Old Dream, New Look

Twenty years ago I had a dream. The images and the emotions I felt during that dream lingered long after I woke. They were too powerful to forget.

I had been flying. The plane was about to crash. It banked sharply to the right and then plummeted out of the sky. My stomach became light, as if I had been riding a Ferris Wheel. The momentum of “over the top” quickly replaced by the abrupt decent. A brief moment of weightlessness, vanished because on this ride there wasn’t any thrill. When I woke I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, surprised by my reaction to my own death. I hadn’t scared.

Instead anger gripped me harder than my clenched hands on the back of the seat in front of me. During the dream, I imagined my father. He would be deeply upset when told I had died. Knowing how hurt he would be made me mad.

Even though it was a dream, I always wondered why I reacted that way, unconcerned about my death, instead anticipating the grief my father would feel. I hated hurting him like that.

Last week, after learning the news about my father’s prostate cancer, I was shocked, angered and saddened by the news – the inevitability that my father, who is eighty-four, is going to die one day came too close, became too real. The emotions I experienced kept me awake. I thought of the dream.

However, I had a new perspective. Instead of thinking about my father’s reaction, I saw my Heavenly Father’s reaction to the news of my death. He would have been sad too for at the time I had not surrendered my life to Him. In this new interpretation, I didn’t want Him to be upset.

I smiled. For He won’t be.

I did a lot of praying last week and asked others to do the same for my Dad. A few days later, after more tests, I learned the good news that the cancer had not spread.