Watching and Waiting

I keep waiting for the moment when someone jumps out and shouts, "You're on candid camera!" Or "(Early) April Fools!"

I find myself looking at doors a lot. I expect them to swing open and then to see Brandon pop his head in, smile, wait for​

​ a reaction, and then slide the rest of his body in through the half-open door.

I leave meetings wanting to call him a debrief him on how they went and--more importantly--how many minutes away from home I am, giving an estimate as to when we finally get to see each other again after a long day apart. We both got a lot better at those estimates.

Any time together came as the fulfillment of such anxious, happy anticipation. We always tried to find ways to get more time together, even though much of the time (at least during the school year), we just accepted that our lot was not always to get long stretches of daylight hours together. More often, it was breakfasts, evening chats, and Sundays that filled our desire for face-to-face time.

I'm grateful that my kids always got at least two solid days per week with just him (on days when I'd work, he'd take the kids out, or even just to school with him). I wonder if they're forgetting him already, and it really freaks me out. Because I'm sure they are. At some point, he'll just be a memory. And even if he's an active "presence," it will always be "my father died when I was little, so I didn't know him very well."

Ok, so those are the thoughts that plague me at my lows anyway. I've had people tell me that even though their dad died when they were little, they feel his help and love and sense him helping them throughout life. At my less-lows, I'm able to convince myself that such a relationship with their father can actually be more of a blessing for my children, because he can intervene in ways that are not limited by mortal constraints. He is literally a guardian angel. But not guardian. I have to believe he is also a counseling angel, an encouraging angel, a teaching angel, a loving angel - a parenting angel.

For me, he is just an angel, plain and simple. Not in the sense of a glossy, perfect, untouchable winged saint--because he never was that--but in the sense of a deeply loving, ever-caring, supportive, involved companion.

I honestly think that's why I look at doors. I know that the world of spirits he now occupies is not distant or detached; it is just like being a room over. He could very well pop his head in at any moment, theoretically. So why not? Yeah, that's another one of those torturing thoughts: if people have visions, dreams (heck I'd even take a "haunting" at this point!), why can't I? Just once! Why can't I see him? When will I get permission to bask in the blessing of just seeing the love of my life again, even for a moment?

Among the many answers I've come up with to that question, one is this: what then? There's a song that pleads, "One more day, one more time, one more sunset, baby, I'd be satisfied. But then again, I know what it would do - leave me wishing still for one more day with you."

[And that's where I fell asleep writing.] ​