Happy Adoption Day!

C legally became a member of our family on September 25th! I would have posted about it sooner but she and I both woke up with a cold on the morning of her finalization and we have family members visiting from out of town so things have been a little hectic.  My friend Suzanne attended the finalization and took some family photos which I will post in a couple weeks.  But for now I will flood you with some recent pictures of Ce, now that we're allowed to share them publicly.

Happy Adoption Day Stinkydoodle!

Dreams About My Dad

It's been a long two weeks since my dad passed and not a day goes by that I don't think about him.  Some days I'm sad, other days I'm angry that his life choices caused him to die too young, still other days I have a hard time comprehending that he's really gone.  Lately I've been consumed with worry that I too will meet an untimely death, with no will set up, just like my father did.  I find myself scurrying around to document all sorts of things that need to be taken care of, should I die tomorrow and Brandon be left to take care of things on his own.

A few days after my dad passed away I went back to Paula for another tarot reading.  It was very enlightening and much of what she said came true, but that's a story for another day.  She did mention that my dad would visit me in my dreams and all that week I had the most vivid dreams about him.  Not when he was sick but when he was younger and healthier.  Still, I always awoke and could never remember what the dream was about.  This lead me to wanting to sleep all the time, just so I could see my dad again in my dreams.

Then one day I had a dream about him that I actually remembered.  He had died and my sisters and I were in his house going through his things, trying to sort through all the paperwork that he had left behind (because as I said before, there was no will).  Then my dad comes walking through the door!  He hugged us so tightly and explained that he hadn't really died.  The nurses at the hospital had to stop his heart to perform some procedure and when his heart didn't start again they pronounced him dead.  But he wasn't really dead!  He hugged us so much and told us how sorry he was that we had to go through all this pain.  It was the happiest moment ever, finding out that my dad wasn't dead after all.

And then I woke up.

It took me all of 5 seconds to realize that the elation I felt was just a mirage, that my dad really wasn't back from the dead.  And the sadness I felt after realizing that was so overwhelming, it took days to recover from that dream.

But after the clouds parted I started to think that maybe it wasn't just a dream.  That my dad really was visiting me in my dreams like Paula told me he would and that he was trying to let me know how sorry he was that this was causing us so much pain.

I haven't had another dream about my dad since then.  Maybe it's because he feels like he finally got his message through, I guess I'll never know.  But I will never forget that dream as long as I live, and the joy I felt when my dad hugged me that one last time.