A Visit from My Father

I recognize that many people do not believe in spirits or ghosts or any kind of “paranormal” activity. I, personally, do believe in these things. I have seen ghosts in my life time. I was once visited by my Nana when she had an out of body experience a few days before she died.

I woke up this morning at 4:30 AM from a very disturbing dream. In the English language we don’t have a word for a sad dream. It wasn’t a nightmare, as it wasn’t scary, but I woke up in tears.

In the dream, my mother and I were visiting Stony Brook University (where she and I both have our college degrees from and where my father worked for almost 40 years) for some reason. We decided to go visit my father’s old office. When we got there the door was open and several graduate students were working in there.

The office did not look the same as when my father used it…. except one corner still had some of our family photographs on the walls. I tried to speak to the graduate students but as I talked my tongue swelled and my words became incomprehensible, so they just looked at me weirdly and then went back to work. I started to pull down the family photographs and started to cry. I was sobbing and not able to speak at all.

Then my father appeared in the dream… looking the way he did about 20 years before he died. He hugged me and said, “It’s OK. I’m OK.” Then I woke up.

Professor  Stephen Cole
Professor Stephen Cole in his office at Stony Brook University.

I am glad for the visit from him. I am glad that he is OK. It’s sad to me that he had to die to be OK. The last 10 years of his life were not very good ones due to his health and social isolation. My father had many many flaws, but I loved him dearly. I loved him fiercely and I miss him.