Remembering my Father
My father, dead for more than half a century, shows up on occasion in my dreams, visions and revelries. On his recent pre-Christmas calling my father was looking down at me through an open skylight, flanked on his right side by a grey squirrel. In this dream my father seemed to possess his early Dublin swagger. He was smiling, almost radiant. I’ll get to the squirrel in a minute.
I have written recently in my journal how, during these noisy, busy and hectic days, my dreams provide a certain clarity and slow down my psychic life, perhaps allowing me to concentrate on what’s important. My father, like my mother, comes and goes, showing up unannounced. I don’t think I am looking for him. I have thought of late about how much the man enjoyed Christmas, filling our London flat with warmth, joy and food rarely seen during the dull, often painful post-World War years.
He would travel outside of London and drag home a scruffy Christmas tree from who knows where. At this time there were no Christmas lights so my father carefully attached candles to the tree branches and proceeded to light them. How we didn’t burn the place down is still a wonder to me.
Christmas and Easter were celebrated in our living room that was padlocked the rest of the year. Perhaps my parents wanted a space that would not be invaded by three rambunctious boys. On reflection, and remembering all the bombed-out buildings surrounding us, I suspect my parents wanted a place to retreat to from the horrors of war and deprivation they had been subjected to for almost a decade. I still wonder what my mother thought about having to give up her best furniture when we left in a hurry to join our father in America. I remember pushing furniture through the streets of North London on the way to relatives and charities.
My mother often told us the story of our father’s last contribution to the household. A day before he died my father painted the porch deck on our house using what I would come to know as Navy gray paint (I painted a few Navy ships in my time). She might have told me this story a dozen times, as kind of a coda to my father’s life, a reminder that in his last days he was on his knees adding value to a modest new home.
I seem to remember that my father was in his pajamas when he did this porch work. It wasn’t as if he was confused; he knew full well he was dying. Perhaps he had a spurt of energy, dress be damned. Perhaps he no longer worried about the large scars on his neck, courtesy of radiation treatment that went wrong. Perhaps he was praying.
It is as if my father was always in a sense at a distance. He traveled a lot on business, served in the British zone in Germany after the country’s post-war division. He was a gambler. He loved the horses and the dogs. He lost a lot. He drank a lot. For a few months he kept racing greyhounds in our London apartment to be raced at a nearby arena. He was always chasing something and never quite reached the target.
I don’t romanticize my father but recognize he gave everything, including his life, to bring his family to America. In that he showed courage and restraint. He put aside her beer money to pay for our passage. I don’t remember him ever complaining as he approached death. I wanted to object to my mother soaking his bandages in the same pot she used to cook his mushroom soup but kept quiet. I think there was only one pot in the kitchen.
A straightforward interpretation of my father dream is that he or his dream image is looking down on me from a skylight, presumably a source of light and illumination. And I’ll take that. I know that dreams are compensation for something, perhaps the way I feel, the pattern of my thinking, or my own fears of death. The image of my father might be from a photo of a middle-aged man with my mother and four children, one from her previous marriage. Despite the war — during which it was taken — there seems to be joy in the photo. Perhaps that’s the man I want to remember rather than a frail, speechless man dying in front of me and a small black and white television. Perhaps I want to make him whole again. Before I tie the dream image up in a neat package, I am reminded of the words of the poet W.H. Auden: “We are lived by powers we pretend to understand.”
I am now on that downward trajectory myself. Perhaps I am doing what is most human, that is, projecting; creating images in the dream narrative that are consistent with my fears and psychic needs. In our dreams and visions, we often seek wholeness and unity. Perhaps I want to be at peace with my father. The joy on his dream face is also a mirror, something to reflect on.
I have thought long and hard about that damn squirrel. Some background. I live on a wooded lot with lots of nut bearing trees. Thus, squirrels and other animals are in good supply. On moving in, I tried to manage the squirrels but with no success. Over the years I have come to admire squirrels and their gymnastic talents. In short, they are a bother I’ve made my peace with.
I have to remind myself that dreams are not necessarily morality plays; they are more likely theater, nonsense-squared or a bit of mythological slime coughed up from the Collective Unconscious. But dreams have a dramatic logic and tend to make sense. Perhaps the dream squirrel is a kind of “bête noire,” something that bothers me. The rodent is still chewing on my roof, but I think I have come to grips with it.
Perhaps the same is true of my father; he certainly still “gnaws” at me. There were things about him that really bothered me, including his reliance on physical punishment, his treatment of my mother and his drinking, but I have tried over the years to put these in perspective.
Perhaps that pesky dream squirrel, showing up like a handheld puppet, is a reminder that I still have work to do. And sometimes I might get in over my head or let personal history rule me. I tend to be fiercely protective of my mother, even long after her death. Some might say I have a Mother Complex.
They would be right but that’s another story and perhaps another dream.
