and do what’s best for me. She knew she would die young and that her time or work here on this earth was done as well. She was one of the wisest, kindest people to those around her and those for whom she never knew I will have ever known. I learned from her, much like my father from simply watching.

The time is now. I cannot wait for what my life, our life, our families life has in store. Time is never a given and I feel as though our seasons of life are changing, there is no more bad luck and it is definitely time…