Death and Roses

Death is such and unpleasant proposal. Day to day we take our life for granted not thinking about the end until something happens that shakes us awake to the reality that we only have a limited time here among the living.

I, on the other hand, am not like most. I am constantly thinking that life is too short and seems to be flying by too quickly. I have had my own brushes with death and have confronted the angel of death knocking on family's door as well. Constant thoughts flood my mind of a time where I will lose the ones that I love most. And though I know that all of this is inevitable, and I suppose a bit morbid, it helps me to not take anyone or anytime for granted.

With that said...I tend to have frighteningly vivid dreams. It gets to the severity that once I wake up it takes me a few minutes to realize that I was dreaming. I have had dreams like this all my life but as I have gotten older they have become more and more vivid. Last week I dreamed that my close friend had gone missing and that we had sent out search parties and filed numerous police reports. When I woke up crying I had to call her to find out if she was ok. She of course was just fine.

Today I woke up crying from one of the most horrible dreams I think I have ever had...and I've had some pretty horrific ones in my past. In this dream I walked up to my father and saw him in a red sweater that was much too big for his already skinny frame. His face was dark and sunken in around the eyes and cheeks. His glasses were gone and he just shuffled along the sidewalk toward me. I hugged him so tight that I thought I might have broken him and I told him that every time I see him I feel like it's been forever since the last time we saw each other. He just hugged me and told me that he had cancer but that it would be ok...which is something my dad would say in a tough time. I woke up devastated. It took me a full 5 minutes to convince myself that he wasn't sick and that it was all a dream.

All that coupled with my thoughts on death and the fact that I'm closer to my parents than anyone else on this earth really hit hard. Oddly I tell my parents everything and anything that goes on with me or that I'm thinking about. Nothing is kept from them. And though that may seem a bit weird, it's the most natural thing to me. I don't think I'll be able to handle them passing. I pray that God waits until I'm ready. Is that selfish of me?