As Daddy neared the end of his life, it was harder for him to distinguish between dreams and reality. After he awoke from a dream in the night or after a nap, he would often tell me the details. One morning after relaying his dream to me, he looked serious and asked, “That wasn’t real, was it? Did that really happen?” I confirmed his suspicions. He questioned his sanity and told me to always tell him if what he thought he saw was real. I assured him he wasn’t crazy.
I have known people in their later years of life who seem to revert to their childhood. They see their mother or play some childhood game with siblings or friends in a time that brought them joy. Some people on their deathbed speak of seeing loved ones who have passed. My grandfather saw “his people” coming for him and within minutes was whisked away. Daddy saw several visions as his time approached and he gave intricate details of each. Somehow as his visions were so clear to him, yet he still retained sanity enough to accept whether it was true or not.
Maybe Daddy was closer to reality than I thought at the moment. Looking back, I believe his visions were premonitions to prepare him for the journey ahead. And just maybe, those who have dreams and visions are the ones who see things clearly because they are looking into another realm, one we can’t see. Maybe the rest of us are the ones who need a touch a reality.
