Dream

I had a dream of my dad last night. It was fleeting but I was preparing for him to visit me at my home. I was so, so, excited. I was racing around preparing in eager anticipation. I was ecstatic and just so happy.

He arrived and walked with a limp. He said something about his hip and arthritis. I was so eager to see him that I was in a rush to show him our property, to ask him to stay with us for a week, to show him the golf course up the street and encourage him to play. I was in a rush to get the words out to show him all that he hasn't seen.

His eyes were kind and crinkly but also watery and troubled. Like he had gone to war and survived. I imagine his eyes looked like they would have had he survived.



I woke up feeling satisfied to have had a dream of him but sad all the same. So bittersweet getting this glimpse of him, if only in a dream.

Wheelchairs

While I was shopping at the grocery store I saw a woman, maybe in her 60's, pushing her elderly mother in a wheelchair and pulling a shopping cart behind her. I wondered if she knows how fortunate she is. Does she feel the burden of taking her mom shopping or does she see the beauty in it? The love? The opportunity of having those moments. I envied her and smiled at her fortune.

What I wouldn't have given to have a life where I was needed in that way by my father. I hope that women feels gratitude because I would give almost anything to push my white haired father around a grocery store. To take care of him and know that we had a long life together.

I never got to see my father's hair turn white.

Spring Wind

I don't know if a day goes by that I don't think about my father. Sometimes his death is most pronounced in the statement by our five year old, "Grandpa John liked playing stickers with me" and sometimes it is in the spring wind rushing the trees or the smell of rain on the pavement. I wish he could be here to enjoy it all. The changing of the seasons always reminds me of the life he is missing. He should be here witnessing them. My life would be better if he were here. He deserved life and the tears that I cry for him are knowing how much he would have enjoyed all of this; kids, animals, travel and even rainy pavement.