I had a dream that my father-in-law died in my arms. We were walking in a parking lot and I started walking a different direction. He started to stagger like his legs were giving out. He was a wearing a blue shirt and black suit pants, and I wondered why in the world he was wearing those clothes in these warmer temps. He collapsed but thankfully fell softly not hard. I ran to him and placed my arm underneath his head to block the asphalt.

He started turning a yellow color, saying “I don’t know what’s going on here.” And then he lifted up his head, and looked at my mother-in-law standing at his feet and said, “Pray for me”. She said “I will”, not knowing what else to say or do. I couldn’t tell if he meant inside or if he wanted to actually hear it, so I put my hand on his chest and spoke. He was dying, obviously, thinner in the face than he ever was to see in person, and then he fell asleep and I woke up.

His death is not like ones whose dates are seared in your memory. Because it was gradual, because the surrounding days were full of losing track of the time, it’s more like “What day was that again??”, or was like that at first. I sometimes think of him there (in heaven), but more often than not I think of him here. The days we had of us all together or what it’d be like to have him still. Angels do know more now what it is he thinks about.