I had another codeine dream last night, there are only two more teaspoons in my bottle, I think my cold will expire at about the same time my medicine runs out, my dreams are vivid and strange, but last’s dream, was different from the others. It was curious, full of meaning and mystery.

In the dream, I was offered a big job in Toronto, they asked me to come up for a job interview, they wanted to pay me a lot of money, I thought it would be a good way to make up some of the money I lost in the last few years, between the divorce and recession and everything else. I was at a huge mall in Toronto – I’ve been there on several book tours, I love the city. I was waiting for the interview, I saw my father – his name was George – sitting at a table in front of the Chinese restaurant in the food court. He was sitting by himself,  drinking a cup of coffee, smiling at me, he waved me over, and I sat down and we talked about the job. My father was different,  he was gentle and sweet, he advised me to stay where I was, you and Maria are happy on your farm, you are a writer now, a move would be difficult for you.

We talked about his beloved Red Sox, about my mother – I could never make her happy, he said, I should have left  – about me and my sister. You were both out of my reach, he said, I never understood either of you, but I did love you and I did my best. I was caught up in my own world, I never understood yours,  you were a strange and remote boy. Around us, an orchestra started playing and we couldn’t talk for a bit. Then we stood up, we hugged each other, he kissed me on my forehead and we said goodbye. I felt so sad, and I started to go back to the airport and Maria and the farm and then I woke up.

I was shaken, when I woke up, I couldn’t figure the dream out. My father and I never really spoke with one another much after I was eleven, when he hit me in the head with a baseball and called me a sissy. He was a good man, many people loved him, he was generous and kind, but he was one of those men who are better with other people’s kids and problems than with his own.  I wet my bed for many years, he lectured me every morning on my lack of determination and courage to stop it. I knew my survival depended on shutting him out, so I did. We never really had a real conversation in either of our lives, he never kissed me or hugged me that I can recall, nor would I have permitted it, and I never asked his advice or took any of it. In my life, I never sought his help or got any.

Other than a ball game or two at Fenway Park, I don’t recall we ever did anything together. Every day of my life, and my family’s life, my father went to Al Abelson’s diner in Providence,  he never once had breakfast at home, or with us, he never took any of us there.  Most nights and weekends, he was gone. At dinner, he and my mother mostly raged at one another and we could never find a place of love for one another, I have not found it yet for him.

This is not a lament, I am past all of that. Over time, I have forgiven him our differences, I just don’t think about him much, he did not have much of an impact on my life. The dream was interesting because we had a real conversation in Toronto for the first time, it was pleasant, he listened, he was helpful and understanding. He got me. I loved the Alexie Sherman movie “Can We Forgive Our Fathers?,” I saw it a dozen times.

Two years ago, I went to my father’s grave in Rhode Island and I introduced Maria to him, and told him I wished him well, I couldn’t claim to love him, but the past was behind us, I was living the life I was meant to live, nobody can ask for more than that, and I hoped he was in a good and happy place, watching the newly-reconstructed Red Sox and sitting with Al Abelson arguing about politics. If Abelson’s diner was up in heaven with a TV channel that picked up baseball, he would be happy. I hope he is happy.

I like to think the dream was about forgiveness, finally, I have become enough of a human to forgive my father. Like me, he did the best he can. We all do, I think. The mind is an amazing thing, and I cannot begin to conceive why this would have happened in Toronto, Canada. As with animals, much of consciousness is simply beyond our understanding.

I have to be honest, it was good to see you, Dad. I am getting older, I want to settle up.

You know, Dad, you have to make the best of what you have, I’ve’ got this nasty cold, it is getting better daily, and it has given me all of these dreams, you just have to make it all work for you. Life is like that, you must, in some way, have taught me that.