I dreamt about Eric all night last night. Not happy childhood memory dreams or fantasy dreams where Eric just happened to appear, but dreams about Eric dying. In different ways. Over and over.
In one dream he was in hospice, dying from cancer and I was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand, unable to stop my tears. I told him I wasn’t ready for him to go and he told me that he was. That made me cry harder, but also made me feel better.
In another dream he was trying to board a boat to Siberia (I think) and my parents and I were trying to keep him from boarding because we knew he didn’t have a lot of time left and we wanted to spend it together. We kept taking his luggage off the boat.
The rest of the night was a mish-mash of replays of these dreams or others with an undertone of sorrow. I cried more in my sleep than I have in a long time, perhaps since it first happened.
I think I was reimagining Eric’s death to try and say goodbye. We never had that chance. We never got to sit down and tell each other what we meant to each other—although I know we both knew it. We never got to acknowledge that there would be a last conversation, a last hug, a last anything.
We all know that teenagers think they are immortal. Most of us can recount dangerous stories from those times in our lives when we thought nothing could ever happen to us. Drinking, smoking, promiscuity; there’s a reason alcohol and tobacco companies try to market to minors.
In my 30s, I thought I had acknowledged the possibility of my mortality. After all, I’m a doctor; I’ve seen young people die. I have a will and life insurance. I cringe any time my kids go within a foot of the edge of the sidewalk.
I wasn’t ready though. I never thought this could happen. I never thought I would be here without Eric. He has been a part of my life since I was 2 ½ years old, sometimes for better and sometimes not, but always there. It’s hard to comprehend his absence.
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