How You Remain With Me
Or a letter for those who are missing someone
Walking down a street I don’t know where is it. But among everything that matters, that’s the least. Everything is blurry around, so it’s clearly a dream.
What I’m about to share with you now is a dream, the one I had last night.
I wrote it down as soon as I woke up, because I thought I should remember these words, they came to me as words from my dad. And by the time I read those words down, I thought maybe someone else would need them as much as I did. And as much as I will need them again sometime in the future.
Before we begin, take the song Moon from Sleeping at Last so you can listen while reading. I can assure you this detail will change the way you experience it. But only press play once I see the Czech house. 👀
I went to bed last night before spending some time with my mom on the couch, watching some of our favorite shows. And yesterday I figured some of them are still too much for me. Or it was, until I have this dream.
Walking down a street I don’t know where is it. At this point, it doesn’t even matter, as long as I understand the reason for being here.
Looking around and looking for clues, I see numerous houses. It’s a… neighbourhood. It is a closed condominium, and the houses are lined in wide and long streets. In the street I find myself in now, I see many of several different styles.
It doesn’t look like any ordinary condominium. Each house has a different style — but really different. I see square, modern houses filled with glass. I see large, cozy houses, American style. I see huts farther north, and the soil next to them looks mountainous. In the same way that on my left there is a little wooden house on the edge of the beach — but there is not even a beach here.
A few steps ahead I see a czech house.
I approached slowly, and found a man in front of the house.
“D-Dad?”, I asked fearfully.
He looked at me and smiled, waving.
“I heard you were sad yesterday night”, he said.
“Dad, where are we?”, I said looking around, approaching a little more.
“You don’t have to stop watching the shows that you love because we used to do it together”, he said. “You don’t have to skip the things that you love because it makes you remember me.”
“Dad…”, I said.
“That’s how you keep me alive. That’s how you remain with me.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to feel.
I understood it was a dream, but felt tears forming in the corner of my eyes.
“Come, I want to show you something”, he said getting inside the house.
As I stepped into his yard, the condo disappeared in my eyes, and everything around became an open, fresh environment.
I took a complete turn, looking at the sky, and really, it was just a green and open environment, only the czech house appeared to me.
“Oh”, he said looking back at me. “You get used to it. Everyone here has somewhere different, somewhere they’ll feel more connected to themselves, their essence.”
“I-I always thought you wanted to live at the beach…”, I said.
“That was a plan with you mom. I’m not doing it without her”, he smiled.
He didn’t looked any sad. Quite the opposite, he was fine.
Maybe I should be fine.
We walked towards the living room. It was a large, airy room, with a glass door that opened onto a green-filled yard. There was this teenager on a counter that overlooked the kitchen, preparing something. And a tall female standing at the back yard.
“W-Who’s this girl?”, I asked in a shaky voice.
“That’s not a girl”, dad laughed. “That’s your brother. He just likes keeping long hair.”
“Oh my… Peter, you were five days old… — ”
“I know”, he smiled. “Really, you don’t have to worry.”
My brother passed away at five days old, and he was there.
“And you are — ”
“Yes, I came to assist your dad”, she said. The woman was my aunt. She passed away when I was 8.
I remained paralyzed in the middle of the room, just looking around.
“I’m still doing everything we used to”, dad said pointing to the walls, where I could see pictures from our family trips, draws, the action figures he loved so much all around, and also, sticky notes.
I stepped further to check the sticky ones.
“I haven’t stopped being me. So you don’t have to stop being yourself, too”, he said sitting on his big couch and turning the TV on. “Everything remains the same to me. And it should be like that to you too.”
I took my eyes to the television, and Buying Alaska, the program we used to watch together was there, as if nothing ever changed.
I felt unable to say anything, even being a dream that was so much.
“Go back home. Do what you would, because that’s what you should”, he said.
“That’s… Beautiful and confusing…”, I said.
“Go. Be yourself again. Make more memories. Honour me.”
The tears finally started to come.
And once again, I couldn’t move, and I had no idea what to say.
“What’s wrong?”, he softly asked.
“It’s… beautiful… but… still, everything is different now, I can’t see you nor hold you anymore.”
“But just because you can’t feel me it doesn’t mean I’m not with you.”
“And when I do something — ”
“To make me proud? Just because you can’t hear it from me it doesn’t mean I’m not proud.”
“You’ll be a story in my head”, I cried.
“That’s okay”, he said. “You taught me we’re all just stories in the end”
I cried.
“Go. Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Feel what you must, when you must.”
I smiled at him in tears.
“If you ever bump into something that makes you remember me, don’t skip it. Take your time, but keep me alive in you.”
“You’ll always be alive in me.”
“I know, so don’t fight it”, he said. “Because that’s how you remain with me.”
