Dreaming of you

I took a nap this morning with my baby girl.  I was tired so sleep came easy.  I fought to keep looking at my sweet angel soothing herself to sleep, snuggled in my arms.  I let sleep win.  I dreamt that I was dreaming and in my dream I was hugging you.  In my dream, I remembered verbally how your body would feel in my embrace.  Not at all like the body we said goodbye to in the hospital.  I think I was remembering how you felt while my dream's dream was acting it out.  While I was sleeping, this dream put a smile on my face, and warmth in my heart.  I woke up with energy and went about my day.  But my mind would not put it to rest.  'I dreamt that I dreamt that I was hugging my dad.' were the words my mind would not stop repeating.  At first, it would repeat it with a joyful lilt, but as it wore me down, it now repeats it as though it were wailing.  It just hurts so damn much.  I sometimes wish that we had a fight, so that I can apologize to him and have him back.  But then I am proud that I have never fought with my dad.  I wish he abandoned us, so that I can go look for him, but that would taint his honour.  I wish he decided he would travel the world, at least this way I can wait next to the mailbox for a post card.  Instead he is gone-gone.  I am not ready for the bullshit that people like to say 'he's watching over you.'  How is that a comfort when I want him here?  How is that a comfort when I want to call him.  How is that a comfort when I have his car in my driveway and I just know that the day we sell it or send it to the scrapyard, it will kill me again.    

Split mind, split dreams

I noticed that the older I get I refer to my consciousness as two separate people.  The person in the front is acting on events going on in real time, meanwhile the person in my head is a spectator sitting on the couch with her popcorn or gnawing her nails raw while I maneuver through a harrowing experience or she'll be my cheerleader hi-fiving me when I do something unexpected like stand up to someone and sometimes she'll stare at me with her mouth agape shaking her head....sometimes even laughing (I can never tell if she's laughing at me or with me).  I can't remember when it started, but I often like to take a step back from the environment that I am in and "take it all in".  I do not physically remove myself.  I am not eavesdropping or snooping.  What I do, when the conversation slides away from me, I just look around at the way people are interacting with each other.  Sometimes I am curious as to how I fit in to this picture and I can even take a step back while I am having a conversation.  This is particularly difficult since my mind can take over.......kind of like in the movie The Host, where my mind is having a conversation with myself about the relationship I hold with the person I'm conversing with.  Before all of this, I would be hiding in my head trying to come up with the next intelligent question so that I can keep the conversation going.  I was never really good at it, I realized, because I was not listening. If I were listening I could have let the words guide me.    The only time that I cannot feel that second person is when instinct guides me. Perhaps it is her in the background taking the reins since I consciously don't know what to do but she my subconscious does.  It's like with my daughter.  I just know what to do.  I have a well of patience that I did not know I had.  If you told me I would willingly change diapers all day, I'd say you're crazy, but you know what, I have a hard time passing up a diaper change because I want it done right and right now.  So I mind as well do it myself. Ha ha. 

The point of this post was to talk about my double dream life as I call it.  Everyday I think about how I would just love to wake up, out of this bad dream where my daddy had died.   I want to wake up and see his truck park on the street at lunchtime so that we can have an hour together.  I want to visit my parents and not just my mom.   I want to plan a future with my dad.  But if I wake up from this bad dream does it mean that in my wakefulness I will lose the good dream also?  The good dream of having a baby.  Being a mom and my husband is a father.  The good dream that is taking her nap with a smile while she cuddles her elephant.  If I had to choose, I would choose her and I know that my father would understand.  When I play with her and make her smile and coo, I try to look at her like my father would have looked at me and I understand the love he had for me and I am grateful.

I was watching the movie Beautiful Creatures last night and there's a scene towards the end where they are in church and the pastor is telling his story.  It was about sacrifice.  

"Reverend Stephens: I don't want to preach today, instead I just wanna talk to you, about a word we don't hear much anymore. Sacrifice. It's not what I would call a modern word. People hear the word sacrifice, and they become afraid that something will be taken away from them or that they will have to give up something they couldn't live without. Sacrifice, to them, means loss in a world telling us we could have it all. But I believe true sacrifice is a victory. That's because it requires free will to give up something for someone you love, or something or someone you love more than yourself. I won't lie to you. It's a gamble. Sacrifice wont take away pain and loss, but it wins the battle against bitterness, the bitterness that dims the light on all of the true value in our lives.”

My father had a hard time dealing with the fact that he was dying.  He spent days wondering why him, what did he do to deserve it etc etc.  My mother said, one day, "who would you give it to, if not you then who?" and she proceeded to nominate tributes in his stead.  My father accepted that this was his fate and that he would not wish it on his enemy let alone someone he loved.  This is true sacrifice and just shows what a wonderful man he was up until the very end. 

The weight of grief

Some days, like yesterday, grief is like a balloon filled with helium that is tied around your wrist.  You know it is there, you have to pull down the string so that you can enter a room, make sure it doesn't get caught when the door closes and it'll probably bump you in the head when you are driving in your car with the windows down or even get between you and the windshield so you have a hard time seeing.  But like a helium balloon, symbol of birthdays or parties, it can bring you joy.  A sad smile will spread on your lips and might even put a little sparkle in your eyes.  This joy is when you remember times spent with your loved one.  Looking through pictures can help this along too.  On these days you can think of what the person might say to you, for example, I was passing the weed eater and I was imagining what my father would say to me if he noticed I was leaning the machine on my hip.  He would have told me if I couldn't do the whole yard without leaning it on my hip, then to separate the yard over a few days. So I removed it from my hip, squared my shoulders and finished the back yard and front yard.  Thanks Dad.  I even read the instruction manual to find out how to get more whip out.  But then days like today, where I overslept, did not find the right breakfast to keep me going, days like today are brutal.  I have no focus and I'm always hungry.  It will not be a superhero productive day like yesterday.  Today the grief feels like a rock the size of a basketball in the pit of my stomach.  This rock has a string tied around it and on the other end is my collarbone.  This string is too short so it forces me to hunch over.  I try to imagine it like an elastic.  I know today I will not be able to remove the rock so the elastic allows me to hold my head up above the grief and see that the sun is shining and my daughter is smiling at me.  But I know, and I am going to agonize all day, that the elastic is going to snap and I will have my face buried in my pillow trying to cry the boulder out of my mouth so I can feel better tomorrow.