Blackbird

Before he did, I'd had recurring dreams of my Father dying. For years before he did, as I witnessed his decline -- not as closely as I now would have wanted.

Last night, I dreamt of him, again. As has been usual after his death, he doesn't speak anymore. It's always been me, trying to tell him something, trying to share something with him, and him not saying anything back... just there.

And, eventually, me realising he's not saying anything, but just silently acknowledging what I'm saying. He seems grey, but as I remember him, mostly. Not in his declining years, but a few years back when I last recognised him and before he stopped being himself.

As this notion has intrigued me, I now realise that his death, to me, has always been his silence. When he stopped being able to communicate and be himself, that's when he started dying, for me.

And that's why my dream last night was so powerful: he had written down words on a piece of paper to convey what he hadn't been able to; to convey that he'd been locked inside his head but that his feelings were intact. He had written down what he wasn't able to convey otherwise.

In that piece of paper he said he loved me and my Brother; that he'd always loved us and hadn't always been able to say it -- and how hard it was now, that he found he wanted us to know but couldn't speak it, anymore.

I remember that I found that piece of paper, read it to myself and started weeping, but loudly -- like an expression of the love lost that hadn't found its way through; almost unable to say what it was, calling out my Brother so he too would know. I showed him the piece of paper and, still weeping, I woke up.

Woke up crying. Knowing that those were the words I wished he'd said, not just when he wanted to, but the words I'd wanted to hear, all along. Somehow, knowing was enough.

But uttering it? I won't lose the chance.

Love you, man.

I embrace (almost all*) my kids and tell them I love them. Every single day. Several times a day. They say it back, every time.

(* This one's for you too, Gui. When I get the chance to say it to you, you always say it back, too. Love you, Kiddo.)