a few days after the funeral i had a dream about my dad. i dreamt that we were all at his funeral but instead of being in a casket we had laid his sunday-clothed body in a shallow grave and put a cloth over his face. we were in the process of the funeral when he started stirring, just a little, and there was a hushed discussion in the crowd as we waited and as someone told him it was time to go now.

i often have large scale disaster dreams but aren't about the disaster but about trying to survive after. i had one where my family was with me, including my dad, but he had no legs (and still soldiered on).

last night i dreamt that we came home to our family house and there was water in the window wells--a basement flood. my dad looked at it in despair, in his frail little body, and then set to work diligently making plans and moving the water. i was making plans in my head to ask at work about the carpet cleaning and hoping they would do it for free.

the dreams are getting less frequent and honestly the month-mark since my dad's death passed unceremoniously. actually i was taking the LSAT the day after the one month mark.

my dad passed away at home in the living room where he was the last little while in his hospital bed. my mom was home alone with him--actually, his nurse had just left the house minutes before and was still taking down notes out front in her car when my mom started to hear the death rattle. mom prayed she wouldn't be scared and sat by his side until he passed. they had a very unusually full schedule that day and dad died in the half hour when no one was coming or going.

hospice came to take the body (my brothers were home by then) and left a rose on the hospital bed in his place. my family talks about how respectful it was and how much closure it provided them. i kind of wish i could have been there to see it happen. i think of how doctors are supposed to say "so and so is dead" instead of using some euphemism like "not here anymore" to help the loved ones come to terms with the death, and it's not that i think i have a problem with that. i think i know he's gone. but i think it would have been an important human rite. then again, as the biggest worrier and as someone who lies awake all night over the smallest things, perhaps it's good i wasn't.

when we arrived at the house that night it was already like nothing had happened. we actually met the family at my brothers' soccer game--they wanted to play to honor their dad. there was some other family there. the first night was very painful because of what i think must be a natural phenomenon, which happened with dh's mom as well when his dad passed. all i wanted was my mom, but all she wanted was other people. it felt completely isolating and jarring, but i can't blame her. how, in one of the biggest moments of your life, are you supposed to be there for your kids? a widow needs company and maybe not to give company. as painful as it was i took comfort knowing dh had felt that way too and that hopefully it would pass.

one of the things that hurt me was that my mom never told me directly how my dad had died. i overheard her telling it in a whisper to her sister and that's how i know what happened. it's not that i wished for her to relive it again and again, but it was difficult that i was never given a direct history of how it went.

i tried to let it go and countered by asking mom if i could go to the funeral home with her and her mom and sister, whom she had invited, the next day in order to finalize the funeral details. she of course agreed. it was a pretty short and to the point meeting (the funeral home actually kind of offered my mom a job because of how organized and professional she was, "by the book," and i don't think they were really kidding), but it was good to be included and to go. it provided a lot of closure.

we spent quite a few days at the house after and it was very healing.

when we returned for the funeral it was a crazy trip. we had a private graveside service with family only. there were no talks or "church stuff" as my dad had said, and no clergy. it was wonderful and so natural to my dad. my grandpa conducted the service.

the main part of the service was that all the adults in the family got a rose and got to go up front, say something about dad, and then put their flower on the casket. everyone shared memories and said goodbye. in advance our immediate family talked a lot about how they didn't think they would say anything. it turned out that my brothers gave very beautiful thoughts, especially the one in particular who was the oldest at home and went through night after night after night of worrying over and listening for my dad and taking care that he was okay until he passed.

in the end, i was the only person who didn't say something. honestly i never even considered saying something. it was a funeral fit for my father and it was fitting to both of us that i didn't need to say anything. i spent a moment at the casket until i could speak and said, "bye dad," as i put my rose on top.

afterward everyone who mentioned it said the same thing: "it's okay. he knows what you meant." "he knows what was in your heart." i thought it was pretty thoughtless and unguided. i said exactly what i meant to say--goodbye. i had thought i would try to be stoic during the funeral and let it pass, as i had let everything pass, but instead i let myself feel it. i cried openly and really mourned and felt every thing. so, i was a mess the entire time. but it's not like i got to the casket and choked. it was strange how much they didn't get it, but also pointedly irrelevant.

i got what i needed, which was to say goodbye to my dad.

but if you ever find yourself in the situation, don't speak for someone's dead loved one. even if you're their mom. people mourn in unexpected ways, but they mourn in a very personal way and exactly how they mean to. and mourning, perhaps more than any other human experience, doesn't need framing or narration.

after everyone had a chance to share dh sang my mom and dad's song with the guitar and i read my dad's testimony he had written for the occasion, and we were done. i say this as a naive person who wasn't involved in the heartache my parents went through, but the funeral was beautiful in that my dad had helped plan it--down to the last details.

we went straight to the luncheon at the church and my tampon leaked on my white dress and the rest of that is history. it was kind of an easy out and while we were all in a good mood at the luncheon it was nice to leave without having to say goodbye to anyone (at the graveside a hug line formed--twice). the party my mom always said she would have not surprisingly never really happened--we all kind of went home and napped and fizzled out. the extended family eventually all fizzled out too and the rest of us, the core of us, were left for a time to ourselves.

my brother got engaged that weekend and life moves on surprisingly quickly. my other brother and his wife lost their sweet baby. things are rolling on and i don't know that it's really quite hit me yet, the depth of the despair and the realization of what is lost. on the day he died i was talking to my mom about how we were so focused on the cancer and the hospice for so long until the end that once it was all over there was kind of this realization that he was more than a cancer patient. he was so much more than that and so much had happened before cancer happened. at least for me, i didn't realize until it happened that i still needed to mourn my dad and not just a cancer patient.

i'm sure more of that will come. we haven't been back to my mom's since the funeral and that time will soon come. i am glad we are all close together and we can fold into the holidays and let this, too, pass over us. there is still a lot left i have to feel.

and, i miss my dad.