Withdrawals from dreams

(CW: This post is about losing a child and the grief of that experience)

My son Kyle's been dead for over six years now.

For the first few years I dreamed of him nightly, and they were almost all joyous dreams. I used to write often about how I dreamed of him "at every age and stage"; some of my dreams would be about him as a baby, some as a child, some a teen, some as an adult.

I loved this quality about myself (and still do): I love that my brain is capable of recreating him in such exquisite detail; it is a sign of the purest, deepest form of love that I am capable of reaching into the depths of my consciousness and visiting the version of him that lives in my memories; his scent, his smirk, his laughter, his voice, the texture of his hair, his crooked teeth. All versions of him from the first day he drew breath to the last time I saw his lifeless body in a hospital bed, they all live within me.

As the years go by, I dream of him less and less. Indeed, one of my deepest fears is that some day I will forget him. But even though I dream of him less often now, when I do, they are still so rich and detailed and beautiful that I never want to wake up.

I had one last night. In my dream he was alive. It was one of those dreams where I knew he was dead in the real world, but he was alive in my dreams and I held him so tightly because of this knowledge. My dream was mostly abstract; he was about to embark on a cross country road trip (something he did multiple times in his life), and I was being an annoying, hovering dad; making sure he had everything he needed, that he would drive and arrive safely. He was rolling his eyes in the dream (something he also did frequently in life) and telling me that he would be fine. I don't remember much, but I do remember grabbing him tightly and smelling his hair and telling him "I can't lose you again, Kyle. I can't."

But I did. I woke up. I awoke back into a reality in which he is gone, and I lost him again. I had to mourn him all over again.

The days following dreams like this are usually very hard. I wander in a daze, feeling the grief of losing him pour over me as if it was that first awful night all over again. He was right there. He was just there. Why can't I go back and live in that dream? I want to live there forever and never wake up.

But wake up I must. Into this world, inundated with the realities of my current life: jobless, aimless, mostly invisible as the world zooms by me. The prospect of my entire career field has exploded, and I have to awaken to a world in which the idea of having to start a new career from scratch, from the bottom, at almost 50 years old when nobody wants me, with skills that used to be useful but not in a world that has left me behind. I have to wake up to the constant noise; the headlines, the tragedies, the rage, the smug smirks of the lucky, evil men in the photos and articles. To the constant sorrow of people like me, begging for scraps, begging for work, begging to fund their health, their rent, their car payment. The despair.

As I wandered the house like a ghost today, I sat on the couch and started crying. I told my wife that I think I might understand what addicts going through withdrawal might experience. I have often read of heroin addicts saying things like "I will never experience that high again and I've been chasing it ever since"; I have to wake up in a world in which my son is still dead, but the siren call of that dream follows me constantly.

I want to live in that dream, where my son is still alive, forever. I'll be chasing it for the rest of my life.