I dreamed about my father last night

I don't do it often. He's been dead for 17 years now, and I don't think about him a lot. But this dream was vivid...he and I were talking, and even though I don't recall the subject I know there was tension between us; unspoken (as always, and probably on my part). But more to the point, I discovered a huge stack of journals he'd kept, with colossal detail on his feelings about and reactions to the people around him from day to day. The journals showed an inner awareness that I never saw from the outside; and it wasn't really a good feeling -- as though he'd been hiding this side of himself from me (from all of his family). The journals were really more like the sort of thing I might have written (hey, it *was* MY dream).

It left me disturbed, and not a little because I realized that he's still with me. I've been away from home for over 30 years, he's been dead for almost 20, and I'm not done with him yet. Will I ever be, and what would that be like? Am I fooling myself when I think I might be? Am I still a little boy when I think of him that way? I've thought for a long time that I didn't need his approval any more. Do I, though?