Daddy
I dreamed about my daddy last night. It is really emotional and difficult.

I don't dream about him too often, but when I do it is always that he has been away on a trip somewhere for a very long time and has finally come home. Sometimes he is home only temporarily and then he is leaving again. Sometimes there is an oddness surrounding the notion of why my mother didn't go with him or where she is. Sometimes there is a feeling that they are separated--which is so incredibly foreign to reality, because they were married for 40 years. Sometimes there is a feeling that she may be dead. Sometimes just that she is not there.

Last night he said he had been in Puerto Rico. Last night he was dying of some disease--had maybe days to live. I guess he had come home to die. But the most poignant thing about last night was when he walked up the front sidewalk and I saw him coming. I ran out to hug him. He had lost a lot of weight and was very slender (my daddy was a very large man). I commented on how slim he was, and he just smiled knowingly. Then I ran to get my children and told them he was there. They ran out to hug him. It meant so much to me that he got to see them. That was the most emotional part. One of my great sadnesses is that he isn't here to see his grandchildren and how they've grown. It was so important that he see them, in my dream. The rest was just my mom and me taking care of him as he slowly was dying. The dream ended before that happened.

I didn't wake up crying or anything, but I just felt this heavy sense of emotion shrouding my heart. I still do. On the one hand, I'm glad he didn't die a slow, painful death. On the other hand, having a chance to hug him once more and have my kids hug him once more in my dreams--that I can't seem to forget today.