the Book of Velvet

I think Spring has sprung in good ol' Northern California. I think I mention this every year...but, I have this window that is very high in the front room. I can see out of that window as I am sitting at my desk in the family room. There are two times a year when the sun hits me directly in the face...Spring and Fall. There are only a few days, maybe a week, that the sun comes directly inside that window and fills my desk with beautiful sunlight. I jokingly call it my "spotlight." I love the feeling of warmth around the corner. I like knowing the days will be longer and the nights shorter. I like knowing that Summer is almost here. I like knowing that I have softball games to fill my afternoons. I love driving down the street and seeing all the trees bloom (my sinus passages, however, will most likely not agree!). My bluebirds have found their way home and hopefully will be starting a new family soon. I love watching those babies. I even love that my birthday is just a few months away.

My daddy used to tell me that he had so many years left. The last few times I saw him, he would tell me that he felt he had "5 good years left" in his life and he wanted to take full advantage of them. He was wrong. But, I think back to the last few years he was here and I believe that he was living the best years of his life. I think he was just wrong about which 5 years....he was thinking the next 5, when in reality it was the last 5. I think about him everyday. I find myself asking him for help, asking him to comfort me in my times of need, asking for that fatherly guidance. There are times that I know he is hearing me; I will thinking about him or talking with him, either in my mind or out loud, and I can feel his presence around me. I still have not really dreamt about him which still really bothers me; I have a few nightmarish dreams of him, but not any of the comforting ones that I had when my grandfather died. I have wondered why this is and what I can do to change it...I get nothing.

So, as Winter turns to Spring, I turn yet another page in the Book of Velvet. I often go back and "reread" some of the good times in that book and I will go over the really bad times. I get tempted to look ahead a few chapters...but I don't. I guess the most important thing is just to keep turning the pages, getting to the next chapter and then the next. If you know me at all, you know that I have jumped ahead and read the last few pages of almost every book I have read (the only exception is "The Count of Monte Cristo"), I have this patience problem. I have to know what the fate is of a certain character or if the book indeed has a happy ending. I will admit to looking at the very last page of the Book of Velvet -- no matter if I am in a happy place or a sad place or doing the things I am supposed to or not -- it always ends the same; She dies. So, I guess until then, I will turn the pages.

XOXO