I have these dreams which are always the same. I am in a small rowboat with The Old Man.
We are fishing in a lake.
I don’t know where we are. I can only assume that it is early in the morning.
The Old Man is quiet. And so am I.
Nothing is said.
I am not sure if I am a young boy in this dream. I do not know if I am grown, like I am now.
Either way –
I view him the same way as I always have.
You have to remember that all of my memories are from when I was young. He never saw me grow. He never saw who I became or what I grew into. He never saw any of my accomplishments.
At the same time, I look at him through the eyes of a kid.
I was 17 when he passed.
I don’t remember the last time we went fishing. I hardly remember our last walk on the beach.
I remember him though. I remember what happened. I know the stories and details of what took place between us. At the same time, this was another lifetime.
My past is like I movie I saw, and sometimes, I think the subtitles or my recollections are inaccurate.
I try to keep in touch.
That is, of course, I try to keep in touch as much as you can keep in touch with anyone who passed away.
I write letters to my Father. I write entries like this one in my journals. At the same time, I understand that life moves. Time moves too. And life goes on, which is not to say that I have forgotten my memories. This is not to say that my lack of memories is disloyal.
No.
Quite the opposite.
I would say that this has taken years of growth to get where I am. I would say that it took growth to learn how to be honest about what went on or happened between us. I say this because I would never dare to speak this way.
I have listened to people talk about their parents or loved ones in bereavement groups.
I was a facilitator, so the group was about them, not me.
They say thigs like, “I’m never going to get over this.”
I agree.
I don’t know if we ever “get over” something like this.
I don’t know if we ever get over the biggest losses of our life.
However, I do think that time helps to heal the pains from yesterday’s wounds.
I know that I do not think or feel the same way I did in December of 1989.
I do not feel the same as I did, one year later, in 1990, or in 1991.
It’s crazy to think how the years have advanced (and so have I).
It’s 2025. I am 52.
Man, time moves pretty fast.
None of this means that I lost love from my heart or that I have forgotten my Father.
Not at all.
Yesterday was Father’s Day.
Days like this have been different to me for a long time.
But that’s okay.
I have grown and yes, I am still growing.
I have my own realizations which come to the surface.
I used to deny these things.
I used to reject them because I saw them as disrespectful of my Father’s name.
However, being honest about faults or flaws is not disrespectful.
There came a time when I matured and advanced to a different level of awareness. To be clear, I often say that we fail to see our parents as humans.
We hold them in these postures of what we assume a perfect parent should be.
But no, no one is perfect.
Not even love is perfect.
Parents are humans too and like humans, parents are imperfect. They make mistakes. They say or do the wrong thing. They overreact. They have tantrums too.
They have their own life to contend with. They have bills to pay. They have frustrations. They have fear and insecurities.
Same as we have faults, parents have faults too.
I don’t know if I realized this when I was younger. I don’t know what I thought because I haven’t been “younger” in a really long time.
I like the dreams I have about fishing with my Old Man in a little rowboat on a lake.
Everything is quiet. Nothing needs to be said. Somehow, dreams like this are a special visit from someone I need to see but can’t reach, at least not in the traditional sense.
The Old Man and I usually fished in the ocean, back in the days which are all way back when.
I don’t know why my dreams take place on the same lake all the time.
I always assumed this was because our last sit-down meal together was in the mountains in Upstate, New York.
I don’t know why we never fish where the ocean is deep.
But hey, fishing is fishing.
I would do anything to fish with The Old Man again.
I guess this is why I always want to take you fishing with me.
Know what I mean?
The Written Addiction 