Writing from a very warm body tonight, burning from internal heat. Post food poisoning, mild flu and cold sneaking in, and blood moon on the horizon. Dad’s Loratadine tablets in my hand, been taking some for the flu, but underneath the surface, it’s just for me to feel him close.
And oh my God how he comes back. Like Azaro from The Famished road, the spirit-child. What would they call him, spirit-dad?
I lay my body down on his bed and the scent of his Vaseline and sweat rises. Mahmoud Darwish was right when he said,
قالوا: تموت بها حبـاًً؟
قلـت: ألا آذكروها علـى قبـري لتحيينـي
Translation: They asked “do you love her to death?”
I said “Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”
His favorite ties of grey and black gold on my side each night, summons him in my dreams. His eyes are dark-brown, but in the dream, they look opaline. Like I’m looking through water when I’m looking at him.
“The way somebody comes back, but only in a dream” Mary Oliver, We should be well prepared.
I’ve never seen my dad drunk, but if he ever was, I think he’s just like the drunken house guest Stephen King talks about.
“Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.” Stephen King, Bag of Bones.
And dad has never been a fan of some handsome green eyed Irish guy named Hozier, but I wonder if this is his way of crawling home to me. Like how Hozier sings of crawling home to his lover, even beyond the grave.
But after all the tears have been cried, and laughter has dried up, and we wake up from all the opaline dreams, I’ll take God’s Word for Truth.
That “If our hope in Christ is for this life on earth only, we should be pitied more than anyone else in the world.” (1 Corinthians 15:19)
So, I believe there’s something worth believing in beyond this life on earth, sure as silver refined in an earthen furnace, purified seven times. (Psalms 12:6)
Some opaline dreams, will one day become real.