Clematis

I think most dreams are to help you work out what you can't quite figure out or deal with during your waking hours. I always figure that if I have a dream about something really mundane-say, washing the dishes, things are going pretty well in my life. I had a dream wherein my dad walked in and demanded why I was rearranging his house as if he were dead, when he was not. I think that one was to get me to look at the denial I still had/have about his death. I had a dream a couple of nights ago where all kinds of people were in and out of my house without my permission-one of them was a kid I work with-and my friend ran up to me with a purple towel and said, "Here's your skirt" to point out to me that I was wearing a T-shirt and underwear in front of all those people, including a kid that I work with. Dreams about being in your underwear or naked in public are classic symbols of being "found out" as inadequate. I do feel like that I am inadequate to my current tasks and that it is obvious to everyone that I'm not functioning very well, and very soon I will back to work (working with kids) and they may see that as well. The dream points all of that, as well as that that I am way more anxious and worried than I am aware of in my waking life. I think dreams generally comes down to what you are avoiding looking at..

Thanks, Kay! Greg is coming to help me tomorrow, and I'm sure we can get it at the right height. He rearranged the way the ropes went around the pulleys-the way I set it up 11 years ago worked but was a little awkward and constricted the movement of the garage door. You could only get the garage door all the way up if the canoe was out of the garage. He rearranged it while I was in Hawaii so that the door works properly with or without the canoe, which is good. Unfortunately, it takes two people to secure the canoe high enough-one to hold the canoe up high and the other to tie off the canoe to the cleat with a cleat hitch. Ultimately, it would be good to redo it with two more pulleys so that I could do it alone, but that will have to wait. I'm not doing much canoeing these days...the canoe has just been a convenient place to store bubble wrap for the move...

I know what you mean. Happy fourth to you as well. I am not sure if I will be seeing any fireworks, but I do plan to play the cello in a parade. Someone else carries the endpin and lower bout of the cello and I will be have the headstock over my shoulder and playing the cello with the bow. I hope all goes ok...

My grief counselor works through a hospice and they do groups in the community. They do is as a service for people who have been in hospice with them, but they are not strict about that. Not everyone in the groups lost someone who was receiving services with this hospice. It's hard to know what is available in different communities, but it is worth a check.

oh, yeah,,,you are right. I still consider her to be a friend, and we have a thirty year history together, but she is not the person to call if I really need support. I try and remember she is very limited, but every now and then I forget. I do have friends now who are nice to me, and are supportive and understanding.

Six months, huh? That's interesting...I am at 5-1/2 months and had this dream that really really upset me. I had a visceral response to this dream and it continued over two days. I am usually pretty good at figuring out my own dreams. I have also worked with a lot of clients with their dreams. I don't tell them what it's about-I coax them into figuring out what it means to them, because it's their dream, and somewhere underneath they know. They just don't know they know. I don't know what it means-it's not my dream. I just know how to nudge them in the right direction. So I had this dream in which for some reason I cut off the very edge of my cat Lena's ear with a pair of sharp scissors, and also injured some part of one of her front paws, but this part is less clear. I was horrified in the dream-that I had done this heinous thing to my beloved cat that I love more than anything. It was reminiscent of an actual thing that actually happened to Lena - I shut her tail in the car door. We had both gotten out and were sitting on the ground next to the car and I opened the car door to get something I forgot, and I nudged the door closed. But as I closed the door, she whipped her tail up and it got caught in the door. She screamed, I opened the door, grabbed her up in my arms and sat on the ground next to the car, hugging her and sobbing because I was so horrified I had done this. We were outside the independent living place where she works as a therapy cat, and after a few minutes I took her inside and she visited with her friends. She seemed totally normal, but I was totally numb from panic. As soon as we left, I called a friend who had to retire early as a vet and told her all this. She was very calm and asked me questions. No there wasn't a lump, While she was getting tired of me messing with her tail, that spot didn't seem any more sensitive than the rest. Good-that meant that there were probably no fractures. Then she told me to carefully feel the temperature of her tail from the base to the tip. If it seemed warm and then felt cooler at some point, that meant there was likely to be circulatory damage and Lena would probably have to go to the pet E.R. and have about half of her tail amputated. The temperature seemed totally the same and she was absolutely fine, but it scared me to the depths - the idea of having Lena's tail amputated because of something I had done - how horrific!. So anyway that part was real but it turned out ok, as scary as it was. Lena is a therapy cat, and although she has a safer life than a cat who goes freely outdoors, she faces certain risks because she travels about in a car. I am vigilant about her safely and watch everything that goes on with her, but still there are risks, no matter how careful I am... Back to the dream. Dreams have many layers, and given what I just wrote about the experience with her tail it makes sense that the most superficial layer would actually be about Lena and that she would suffer some permanent harm that I had caused and everyone could see for the rest of her life. Another layer would be that I have lost my father, and we were a family of three. Losing Lena or some significant part of her, like her graceful beauty, would be a brutal blow. But this dream was deeper and I knew there was some part of this nut that I was not cracking. When I was just as upset about the dream today as yesterday, I called a close friend who is a psychiatrist and also a trained psychoanalyst. She is amazing, but has really serious health problems and so does her partner. I really try to not bug her, but I finally called her and told her the story. She first pointed out that if I was that unnerved, there was something very real about it. Yeah! She then pointed out that the injured part of the cat was her head and specifically her ear. Well, I have just had a car accident and then was hit in the head in Hawaii, and am anxious about my ability to continue making a living where I listen to people for a living and really have to use my head. My O.T. did an evaluation that scored me at or below the first percentile in activities where I do sequencing that involves timing. Distraction is having a big impact on my speech. I am worried, and my safety net (my dad) is gone. No one else will take care of me if I cannot support myself. She suggested that I probably had some concern about hitting my head again. I said, oh yeah, right- I hit my head about six times the day before on my canoe in my garage. But not very hard. It hangs from the ceiling and isn't quite high enough, but I think it is because I have been walking under it for 11 years. I keep thinking I can walk under it and most of it is ok, but Greg re-hung it and the very end is now just a little too low. I need to get Greg to help me pull it up about an inch higher so I won't hit my head on it. She then told me that when you have had a head injury, even very small hits on the head can be very detrimental. Oops! And the part of the dream about Lena's paw...well I do have a hand and elbow injury on my left arm (paw) and not following the OT's directions very well as to homework. So, anyway, dreams are where you process things that you are avoiding during your waking hours. They are a creative effort by one part of your brain to put on a little play to get some other part of your brain to pay attention or see something that you don't want to look at or are afraid to know. When you are awake, you can avoid thinking about this and that, but when you go to sleep, look out! All the locks on the closets and hidden trunks of your unconscious come undone and there it is-whatever you don't want to see. So, I had this little family of three-me, my dad, and Lena. My dad is gone, I am very concerned about Lena in my waking life, but the other family member-myself-does anyone here think I am showing a lot of concern about taking care of my self, not causing undue stress, not further injuring myself, etc? In my waking hours? Uh, probably not...

Marj and Kay-I feel so badly for both of you to have lost your little furry chair thieves. My cat Lena has been such a help since my dad died, I can't imagine having to get along without her. Yesterday the housekeeper was here and used the vacuum at my dad's where we are staying. With my housekeeping, this was a rather foreign experience to Lena. I usually use the carpet sweeper that was my grandfather's (non-electric). So Lena hid and went to sleep somewhere. I called her and called her and she didn't show up, which is odd for her. I panicked. The whole energy of the house seemed dead. I finally started talking loudly about chicken and she materialized. Dang! Marj, I love your little icon with the cat face-it is just adorable! Laura

Hello, That sounds like a very touching experience, to suddenly have the smell of him as he was when you were a little kid, and to have him sitting with you as he used to do. I lost my dad five months ago, and we were really close. He had Parkinson's and I took care of him for the last ten years of his life. I miss him every day-sometimes it is bearable and sometimes it is terrible. But he comes to see me and his presence is my life is with me every day. Frequently I hear him talking to me and sometimes I feel him come and sit next to me. I feel him in the car, kind of hovering around but not sitting in the passenger seat, which is frequently occupied by either my cat Lena or my cello (Mister Cello), whose case has a face and wears a hat and a bunch of other stuff. I guess he doesn't want to fit in the back seat or share with the cat or cello, but I know that he is there somewhere. It's far from having his living self with me... It sounds like you feel like he is helping you get through things...that is really good. I miss my dad so much that sometimes I feel like I can't breathe of swallow. However, I supposed it would be worse if he wasn't hanging around.

Back to...I Hate The Weekends...Holiday weekends are the worst! Being alone while it seems like everyone in the world is having a BBQ with their friends and family and/or whoever else they've got! It isn't that I don't have friends-I do, but I'm not on the list of the people they think of right off for a holiday get-together. Holidays are for the people they are closest to, and that is not me. I was in a relationship before my dad was here and so most of the time I was included in holiday celebrations or family fights or whatever they were doing. Then my dad was here, and I had him to spend those times with; even if we didn't do anything special it was nice to not be totally alone on a holiday. Even here there is not much activity, because most people have some kind of peeps-children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses, cousins, somebody...even though they have lost someone who is critically important. Maybe I should go get a BBQ-d chicken and share it with the cat...I am not totally alone. I have Lena and she would like that!

I know what you mean- I don't even know if I am in a bad fix or not with my dad's condo. Should I sell it as a shortsell, sell it at a loss, let it foreclose, I don't even know. People keep telling me that I should rent it. Yeah, right! I should take on that hassle only to lose about $500 a month and having my sisters clawing blood out of my back for doing it? Uh, no-I don't think so! But I haven't been able to even to figure out what it is worth or what to do. I am too busy trying to save my life, get through the now, and nurse my wounds in my daddy's house while it still looks like my daddy's house to figure it out. Some day that task will get its day. But not today. Probably not this week either.

Marg, I loved this post about the obituary. I never wrote one for my dad. My younger sister, the extreme narcissist, not to be confused with my older sister the moderate narcissist, offered to help me write one. I said, No thank you, but meant, "*#@^*, NO! And get the *%#&* away from me!" I was far to overwhelmed to even think about doing this, but felt that I was the only person on the planet who could do it. And then I thought it was too late. But I run across people who knew him and don't know he is gone...

I have just now been reading these posts. When I first heard about donating a painting and a fundraiser, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I had no idea why I was had no idea what he was talking about. Now I look at the dates of the posts about the fundraiser, and smacked myself on the side of the head...it's because that went on when I was in Hawaii...! And don't worry-I didn't really hit myself on the side of the head while trying to recover from a head injury...just a figure of speech!

I am hoping that when I see the new blue carpeting in my condo, with fresh paint on the walls, it will give me the courage to move back into my own house, taking my dad's furniture and our combined stuff back in there, and will be able to let go of the house where my dad lived, a minute and a half from my door. I am hoping that my house will then look like his house, except in a mirror image with blue carpeting-and a mingling of my things and his! I hope...

That's a great story, George! It's really good to hear of a happy reunion

It is hard to believe that I will ever feel really happy again, and that I will feel like I have love and comfort in my life again. Last night, I played a three-hour gig with my band-the Jerome Ukulele Orchestra, and felt normal. I had a really good time. Until it was over. When I went out into the dark, alone with my cello, the gloom settled back around me again, and I was crying as I drove down the mountain. Kind of like a sparkling crystal that fell onto the mud... I've always done a lot of things alone, especially before my dad moved to AZ to be with me. Then he was here and we were together all the time. Then he declined and he couldn't always go, but he wanted to hear all about it afterwards. Now he is gone and no one really cares what I did last night or any other night...if I went out and sang and played the cello or I stayed home and sat at home in my dad's chair crying. Well, my bandmates were happy that I was there because the cello adds a lot to a bunch of ukuleles, but it's different than having someone at home who cares. Well, Lena was happy to see me-she was hungry and there was a lot of meowing going on...

Karen, I had a visit in a dream once from a woman I really didn't know very well. I had a horribly stressful job running a symphony box office that got busier and busier as they worked on ticket sales. Eventually I couldn't keep up, made errors, they fired me, and replaced me with two full-time and a half-time person. But as things were getting busier, Cynthia was a devoted volunteer and she helped me-saved my life really. She was in town helping her son, and was having some weird health problems after a visit to the dentist. She went to see he husband and her own doctor in California. Some weeks later, I had a dream that she came into the symphony office. I jumped up to hug her, but she stepped back, held out her hand, and told me that I shouldn't be so happy, because things hadn't gone as well as she'd hoped. I figured out how to call he husband in CA the next morning and he told me that she had found she had leukemia and she died the day before. I think Cynthia wanted me to know what had happened to her. I think she really cared about me. Had she not come and told me, I would have never known! And she wanted me to know...

I also believe that is true...

I hope you don't, as well!

My sisters have pretty much stopped speaking to me since my father died, leaving me the executor. It is rather obvious why he named me executor, since my sisters told him they didn't want him to move to their town -an hour away-while I was trying very hard to coax him to move from PA to AZ. He had Parkinson's Disease and had to leave his split level house. I took care of him for ten years, while my sisters had little contact with him aside from milking him for money. My younger sister was able to find a second husband to provide for her very well, having divorced her first husband, the psychopath, and conning my dad into providing over $100K for her during the interim. She was not named the executor because she's not trustworthy, even though she could have probably determined everything of value in my dad's condo in less than an hour and arranged to have the rest hauled off. My older sister was not named executor because she cannot handle her own affairs, much less adding the affairs of another person across the country. Nevertheless, my older sister and I were always close until recently. When she began really struggling after her losing child support because her kids were over 18 , I bought her art, sent her money, and got my father to send her money when she couldn't pay her mortgage or had no oil to heat her house or whatever emergency she had going. We both helped her a LOT. She didn't even want to have to ask our dad for money-she wanted me to do it, and I did. He got tired of sending her money, complaining "I don't understand why she won't work". I set up an arrangement whereby she would do 2-3 hours of commercial (graphic) artwork for me every week ($40/hour) and my dad would pay her, with me facilitating the transfer of funds immediately upon the receipt of her emailed invoice. He liked it because she was working, To me, it was a luxury-it would have been more difficult to do it myself. My sister...was not so happy about it because she had to create simple invoices, and occasionally I had some input about what she was doing for me and once or twice had the audacity to ask her to change something, like a font. I once asked my older sister if she had seen something that I had put on Facebook for her benefit. She became irritated and pointed out that she could hardly be expected to see some post from me because she had over 700 fb friends. Now she has over 800 fb friends. Her birthday was Friday. I sent her...drumroll...a message saying, "Happy Birthday!" That's it! I'm really sick of watching a parade of all her arty posts about herself and her artsy friends and how cool and artsy they are while I am out here alone crying and digging through our father's possessions, and trying to make room for everything I can at my own small condo by jettisoning my own stuff. My father's collection of stuff also includes things of my mother's and both of their parents, grandparents, etc. My sisters also got a lot of family stuff because our parent's house was way bigger than my dad's condo. My dad brought the things that meant the most to him. It's been really difficult and my sisters are not interested in hearing about it. Today I stopped following my sister on fb...

I know what you mean...when I first signed on, my user name was AloneAndLost. I changed it to Clematis not long after joining the forum because I felt less alone. I am not having a problem if what to do because with the enormous job of consolidating my dad's and my possessions into one condo, there is more than enough to do. I think who to be is more of a problem...who am I if not my father's daughter, caregiver, and best friend? I work on the houses and their contents when I have someone to help me because I really can't get much done when I am alone. And so, what am I doing when I am not working hard on sorting, preparing to move back into my own house, and dealing with my father's and my own necessary affairs? It feels like moping around doing nothing, but I think it's actually called "grieving"...

I don't think you are selfish, and I wouldn't invest too much credence in someone else's dream. Although you and your best friend were both close to Nate, you had different relationships with him. It is very likely that he loved you as much as you love him, and he would be concerned about how you are suffering. It would be understandable that he wouldn't want you to suffer, but having just lost him, any reasonable person-including him-would realize that you would naturally be suffering from his loss. You are talking about your friend's interpretation of a dream that she had. Dreams are very symbolic to the dreamer. Her interpretation is what her experience means to her. You can't take someone else's dream in a literal way like he had written her a letter and she was reading it to you. If you have a dream, you can interpret it, or have someone who is objective assist you in figuring out what it means to you-because it is your dream. But her dream is hers, and it goes through her filter. Does that make sense? What you wrote makes sense, but I think you are unduly suffering from an error in your logic and belief that it is reasonable to take her dream as a literal message from him. You are grieving a terrible loss and it is natural that you would want to feel his presence or see him in a dream or have some evidence. You may get that, and you might not. I would suggest that when you think about Nate that you be true to your real experiences of him and what he was really like with you, rather than being swept away by someone else's experience. Please try to take care of yourself and don't take on anyone else's interpretation that makes you feel worse than you already do. Grief is really hard and it is a long process. You might consider talking to a grief counselor, and keep coming back here. We are all on the same road that you are...

That sounds like a wonderful dream, and made more special by its intensity. I had a very vivid dream a few weeks ago that my father suddenly walked in his front door and wondered why I was living there full time and had gotten rid of his clothes and rearranged things. I told him that I thought he was dead- that the people at the hospital had told me he was dead and I had a death certificate and all that stuff. He told me that he was obviously alive and why was I acting like he was dead. It was unnerving. I was relieved to see that he was alive, but rather disturbed... How could I think he was dead for several months when that was not true?

I think he's around you...why would he suddenly stop hanging around you when he had been your constant companion in life. Maybe he doesn't think he needs to tell you he's there since he has no trouble seeing you. I doubt he's mad at you. From everything I have ever heard from anyone, it seems like when people pass on, along with their pain they also leave their petty b.s. and "issues" behind and what remains is what is significant. His love for you. His knowledge that you love him. Does anything else really make sense? He may have trouble communicating with him in a way that you can pick up on. It may be that what he is able to do at this point is not something that you are sensitive to. People are sensitive to different things. I am sensitive to my father talking to me, to three dimensional waves in music, to vibrations from flowers, plants, and fruits. But I am not terribly sensitive to temperature and some other more obvious things. Sometimes I gradually become aware that sweat is running down my face or body somewhere and only then realize that it is hot. Everyone else is wearing light clothing and I am wearing a sweater that I've had on all day since it was cool, and just didn't notice. Or maybe it has cooled off and other people are wearing appropriate clothing and I am wearing a light skirt, sandals, and a T-Shirt, when I should be wearing a coat, socks & real shoes, etc. like everyone else is. Suddenly I realize I am stiff with cold and shivering and wonder why I it took me so long to notice. I carry extra clothing in the trunk of my car because I am frequently caught off guard. Many people are not aware that they have their shoulders clenched up high or that they are holding their breath, or are breathing in a shallow way, or that they frequently make odd facial expressions or all kinds of other things. I think it you watch people you will realize that there are a lot of people wandering around out there who are not aware of things that others are very aware of. There are people who have learned to be very aware of body language that others do not even notice-espacially the person exhibiting the given cues. Pickpockets do this...say that they found a wallet and ask you if you lost yours. You know you did not lose your wallet, but without realizing it, you put your hand on it, which lets the thief know where your wallet is. We think we are of what is all around us, but it just isn't true. And everybody notices different stuff. Weird, but true. Also, it happens all the time that someone has a sudden awareness of a word or something they had no awareness of before and suddenly they hear it everywhere. You may have been as unaware of Charley's presence as you are to your own breathing. You might try talking to him and don'r over focus on whether or not you get a response. Just assume he heard you and carry on... Laura

I miss sharing my music with my dad as well. TonightI played a three hour gig with the Jerome Ukulele Orchestra, and we had a great time. It was at a "First Saturday Artwalk" at the Artists' Cooperative, and tons of fun. Lots of friends came to hear us, I have friends whose art was there on display, and it was very cool to see everybody. The audience was very enthusiastic and the energy was good. There was a little boy there (maybe 8?) whose father is a cartoonist and friend of some of the group. He is a very cool kid-not shy in the least-who did a batman dance when we played Batman. Between numbers he came up to say something to our violinist/fiddler. Apparently he has played this instrument. I asked him if he'd like to try playing the cello. He said, "Maybe when I'm older", I said, "No-right now!" We were about to play a tune that could be played with just open strings. I was standing up and had him standing between me and the cello and got him to get a good grip on the bow and he played the whole tune, with me guiding him a little go put a little more pressure on the bow or turning the cello a bit so that he would hit the C string instead of the G string. He loved it, the audience loved it, he was adorable, and his mother was thrilled (and took lots of pics on her phone. I can imagine if my dad was there...he should have gotten all teary and been obviously very moved, But if I were to ask him what he thought, he would have only said, "It was interesting". That's all he ever would say when he saw me perform with a group, play music, or show my art. I know he was proud of me, but he was never very expressive about it, and nd never turned down an opportunity to see me play or show my art. Sometimes I think he has had more to say to me in a supportive way since he's been gone than when he was alive... Nevertheless, I sure with he could have been there tonight.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...