Rough way to start a morning...

I had a dream this morning. I remember Evan kissing me goodbye as he headed out to work at 6 AM. So, somewhere between rolling back over to sleep and 7AM, I had this dream. It was awful. I'll preface the dream by saying that this Saturday will be the 19th anniversary of my Dad's death (it kinda snuck up on me this year...). The dream also won't make any sense unless you know that he died while overseas on business with a coworker. The coworker was the one who made the visual positive identification of my Dad's body. My Dad was creamated overseas, so all we received was his personal effects and a wooden box of ashes. There was no body for viewing, no "closure" in that regard.

Anyway, in my dream, we had found my Dad. Apparently, he was living in the town next to ours (and amazingly, after 19 years, he still looked the same!). He knew who we all were but had no memory of the last 19 years or of what had happened to him. So, he came home with us, and we looked back through scrapbooks, newspaper clippings and photographs (interestingly, they were all black and whites). About a week after we "found" him, he died. In my dream, I was screaming, "How did this all happen? His body was positively identified by his coworker! How did he just disappear for 19 years?!" My family and I discussed how he may have been kidnapped and sold into human trafficking. I woke up, and needless to say, it was not a "good" morning. I called my Mom, who dropped everything at work to talk to me, comfort me and help calm me down (I was a wreck). How unsettling and very traumatic. It brought back all the insecurities I felt at the time it happened. My heart, which was racing when I woke up, broke all over again. My precious, fun loving, hardworking, Christian father is gone. My kids will never know him. They'll never understand the influence he had on my life. My own husband will never know!

My Mom reminded me, though, that in a way this was a blessing. I got to SEE my Dad...even for just a few moments...even just in a dream. It's been a long time since I was able to think of him and see his face alive in my head. When I think of him, I automatically pull up in my mind pictures of him that I've seen...not real life memories.

I don't know if this anniversary is particularly difficult because I'm so far away this year, or if it's just coincidence. Either way, please pray for me. I REALLY miss my Daddy today.