Papa Vic – A Dream

It was the first morning of my thirty-seventh year when he appeared in a dream. It was in the early morning hours after my birthday celebration—a special birth date I share with my paternal grandmother, my Nana.

What I remember most vividly is the look on her face and the arms of a man embracing me from behind, a bear hug that enveloped my shoulders and slightly lifted me from the ground. The arms were familiar, and since I knew he was supposed to be there, and I had just spent an eternity it seemed searching for him in a crowded place I did not know or comprehend, I did not and do not have a shadow of a doubt that it was my dearly loved Papa Vic, who passed away when I was twenty years old. If I had had a doubt, the look of shock and recognition on my Nana’s face would have erased it—that and the familiar smell of his cologne, Old Spice, which permeated the air around me.

I wanted to lean back into that barrel of a chest and close my eyes. I wanted to breathe in the smell of him for just a few seconds longer. I wanted to turn around and see his laughing eyes and hear him call me “Little One” once again. I meant to turn around. I even felt my right foot lead to turn around, but I awoke instead. I never saw his face. I awoke in a shock. My eyes fluttered open. I drew a quick breath and tears welled, blurring my vision. I immediately closed them, trying desperately to return to the cocoon of a dream that brought an old familiarity and a loving embrace that reached through the years and a dimension I do not understand.

For twenty minutes I tried to return to sleep, tried to shut out the light creeping through the blinds, tried to ignore the alarm as it beeped and sang, but the dream slipped away like mist. The reality of a new day crept in, and the treasured moment was gone, one second of contact that erased the absent years in a single moment. It left behind a haunting feeling that lingered throughout the day and still lingers with me now.