I held my father’s hand once more last night, but only in a dream.  
I did not see his face or hear his voice or recognize a nod, but his 
ever-gentleness stood to sooth my unease of muddled senses.
Almost thirty quick years have gone since I stood by his bed.
Did I, at first, hold his hand? A white cloth, folded in half, 
lay over his mouth for moisture; rare tears traced crow’s-feet
to his pillow and I, new to dying, wondered if he cried from fear.  
But through the muffling wetness, struggling not to sob,
“Your mother…”  And then I understood, “I will take care of her.” 
I promised; only then…I remember, now…did I take his hand.
The hand I held last night was not that of thirty years before;
his hands, in life, had the square bluntness of his days of labor.
Always, he carried a pocketknife to turn the grease and grit 
from beneath his nails into minute, curled strings of grime. 
The hand I held in my dream was only his because I just knew 
and not recognition by touch; the hand I held was feminine,
covered with the sheltered, thin skin of one needing protection.
I’ve pondered the paradox all day, wondering why the hand
was his, but not; time could not have altered to such extreme,
a touch etched in memory.  Believing only in our faulty minds,
I can only conclude that I, so desiring that my father
might know I have kept my promise, conjured a dream, 
a visitation; the hand I knew as his is my mother’s I hold today.

This is a re-post from years ago; a memory of the time my father was dying in 1982.