Beyond the Red Door

I sit in my study early this morning making last-second revisions to this post before publishing it later today. I’m wracking my mind trying to find the right words to say, and everything is coming up short. I want to say things that words really can’t express. I am frustrated that this isn’t “good enough,” but I am glad that I at least wrote something. This has been on my mind for the past few years now, but up to this point I’ve yet to deal with it. I wish I could make this clearer. I wish I could make this more beautiful. I know those desires come somewhat from pride, however, so I will settle for what words I am able to find.

I had a dream I was in the house with dad the day he died.  It was about a month or two after his death and I was living alone at the time in a small house in Midtown, Tallahassee.  It was a cold winter that year, and this house never warmed up too well (God bless this house, though, because its thick walls absorbed my screaming and my rages that year).  It was a bitter time, and I was thinking about home a lot.  I was trying to escape the reality of my father’s death and it’s associated consequences, but I could not escape the dreams.  These dreams have all varied through the years, and I do not remember all of them, but this one I remember as if it were a real memory. This one haunts me:

I find myself standing on the driveway outside of my dad’s house.  It’s a bright, sunny day and the house glows in its obnoxious Caribbean Blue paint.  It’s hot in this dream (it’s always hot in Miami).  I’m staring at the door when I hear my dad’s voice.

“Zack” he calls out to me, “Zaaaack.”  His voice is low and slightly desperate.  I open the front door and walk into the house.  He keeps calling my name, each time drawing out his cry a little longer.

“Zaaaaaaaaaaaaack.”  I reach his bedroom door.  There is an odd, red light shining from the edges of the doorframe.  It’s as if the sun is setting in his room.  I make to grab for the doorknob, but I can’t bring my arms forward.  I’m being held back!  I press my face and shoulder against the door in a desperate attempt to knock the door down (Damn my arms they’re being pinned back!). The red light is growing brighter.  Dad is still calling my name.  I’m gritting my teeth against the strain of the door and whatever force is pinning my arms behind my back. 

“Zaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.”  The Who song, I Can’t Reach You, starts playing as I feebly press my whole body against the door.  I am enveloped by the red light.

I wake up to my cold, dark room.  My arms are wrapped around my chest and I am giving myself a bear hug.  I was holding myself back from opening the door and stopping him.  

It’s hard to know what to make of this dream or the circumstances surrounding it.  I think of it often.  I wonder at its implications.  I wonder what the red light beyond the door was and I wonder why I was holding myself back.  What is my mind trying to tell me?  What is it trying to make sense of?  Why of all my dreams do I remember this one so clearly?

In one moment, I will think that the red light beyond the door is Hell, and then I’ll think that maybe it merely represents my dad’s life fading away like a sunset.  In one moment, I’ll think I was a coward because I held myself back, and in another I’ll think I couldn’t have been a coward because I was trying to get into the room.  My mind undulates between vast trains of thoughts and emotions as I conjure up different meanings for the red door. It’s as if my fear and my guilt are trying to meet halfway on an interpretation, and I’m caught in the middle of the negotiation. I wish I had a say in what the dream really means, but I have no idea. I only know what I am afraid of and what I feel guilty for.

I suppose it is just a dream, but I feel so burdened by it.  Perhaps it is merely a reflection of my desire to have been there that day.  I do wish I could have been there.  I wish I could have stopped him.  I wish he would have called out to me.  I wish I could have broken the door down.  But I was hundreds of miles away when he took his life.  A good excuse for inaction, perhaps, but not a very satisfying one.

I failed.  I failed to stop him. To convince him. Even in my dream I failed.  In my own dream I got in my way. Does that mean I think I got in the way in real life too? That I placed obstacles in front of myself that prevented me from helping him? Yeah, I do think that…

Or maybe, instinctively, my unconscious knew something that I have been unwilling to accept: that I was powerless to stop him from taking his life, and I continue to be powerless to that end.  No matter how often I think of this, no matter how much I pray about it, no matter how much I write about it I cannot change a thing.  Not a single thing. My guilt and my fear cannot fuel me to change anything.

I do not know what went on in my dad’s room that day (aside from the obvious).  That is the red light.  Mystery that is beyond knowledge or investigation.   Knowledge forbidden to mortals on this side of eternity.  Something too blinding to see, and too overwhelming to change or redirect.  And deep down I know and respect that, and that is why I held myself back.  I war in my mind about this though.  I am still in denial about what happened while simultaneously being fully accepting of it.

At the end of this I still find myself in an unsatisfying spot: wanting to know more or wanting to be able to do more, but the only option I am given is to wait.  To distract myself with other things.  To busy myself with the matters of life even though I don’t necessarily want to.

What is beyond the red door is forbidden to me.   I was not given permission to access it despite my own contention that it was my right to be there that day.  What happened in that room that day is between my father and the Almighty.  It was not my place to be there and it was not my duty to stop what happened. My guilt and my fear are lying to me.

O Lord, forgive the rage that bleeds from my grief.  Forgive my tired mind.  Forgive the thoughts that keep returning to this scene to fix what my mind perceives as being broken.  Forgive me for my doubts and my weakness.  I am ashamed that I am still dealing with this and that I have not found a solution for addressing it.  But Lord, I know this is an impossible task for me to do.  I can no more heal my mind than I can go back in time to stop dad from killing himself.  I am powerless and need Your help.  I know that You were there beyond the red door.  I know that it was You that kept me from entering in- even in my own dream.  I cannot see why, but help me to trust You in that. Forgive me for fighting against You.  I just miss my father (of course, you know that).  I hadn’t planned on him not being here.  I hadn’t planned on never seeing him again.  I hadn’t planned on any of this.  Life is not the way I imagined it would have been, and sometimes I try to take it back or to change things.  But I can’t.  This is the life I have been given.  This is the life I am called to.  Help me to live now, and to stop trying to break through the red door.

A Field of Impossible Trees and a Large House

I don’t remember most of my dreams, but I do have them. The majority of them that I do remember aren’t pleasant. They are mostly weird or confusing or distressing. I only really sleep in bursts lasting a few hours before I’m woken up by whatever strangeness drove me awake. Usually the memory creeps back into the shadows before I can recall just what it was that stirred me. Other times I can recall with unfortunate clarity and am left with thoughts that attempt to understand where that dream could have possibly come from. 

There is, however, a recurring dream. Or rather, a dream series that I find myself in from time to time. They are rare, but they are my comfort in darkness and where I hope to find myself when I close my eyes at night. 

This place that I sometimes visit is always sunny. The sky is brilliantly blue. There are no clouds, and though the day is bright, I cannot detect a sun to cause me to squint. The air is cool and refreshing. I am impossibly strong and fast: I run through miles of green fields like a gazelle, leaping what seems to be blocks at a time. When I stop I am not panting and my heart is at rest. 

In this place, the trees are as redwoods, but they are the size of skyscrapers. And though they are tall and strong, they come done easily enough with a simple axe and a few friends. One felled tree is ample wood for a big house and fires for a thousand years. 

In this place there is a massive house in the woods. Rooms are impossibly large and complex, leading into and out of one another. What would be weird and horrifying in the darkness is redeemed in this place of peace and sunshine. The home is filled with people, but it is not crowded, and the accommodations are more than ample. It is a house filled with love. 

I am surrounded by friends- those I see currently and those who it is seemingly impossible to ever see again. I am happy in this place of impossible trees and old friends and rekindled lost memories. 

What do I make of this? What should I make of this? This gleam of sun that penetrates my normally macabre dreamscape? I suppose it is what I hope for in times to come. To have a body that is not only whole, but brimming over with power and used perfectly. To be with friends that I can no longer be with. To rehearse old memories again, but to do it perfectly and in a perfect place. To be done with the shadow and to live in eternal light.