Mr. Vollmer, the one I didn't meet

Mike spoke often of his father.  I didn't have the privilege of knowing him, he had passed away long before I came into the picture.  The few people who knew of my challenges with his family were all quick to say "I wish you would have met his father.  Mike is so much like him.".  He was a surgeon, that much I know, but I heard mostly about his gentle nature.  Mike was extremely loyal to his family and he was protective of his mother.  He knew the havoc his mother had made in our lives but he once said "she is my mother, she gave me life, I will give her as many chances as she needs".  He also would say "my father would want me to".  After his father passed away his mother had dated a man that Mike thought she might marry but when she was not in a relationship, Mike would step in to that role so to speak.  He took her to dinner, she would hang out with his friends with him, he doted on her.  He bought her a car and arranged for money for fuel when he was first placed in the nursing home so she would always have transportation to come see him.  She would ask him what he would like for her to bring him special to eat at holidays.  He would light up when she had made his childhood favorites.  When I say that Mike spoke often of his father I don't really mean telling me stories and sharing memories of him.  He spoke often of him by being like him.  "My father would want me to" had shaped his adulthood.
One day I had asked Mike what he did when I wasn't in the nursing home room with him.  He answered that he mostly slept.  I asked what he would dream about thinking that he would tell me that he would dream of things he used to be able to do, but once again he surprised me.  His answer was, "I talk to my dad.".  I then assumed that he was remembering conversations that he had with his father, but that wasn't it.  Mike said that he would have real time conversations with his dad while sleeping.  My very first thought was linked to what I had learned about hospice nursing, that often those who are ready to die will start having conversations with people who have died before them.  But with Mike, I think he was really transcendentally existing somewhere else.  I had seen this with him when watching others give him a bath that required moving him (moving him was so painful for him).  He gets a very distinct and distant gaze in his eyes.  I asked him once "where do you go when they are giving you a bath?".  He knew exactly what I meant and answered me with "I studied how to meditate to leave myself.".  Mike had disassociated himself with his body that had failed him.  So wouldn't you know it, fate brought him me, a very touchy massage therapist.  I think his body lasted as long as it did because with me he also learned to become whole again.  Massage became a daily part of his life.