#28 Every night I wish for the same thing

For anyone who’s ever hoped to see someone they lost — just one more time

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Most people don’t know this about me, but I go to bed every night hoping to see my dad in my dreams.

It’s been six years since he passed, and I haven’t dreamt about him once. Not a single time in 2272 days. I desperately wish I would, just to feel his presence again. Dreams have a way of making the impossible feel real — despite knowing, deep down, that it’s not.

I think that’s something many of us carry in our grief — the quiet, unspoken hope that one night we’ll get that visit. That someone we love and miss will find their way back to us, even if it’s just in our subconscious mind.

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I picture him sitting across from me at the dinner table, enjoying his favourite meal (nachos, of course), his dimples deepening as he cracks one of his silly jokes, his soft brown eyes sparkling with mischief and warmth behind his rimless glasses. I’d roll my eyes, pretending he’s not funny, but deep down my heart would be overflowing with love, because he’s here.

Alive. And well. No wheelchair. No feeding tube. No endless hospital visits or medical machines. No sorrow or pain. Just him and us, like it was before.

How wonderful it would feel — just for a short time — to see him, feel him, hug him, hear his voice again. To tell him I love him. To ask him where he is, what it’s like there, and whether he misses us as much as we miss him.

How wonderful it would feel, even if it’s only for a moment, if we could bask in their aliveness once more.

I’ve heard many people say their loved ones visit them regularly, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“My mum came to me in a dream last night.”

“I saw him standing at the foot of my bed, just smiling.”

“I spoke to him and finally got answers to all my unresolved questions…”

They wake up crying, but with a sense of peace in their hearts — as if, for just a few moments, the laws of life and death bent to let them be together again.

I’ve always wondered what that feels like. To be comforted in your sleep. To feel someone’s love stretch across time and space, just to reach you. To wake up with that soft, lingering warmth still clinging to your skin. I imagine it must feel like a kind of miracle.

Have you ever had a visit from a loved one in your dreams? How did it make you feel?

Countless times, I’ve tried to make this happen. “Manifesting” as people call it. I’ve voiced my wish out loud to the universe. I’ve spoken to my dad, asked him nicely, pleaded with him to visit, got mad at him when he doesn’t. I’ve focused all my thoughts on him — imagined his face, his voice, his laugh — hoping to summon him the way I’ve heard people do it. But it hasn’t worked.

Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash

I try to remind myself this isn’t a reflection of the strength of our bond. Even though he hasn’t come to me in my dreams, our love and what we shared is still with me — held closely in my heart, woven into the very fabric of my being, and carried with me through the little and big moments of everyday life.

Still, I can’t help but long to feel his presence. I can’t help but question why some people are visited while others like me aren’t — and what it means, if anything at all.

I wonder sometimes if our minds are just too full of the everyday to make room for the mystical and mysterious. Too much noise. Too many to-do lists and undone tasks circling around in our heads. God knows I struggle with this! Maybe there’s just no space left for something as sacred as an ethereal visit.

Maybe my unspoken fears are true, and I’m the problem — something buried within me, an unconscious block strong enough to keep the dreams away. Maybe grief runs so deep that my mind is protecting me from feeling it all over again, even in sleep.

Or perhaps it’s simply that dreams — like signs — aren’t something we can force or summon on command. They’re gifts, not guarantees. Something we receive, not because we want them badly enough or ask in the right way, but because — for reasons we may never understand — they come when they’re meant to come.

Photo by Kyle Smith on Unsplash

But then, part of me wonders: Would dreaming about him make the pain that much worse when I wake up? When the truth hits all over again that he’s still gone and never coming back? Is the price we pay for dreaming about them a deeper heartache when we open our eyes?

I suspect it might be. But even knowing that, I’d still take the chance. I’d pay that price for just one moment where he feels real again — alive and whole, sitting at the dinner table, laughing with us like he used to. I’ll still go to bed every night hoping for that dream, because the chance to feel that closeness again — even just once, even though it’s not real — is worth whatever follows.

Until next time,

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