Dreamt of Dad today when I woke up this morning.
In my dream, he was calling me "Young Boy". He never called me that while he was still alive. I remember in the dream and upon waking up that I had hoped that he would've called me, "My Boy". But I thought that having dreamt about him and acknowledging me in the dream twice was enough for me to be content for now.
When Dad passed away back in 2007, I kept dreaming about him and Mom didn't. She said that she kind of felt left out because me and my siblings dreamt about Dad more back then, except her. Finally when she did, we told her that perhaps Dad knew that if she dreamt about him early on, it would've been harder for her to let him go. That's why it took a while.
We silently thought that perhaps it was Dad's way of easing the blow and allowing Mom to get used to him being gone. To dream about him regularly would be difficult for her indeed.
He never called my "My Boy" but when I wrote a script about Robin Hood for our 6th grade English class, he started calling me a "scriptwriter". And while it fizzled out in time, that was validation for me before when I didn't realize that I was a creative person. I felt a feeling of productivity and sense of accomplishment after finishing it. And later on when I saw it being dramatized in class with me playing Friar Tuck, I felt that I had come full circle in the creative process.
It was feeling that I could not describe when I was young but I was thrilled that what I wrote was read. That was I wrote was listened to and appreciated. And when you think about it, isn't that what every creative wants? That their work be accepted and not ignored. Looked into and not merely dismissed.
Thanks Dad for knowing early on what I didn't know about myself.
All my work is dedicated to you. And wherever you are, I hope you know it and are enjoying it.
