I just got back from a week at home with my mom and sisters. I stayed in my folks house. I have to say, I didn't feel the presence of my father once. If you're just tuning in, he passed suddenly last April.
I've said before, I come from folks that are, shall we say, "sensitive" to certain "other-worldly" things. So, while I have been resistant in opening myself up to a visit from my dad, I thought being home for a week would loosen the doors a bit.
Nothing.
I cussed him out a bit when I was trying to help my mom and none of his power tools would start. "Really? You can't help me help her a lil?" was what I said to a passing cloud overhead.
My dreams have been void of him. Other than a reflection or a passing hint that he was present. Last night was much like that, but different.
Dreams are like bowel movements.
Everyone has them. No one wants to hear about yours.
Well...this is my blog...so suck it!
I was in a country 'kitch' kind of restaurant. Perhaps something like the Apple Farm, which is a favorite place to eat for my folks. We ate there, in fact, while I was visiting.
I seemed to be cashing out at a counter near an open door where I saw a number of my high school classmates coming from a house outside. They were lining up and walking past the restaurants open, daisy covered arched doorway. They were their current age, and chatting and walking in a line, as if they were leaving a show at a theater. Some of them saw me and waved and said hello. Others didn't look up.
I noticed, the place they were coming from was a house, with a porch that had a double gate on it that created a holding pen of sorts. In it were two dogs. One was the family dog from my youth, a mixed Vizla breed named Socks, who I loved dearly and considered "my dog". The other was a big headed, smokey grey pitbull looking beast. They just sat and looked my direction, from their holding pen.
"Is that.....Socks? Is that Socks?" I remembered saying, as I walked under the archway and towards the porch. One of my class mates said, "Yep..that's her!" and kept walking. I stood in the middle of a dust covered front yard. The only other thing was a slapped together shack, made of dark, wide, wood planks.
I noticed a door with warm amber light coming from the front door. I could suddenly sense that my dad was living here. Someone else was on the porch and they let the dogs go. The were suddenly untamed and aggressive, the pitbull the most aggressive. Socks became another dog that hung back in the shadows.
My dad stepped out on the porch. Jeans and white tee, his motorcycle boots making a clunking sound on the wood plank porch. He leaned against a post and said, "I'm training them." My dad had more of a "tough love" method of training than most folks would.
"Oh...I think they just need a lil attention!" says I.
"I think they need a good kick in the ass!", my dad said and reached down off the porch to give the pit a good slap on it's hindquarters as it paced back and forth in the dust in front of the porch. The pit tucked and yelped to put distance between my dad and itself.
I disagreed and in an effort to make nice with a dog that was causing my anxiety to rise, I knelt to his level. The pit immediately ran at me, rose up on it's hind legs, dropped his massive front paws on my shoulders and brought his muzzle too quickly to my face.
It was going to tear my face off!
His weight on me was substantial enough that I couldn't move more than an arm to keep his muzzle from contacting with my head.
It's mouth never opened, but his aggressive stance was anything but playful. Was it going to eat me alive? I couldn't tell, but I was starting to sweat with the panic. Feeling his dog breath on my face wasn't helping things.
My dad yelled at the dog and he released me and ran toward the porch. By the time I looked up and towards the porch, my dad had turned for the front door.
"I hate to be an 'I told ya so'....but.....", he said, as he walked back into the shack, leaving me kneeling in the dirt.
I never saw my dad's face.
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