A Message

When I was a little boy, I started having nightmares in which my father died. Terrible visions. Car crash, broken glass, broken reading glasses, gaudy blood everywhere. Knife attacks. Falls from high up. Broken. These dreams tormented me.

To the point that I was afraid to go over to Dad’s apartment. I think my fear, inchoate as it was, had something to do with the idea that my presence would somehow kill him.

(He was totally healthy, by the way.)

This presented a logistical problem. At that point, I saw my father every weekend. He and his girlfriend, Sue (later to be my stepmother), had moved to Washington Heights so it would be easy for me to walk the few blocks between my mom’s house and theirs. Going to Paul and Sue’s apartment was the joy of my life.

“Tell Daddy I’m sick,” I told my mom. She called him. While on the phone with her ex-husband, she called out to me from the kitchen: “Do you want to talk to him?”

“No!” I shouted back from my bedroom. Then, thinking I had maybe sounded too hearty, too healthy, I said the word again, but more meekly: “No.”

This went on for a few weeks. The nightmares continued.

I came up with a plan. Each night, before I fell asleep, I thought — hard — about the image of my dead father. I had heard something about the subconscious, and my theory was that by pushing those dreadful images into my conscious mind, they’d evacuate my subconscious dream-state.

It didn’t work.

My dreams of Dad dying — dead — only became more elaborate, as if my dream-mind were saying, Ha — see, you can’t get away.

Technicolor blood. The sirens of approaching police detectives. Inky-dark night.

I’d wake up in a sweat. Then lie there, in the dark, staring at the dim images that the moon cast through the chickenwire over my window.

One night, in the wee hours, lying there awake, I sent a message to my Future Self.

You are wise. You are cool. You are not a terrified kid. What I ask of you: Remember me, now, like this. Just remember that I existed like this, and I was afraid, and I couldn’t think of what to do to stop my nightmares. Remember this me — the me of this moment, who is struggling and sees no hope of relief.

The next weekend my mom called me to the phone.

“Sue wants to speak with you.”

I took the phone. “Sue, I keep having these nightmares in which … in which … terrible things happen to my dad. I think … I think if I come over there, I might kill him. He could die because of me.”

On the other end of the line, I could hear Sue smile. Don’t ask me how. (She was from the Midwest.)

“Joshy, you’re learning how much you love your father — that’s why you’re having those dreams. Because you love him so much.”

My tears came. As they are coming now.

When I think of the people I love, I cry.

To my Younger Self:

I’m an old man now. I got your message, boychik. You existed — the you who was wondering in the dark. Your life will be filled with unimaginable love — love you cannot now encompass with your young mind and heart. But you will love and be loved. And it won’t be the love that kills; the love will be what makes everything worth it.