This morning began earlier than usual…3:52 am was what the clock said.  My dream this morning was vivid.  I was a little girl of only about 6 or 7 and my dad was taking my brother, sister and me to the store.  It was a normal routine for us.  My dad was a weekend dad.  He would pick us up on a Friday afternoon and bring us home on Sunday evening.  This particular dream I was picking out a slinky toy (a dachshund, can you imagine??).  My dad bought us each our toys that we picked out and we were heading home to our mom’s house.  Even though we usually went back home with a new toy there was always a deep aching feeling in my heart of sadness of saying good-bye to my dad for another week.  Isn’t it interesting that to this day I still get that same ache in my heart on Sunday evenings.  A sense of sadness or loss.  I didn’t think much more of my dream until I was heading to work when my mom called to tell me the sad news that my father died at 4 this morning.  That deep feeling of sadness swept over my heart as though it were yesterday and I was that little girl saying good-bye to her daddy.  Now I never get to say that good-bye that I so wanted to say.  I know in my heart that he loved us the best that he could and when my mom remarried and we had a step-father he gracefully bowed out of our lives.  When he moved away our weekends became no more with our dad, we would occasionally get to spend a week or two during the summer months with him, but the closeness we once had gradually became a distant memory.

I did have the opportunity to live with my father for the last portion of my 9th grade and all of my 10th grade year of high school.  We were able to develop the relationship I had lost.  My dad was a friend to all who knew him.  I last saw my dad when my book first came out and I was in Seattle speaking.  I had dinner with him that night and his wife, Lee.  I will always remember my dad beaming with pride as he announced to every one near him, “This is my daughter and she just wrote a book!”

My heart is sad, but I choose to remember the dad that took his three small children with him everywhere those first few years after the divorce.  For that I am forever grateful, thanks Dad.