By the time dad died when I was 13, I loved him with my whole heart and I thought he was the greatest guy on earth. I felt I had been given a tremendous blessing in knowing my real father — a highly intelligent, generous, wise, fun, and compassionate man who always looked at the bright side.

Unfortunately, despite becoming a new person, dad couldn’t restore his marriage. Although Mom stayed with him, there was an unresponsive stillness in her eyes that I later identified as spiritual death. Their marriage had ended long before she could feel the complete joy of his sobriety.

Dad could just as easily have used the illness as an excuse to drink even more. But somehow the diagnosis and the doctor’s stern warning on Easter morning was a last intervention to give my dad courage to change. His transformation profoundly affected my life because it enabled me to get to know my real father.

Although it has been 40 years since his death, I dream of dad almost every night. In the years immediately following his burial, he often appeared in my dreams to discuss the importance of staying on the right path and to give assurance that he was watching over me. These days he still visits, sometimes driving me around town in my dreams! Although I do not always remember exactly what we talk about, I usually awaken with a smile, knowing that dad is still a “driving force” in my life and that he is still cheering me from the other side. — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)