Worry Grows

The following year went went very peacefully. at least from the surface. I started to get used to live without Peter a bit better and begun to take more part to some social events and made new friends at university. Peter and I stayed very close however, we called a lot, he came to visit me during his spring break and I moved to his country for my summer break. And after the summer came great news, Peter would move to my home country and continue his studies there! I was the happiest girl in the world after getting those news.

Something had changed between Alex and I after he was sick. We became closer then we were before. And I started for some reason, which I still don't know, be also worried about him. There was not a real reason for that. His life seemed to go fine, he had lots of friends, girlfriend(s), went to school regularly  and he seemed to enjoy his life. The "battle" between him and my father however went on. They were so different personalities: My father had pretty much always got his way through with everyone - but not with him. My mother told me many years later that sometimes their fights were so bad (on occasions when Alex had got home drunk from a party) that my mother had to go between them so that my father wouldn't hurt him physically.

I don't remember exactly when my nightmares started, but anyway sometime during my second year at university I started to have similar nightmares regularly which had two themes. In one of them there were 6 men in black suits carrying a white casket in a beautiful winter scene. In the other dream I went to our garage and found Alex hanging from the roof. I was horrified of those dreams and shared them with Peter and with my best friend. Later on, my grandmother told me that she had regular nightmare around the same time as well. In her dream she saw a young man from behind, but half of his head was missing.

I'm still thinking were there any real signs or reasons that would explain my worries and my nightmares. Alex never complained about his life, and always when I asked how he is doing he said is doing great. I knew that my father was way too strict and demanding with him - maybe I was worried what that would do to him? I knew that even though Alex was not living his life through my father's expectations and didn't seem to give damn about them, probably inside he was hurting and felt like a failure in his eyes? Oh, how I wish I would have told him more often how special and dear he was.