Bad, Bad Dreams

Have you ever had one of those bad dreams that plagues the entire night’s sleep? One where you force yourself to wake up to get out of it, but as soon as you fall back asleep your brain just picks back up and keeps right on going with it? I had one of those last night and can’t get it off my mind. I’m hoping writing will be like a mini-exorcism and I can focus on what I need to get done.

I had a bad dream last night that my Dad was diagnosed with cancer. I got this news via a phone call from either my Mom or Sister and then they took him into surgery without me being able to see or talk with him. Long and short of it is he didn’t make it through surgery. I remember the heaving chest, the pain so bad it felt like my chest was literally going to split in two. I kept trying to go through daily motions and just couldn’t make it – I found myself in different scenarios and breaking down, sobbing and not being able to breathe the grief was so intense. I couldn’t talk with him, I couldn’t see him, I could only hurt, physically bent over in agony.

I remember talking w/someone about it briefly and telling them I could not make a planned commitment. Their response was, “Well why did he die? Let’s discuss this? Let’s disect it and work through it?” I told him his heart gave out on him. Why did I even say that? It wasn’t the reason, or maybe it was but by that time I had tried to exit myself out of this dream so many times that if my brain had some details that had changed oh well.

Relief finally came when my alarm went off and for the first time I wasn’t ticked at how early it was.

I’ve been thinking about my Dad a lot lately and I’m not sure why. I think we are blessed to have the family that we do. I read on one of my boards that a wife was asking for advice. Her husband had a job that took him offshort for 3-4 weeks at a time and then got a “promotion.” The promotion consisted of an office job, home every night to be with his family, and a decrease in salary/paycheck. They were working through whether or not he should go back to his job that while it took him away from his family and kids, paid more and was less stressful. Such a hard decision to make – I didn’t have any advice for them. I remember talking w/ my Dad before about our situation and how he was on the road for the vast majority of years while I was growing up. We still have a great relationship and there’s something to be said for that. I had an amazing Mom that held down the fort. I’m not sure how she did it because I get stressed out during football when R isn’t home – she lived one continual football season, getting relief during the weekends.

Family means the world to me. It’s not just a saying, it’s a fact, it’s a feeling, they are my life support. I see the different ways that families show it. R’s family has the same amount of love for each other that I do with mine, but they show it differently. To them, they just “know” it. They know they love each other, it’s okay if they don’t call.

Me on the other hand? I hated that I went four days without getting a hold of my sister – we played telephone tag for a day. I spoke with my mom four times the other day – on the fourth time I remembered it was her birthday! (I know, I’m bad with birthdays).

It’s one of the reasons I am content in Nebraska. For years, my whole life I never was. It wasn’t until I had Prayse that I realized how important it was for her to be around family. Raymonn worked for 18 years to get out of where he grew up, going back there is not an option in either one of our minds. But P needs family, she needs to see them and not have it be holidays. It’s one of the reasons I’d like to get our finances in a place where we can afford to go to Texarkana more than once/year.

Just the thought of losing a family member is enough to bring tears to my eyes and is followed by a frantic prayer of safety for everyone. It always reminds me just how strong my Aunt Denise is as she held her family through one of the hardest times they have went through a year ago – and they turned out victorious.

Okay – time is passing me by and I need to get down to work. I know this doesn’t really make sense, I’m not even re-reading it for spelling and grammar errors. I just needed to purge.