My friend Allison told me about a dream she had the other night. Allison is a good friend of mine whom I have had the pleasure of getting to know over the summer of 2005, she is also my boss, well, sort of. I met her when I began working at Starbucks coffee co., Allison was my first real friend there and has been a good friend for the past 6 months and she has never, ever dreamt about me before, or at least she never told me about it. We were driving around down town Seattle when she said to me,
"Nathan, I had a dream about you the other night."
"Really Allison, has this been a regular occurrence?," I asked
"Well, not really, well not like the other night at least. You see, the dream was centered around you. We were all living together in this enormous house, sort of real world style, and this man was trying to call you. He said that he was your father, well your real father, and that he was dyeing on death row and needed to speak with you before he died. The man who raised you really wasn’t your father, he had married your mom after this man went to prison for killing a man when you were two, and you knew that. In fact, you knew that this man was your father all along but you were ashamed about it, you didn’t really want any one to know. You hadn’t seen or heard much from him before, only stories that your mother told you when you when you were young. And you know how you get when your frustrated about something, how you get really quiet." She paused for a response.
"Um, yeah, I suppose I do"
"Anyways, you were like that for most of the dream, just sort of avoiding people, the phone call, and even me because you knew I would bring it up. I could tell it was really hard on you, but I couldn’t get through to you. While all this was going on, we as a house were throwing a huge party for an African friend who was dying of aids. He knew that he was going to die when he went back to Africa. This would be the last time that we would see him again, so we threw this big party to celebrate his life before he went. So the days continue to come, and your dad, your real dad, keeps calling and calling and you, you just never answer the phone and never talk to anyone about him. You seemed really bitter, and angry, but sad also. So the day of this party arrives and we all find out that it’s the same day as your fathers execution, you know it, we all know it. Everyone is planning this party to celebrate the life and death of this one man, and at the same time everyone is trying to neglect the fact that your dad is going to die. The dream climaxed when a man came to the door of our house with a box of your dads possessions. There were his clothes and a few small objects of his, but then there were these letters that you had written him when you were young, and pictures that you had drawn for him when you were only a young child. Pictures of you two when you were together. You left the party with this box and headed to a lake behind the house, I followed you. You walked to the end of the dock and dumped this box right into the river. The sounds the party were so loud behind you but you were lost to it all. There were this torches burning in the background, a huge bonfire to celebrate our African friends death, and the images of you and your father, the letters, and the pictures you drew for him were floating out into the lake. You turned around and saw me standing there. I was silent, and solid. You walked towards me, shed a tear, and walked away. The dream ended there, in this dramatic fashion. The water, the fire, the life and death, emotion and numbness."
I told her that was an amazing story, a most impressive dream. It was poetic in a sense, I think it would be a good frame for a movie someday. It makes me think about how we view. We live in a society of competing philosophies on how we should view death. Atheist take comfort in knowing there is nothing to worry about. Agnostics take comfort in acknowledging that there is nothing we are able know about it, Christians take comfort in thinking they have it all figured out. There is just one problem, each competing group suffers from the same difficulty. They all, despite their philosophies, seek comfort. We need comfort because no matter how you view death, everyone is in agreement on this one fact. It’s a separation from the living. And for that we will all continue to seek comfort. Although we can find some conclusion and debate as to why we die, where we go, and when we shall arrive there, nothing satisfies the pain resulting from the separation caused by death. The only factor that softens the sharp edge, is time.
But what do I really know, these are only a young mans ranting about older mens fears. Death touches me only on the shoulder, from a far outstretched arm, I have not been wrapped completely around by it as some have. But when that day comes, I hope to embrace is much better than I do today.
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