Dreams about my Dad

Bittersweet dreams of Dad this morning...

I remember arriving back in Flushing (Queens) after a long day of psych clients. I had gotten off the 7 train, and I was walking around my old neighborhood, observing how it had changed for the summer months. NYC in summer is full of Magic, and I miss my hometown greatly...

I had run up the stairs towards the apt on Parsons & Sandford, and saw that the second set of white granite steps had been replaced with a giant community altar, done in the Central American style. Neighbors were placing their wrapped packages inside a carved-out section (similar to the Maya wrapped offering bundles), and I began searching through my purse to add my own offerings. All I had was loose change, and I left two different offerings within the small cache.

After that, I stood up, walked around the crowd, and continued up to the apt. I went through the outer door (never locked), and tried to find my keys for 1-G. They had broken off, and I remember feeling annoyance and disappointment, which brought me into full consciousness in my dream.

Dad was dead, what was living in our apartment?

As I looked closer at the door, I realized that it had been taken off its hinges and reversed. The outer door was now inside, and the deadbolt on the inside was replaced with a new lock. I knocked, not sure of what would happen...

Dad answered the door, and I burst into tears.

He looked amazing. His beer belly was gone, he was standing up straight, hair brushed, wearing a nice sweater with his stonewashed jeans (80's forever, ha ha!). And no nicotine stains on his fingers!

He waved me in quickly, and suddenly I had a suitcase with me. I went to my old bedroom to put it down, but it had been changed into a hospital room with numerous patients bedridden, watching TV. Faceless nurses moved among them, administering meds. Two female supervisors (?), a mother-daughter couple, were in charge of the apartment/now hospital, and they had done amazing things to help my Dad heal from alcoholism, nicotine addiction, depression, and Soul Loss.

I had nowhere to put my suitcase, so all I could do was witness the hustle and bustle of this Afterlife Healing Center.

When alive, Dad attempted to be a Warrior, but Vietnam broke him. He found purpose in becoming a Healer instead (nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering), before switching to Federal Post Office work. I am so very comforted by the fact that After Death, he is working hard to make sure that other Souls are healing, too.

I miss him so damn much, and I wish that he could have pulled through his alcoholic depression and lived longer. He died when I was 29 years old, way too damn young, and it has forever changed my life. It is bittersweet to see him helping and healing others, opening his home to them, because it's exactly what he tried to do in Life (when he had the capacity for it).

Time to pop open a beer and dedicate it to Him; for his healing and his hard work.

Henry Butke (c) Monika Healing Coyote, 2017

Love you Dad