January 2004 CE

I dreamed the same dream over and over again this month.

I dreamed that my father had not died after all; that he had survived his stroke, but that his mind was destroyed by it, and that the formidable man that he had once been was now no more than a drooling, mumbling moron. Each time, I reacted with sadness at this revelation that his supposed death had been no more than a misunderstanding, and I was horrified by this sadness, but I knew that the man that he had been would never have wanted to live on as the creature I saw before me. Each time, I tried to keep up a brave face, and to welcome him back, but it was a terrible experience, and I just wished he could be dead so as to spare us all the agony of this half-existence which we would all have to tolerate now.

All of which makes perfect sense. After all, I was the one who killed my father. I was the one who ordered the doctors to pull the plug on him. I was the one who decided that he should not have to live on as an empty shell of the man he had once been. And so, seeing this vision of this empty shell in my dreams, and knowing this horror, I knew that I had made the right choice. But still I had these dreams, over and over again, as though on some level, I still had to convince myself. Perhaps I did.