Going to Egypt to Escape the Pharaohs

This morning I had another dream about Dad. Like the one I had last year. Mom and I were sitting in a booth in a restaurant talking and then she pointed. When I looked up, it was Dad. It was like seeing a ghost and a celebrity at the same time. My jaw dropped, and then I pointed, but I couldn’t say anything. But I knew it wasn’t real. He just said “hello”, and walked off. But it didn’t really sound like his voice, it was more like my Mom’s cadence.

Still dreaming, I started sobbing uncontrollably. I was slumped over, shoulders hunched, and my head was just inches above the table. I remember the design of the table being a dark green with a lighter pattern running through it, almost like leaves or branches. I remember thinking that I have never cried so physically hard; this was the hardest I have ever cried in my life. But I also felt like I deserved it, that I needed to cry even harder. It was supposed to hurt.

When I woke up, I was disoriented. But, I immediately and unconsciously started soothing myself saying “OK. OK. OK.”, trying to keep my emotions in check. The clock said 5:50. 10 minutes before my alarm was to go off. A few tears was all I allowed myself to squeeze out. I was almost disappointed that it wasn’t earlier. All I wanted to do was have a real-life sob now that I was lucid. Then, I could go back to sleep, and be able to recover before I got up to start my day. I wanted to wallow around in my grief like a dog rolling around in the dirt. I wanted to have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself.

But grief is inconvenient. It doesn’t care about your schedule. It doesn’t come around when you plenty of time on your hands. It doesn’t come around when are you in the comfort and privacy of your own home. It doesn’t come around when you are alone. It doesn’t come around when you have plenty of energy. It doesn’t care that it’s been 10 years. It doesn’t care what you’ve accomplished since then.

In the moments before I decided to get out of bed to jot down notes about the dream, all I could see in my head was my damn Outlook Calendar that I use on my work computer. I was trying to remember what was on it for that morning. I think I desperately wanted it to be full of those blue blocks of time so there wasn’t any room to think about the dream or to cry.

Grief is also selfish and envious. It wants you to think your grief is special. That no one else knows how you feel. That everything is so much easier for everyone else whether they have lost someone or not. It wants you to ask “why me?!” But I know it’s not just me. Sometimes I forget that my siblings and best friends (as well as their spouses) have their lost parents, too. All at young ages, some in very tragic ways and without warning.

It turns out that I was fine at work. Later, during an event that I had to attend, we watched a movie called “Smoke Signals.” One of the main character’s father had died and at the end of the movie they read a poem (by Dick Lourie), and the very first lines were:

How do we forgive our fathers?

Maybe in a dream.

At some point in my dream, I read or heard the phrase “Sometimes you have to go to Egypt to escape the pharaohs.” I won’t even attempt to interpret its meaning considering how vivid and visceral the rest of the dream was. But it stuck with me, and I liked it. When I woke up, I knew it would be the title of this essay. Maybe Dad is the pharaoh? He’d laugh at that: Pharaoh Shady of Caneyville!