Marchdream 2016 - A Dream About My Departed Father

Dream March 2016


My father passed away January 3, 2016.

In the dream, I was with my Dad at a boisterous outdoor party. My mother had passed in 2008, and my Dad had come to this party with a new girlfriend. I knew the young woman from school; she was much younger than he, and in the dream I was worried about this. She seemed so damned fickle and likely to hurt him.
The three of us stood in a small cluster away from the roiling crowd of the party. She held my Dad’s hand in loose fingers and gazed away from him toward the revelry. Finally, she released his hand and ran to the cluster.
Dad followed her, and I stood transfixed as they had an argument. Dad shook his head slowly and solemnly left her side and returned to me. The girl vanished into the boil of people. Dad looked at the ground; the pain in his face was apparent, but he didn’t let it transform him. It hurt my chest to see him like that.
“She broke it off,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Dad,”
I embraced him, and he hugged me back as fiercely as he ever had. He then slowly walked up the hill to our right, at the top of which was an arch. It was minutes later as he approached the arch that I knew he was going to die. I hurried after him, determined to be there with him, but when I passed under the arch, he was lying still on his back in a great hall. Still.
I somehow knew that this was a dream, and that I might be able to rewind events.
So I did.
We were standing again by the crowd, but it had shrunken, and was populated only by immediate family members. Everyone looked to Dad. The young woman was gone.
The pained expression from before was gone. I hugged my Dad and told him, “I love you so much.”
He turned to walk up the hill.
Looking at my family, I said, “He’s going to rest there, but we have a chance to be with him.” But when I pivoted to follow my Dad, he was already under the arch. Everyone raced up the hill, but we found him as I had before, still and peaceful.

Dream Over