Dream of Life

I’ve had this dream before, variations of it, many times.
This morning it was my final dream of the night,
so right now I can picture the scene vividly.
In this version, I’m in a boat with my father,
and we’re crossing the Waal River at Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
This would be September 1944; I will be born 10 years later.
The dream’s visuals come courtesy of the 1977 movie, A Bridge Too Far.
This particular picture portrays my dad’s group,
the 82nd Airborne, 504th Paratroop Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion,
madly paddling across the Waal in crappilly constructed canvas boats that barely float.
Bullets are flying, and I see the slaughter of many men in the those tiny boats.
My dad and I are an odd situational combination here,
he afraid of dying, and I afraid of never being born.
According to Dad, with whom I watched it many times while he was alive,
the movie portrays the mayhem of that morning well,
but as I see it in my dreams, the actual scene’s brutal slaughter is far bloodier.
Like I said, this dream woke me up this morning
to discover today is the official anniversary of the end of World War II.
My dad did live, miraculously as he always mentioned,
to marry and have me 10 years later,
both of us surprised to be alive.