Dear Father

Again he came to me in dream,
yet this night was different.
The air was clearer, the shadows softer,
and I could hear his voice
not as an echo,
but as though the veil between us
had thinned.

I asked the question
that gnaws like a rat at the corners of my mind:
Were you in pain when death took you?
And his answer, gentle as a psalm, was no.
No pain.
No terror.
Only the quiet release
that I have prayed for him to know.

I told him how I plead with God each night,
how I whisper to the heavens
to keep him in the eternal light,
to fold him into the sacred glory
where the saints and the departed wait.
I beg the Lord not only to guard him
but to let me find him again
when my own hour falls.
A son asking only this:
to see his father’s face
beyond the grave.

If that dream was true—
if in some mercy my father was allowed
to speak to me across the abyss—
then I will hold only gratitude.
Gratitude that his suffering was spared,
gratitude that my prayer may not be lost,
gratitude that God,
or something greater than myself,
let me hear the one word
I longed for: no.

Still, when I wake,
the room is empty,
the candle flickers alone,
and I return to silence.
Faith and despair sit like brothers beside me:
faith, because I must believe he is safe;
despair, because I remain behind,
chained to a world that has no answers.

And yet I will keep praying.
I will keep lifting his name into the dark,
I will keep asking the Eternal
to guard him,
to remember him,
to prepare a place where we might meet again.

If this life is a long night,
then let my dreams be the windows
through which I see him still.
If heaven is real,
then let my prayers build the bridge
that leads me home to him.
If God listens,
then let this broken faith be enough
to carry my father
into everlasting rest.

Until my time comes,
I will light the flame,
I will bow my head,
and I will whisper my gratitude:
that he did not suffer,
that he is not lost,
that one day,
perhaps,
I will see him again.