When I suggested the topic, Death of a Dream, to my writing partner, I think I thought Dad would die soon. I think I thought it would be interesting to look dispassionately at his life, evaluating any dreams that were unfulfilled in his almost 85 years on Earth. I think I thought it would be therapeutic to write about that.

Instead, it has been repelling, in the way two like poles of a magnet cannot bear each other’s company. I sit down to write, and some unknown force pushes me away.

But I knew at some point I would have to write about it. Today I am ready to try.

Let me begin by stating the obvious:  Everybody dies. Death is an inevitability. It may be the only inevitability. No one escapes it and we all know it’s coming, yet we choose not to think about it. Instead, we put it in a box labeled “one day,” much as we would store away baby clothes, dishes, or knick knacks. We have the best intentions of dealing with that box eventually, but somehow, One Day never rolls around. Until it does roll around, catching us absurdly off-guard and enigmatically shocked.

My dad is gone. Whatever unrealized dreams he held for himself died with him.

I believe Dad’s greatest dream was just to be happy. I believe that everything he did—from marrying Mom and raising a family, to excelling at his career, forging friendships, buying cars and homes, and traveling—was designed to bring happiness. But happiness was difficult for Dad. While he found pockets of happiness, he was never quite able to sink his fists down deep into those pockets. He could not crawl inside and rest there—allowing it to be enough. His chemistry constantly fought him on this issue. He died without fully realizing this dream.

Ironically, I know that in dying, his dream was realized. That is a great comfort to me. My father has no more need of dreams because he now exists within them. He is in a place where dreams cannot die, and love is palpable, and joy is a constant state in which the soul is at perfect peace. He waits for me there.

William Penn said, “You have told us that You are preparing a place for us. Prepare us also for that happy place.” God is doing his part in heaven, and we must also do ours. This is a rallying cry to me, urging me to develop the habit of living in the moment—finding the happy, the good, the genuine, the holy—in the spaces between each tick tock. It means making that exercise a habit—an addiction, really—that spills over into every aspect of my life.

I am my father’s child. He and I share the same pockets. But I have learned from Dad that I want to be ready to be happy when I get to heaven. I want to have shown other people what happy looks like, so they can be ready too. I want to thrust my hands into those pockets and discover enough in there. Sweet, beautiful, satisfying enough. So much enough that it spills out onto others.

I miss my dad very much. It is hard to remember he’s not here. But just because someone dies, it doesn’t mean that someone’s gone. Penn said, “Death is only a horizon, and a horizon is only the limit of our sight.” I will see him again. Until then I will suffer the happiness I feel for his soul, and I will celebrate the grief of his earthly passing. That is the price for something so valuable as love. And I will keep expanding those pockets of happiness, cultivating the discipline of in-the-moment-enoughness, and I will keep dreaming, if only because Dad would want me to.