♪Strange as it seems there's been a run of crazy dreams...

For a few years now, I have made it a practice to say a little prayer before I get up in the morning.

Nothing astute, as I have but a few incoherent mumbles before my coffee just a Thank You and please keep my family ( and I list them from oldest to youngest ) in Your care to-day. I have always started with my mom and my dad, of course over the last year adding Jonathan's parents and children and siblings along with mine, in descending order.
     Mom, Dad, Mom & Dad, my older sibs ( and nieces and nephews), Jonathan, my younger sibs
( which include my Israeli family) and all of nine of our combined kids. I have to admit, it is a mental challenge to keep everybody in age order as the total number of immediate family is 43. (Pretty prolific for a Protestant-based clan. LOL.  To be sure, I'm not touting my own prayer ritual as righteous holiness, as it is the one attempt at holiness I have on any given day.)

   Now the List is down to 42. 

   For the last ten days I have struggled with leaving my dad off the prayer list. I know he's in heaven, and no longer in need of prayer, but it's hard to break the habit. After a long lonely week of mourning, I have relative peace about his passing and about our past, but he's been in my dreams just to spite me, LOL, even if my conscious self has calmed. 

   In a recent production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, we sang the line, " Strange as it seems there's been a run of crazy dreams..." Last night I dreamed of a puzzle piece type image, a Facebook photo-post of all things ( yes I know I have no life ) that I couldn't get in the right place, and I kept waking up and falling asleep right back into the dream thread. Even in my dream state I knew that piece was Daddy. The other day I shared with friends that I had a dream... where I was on the highway. No big deal... except I saw in front of me and then in passing, a baby elephant, a hippo with glass stuck to him (like sprinkles on a cookie), a penguin playing with a puppy, and a wild boar.  Since I have no Joseph to interpret, I went to a dream dictionary just to see if any of it made sense. Interestingly enough, 

it did!

     Hippos in dreams are said to represent hidden strength, aggressive nature and possible territorial tendencies. Check. Broken glass, disappointments and a relationship that has come to an end – check.  
     Elephants indicate a need for more patience, letting go of a memory -- and represent power, strength, faithfulness, and intellect. Check.
     Penguins symbolize the fact that problems are not as serious as they appear, and wild boars indicate a need to delve within one's self to seek answers. Check.
     The highway is pretty self-explanatory, on a journey. ha!

    On a conscious level, I’ve found myself flitting between the three of the stages of grief, anger, denial, depression, glossing over bargaining because really, there was no hope for recovery. The forecast is mostly acceptance, with lingering showers of sorrow at unexpected moments.

    In my sub-conscious, I’m still searching for an answer. My intellect won’t let this one go… and at least one of the many siblings on my morning litany is having the same problem, except on a very painful, conscious level. I told her this morning in a message that true love is defined in the Bible…patient, kind, doesn’t bear a grudge… and that’s how she loved our dad. I did too, for the last fifteen years, after I got through the first two times of losing him to his intellect and his alcoholism ( a deadly combination). She lived the Commandment of 'honor thy father and mother' far better than I ever have, in my own nearsightedness. Perhaps that's where the zoo animals showed up on my 'highway', as funky road signs.  Either that or I need Breathe-right strips to get more sound sleep. LOL Probably both.  

     I can no longer ask for prayers for my dad, and there's a touch of sadness in that. Then I remember the hippo in my dream, and how I need to step back from trying to save everyone I love, even from themselves. So... now in the daily pause between my mom and Jon's folks, there's a little sigh of thanks for a daddy I loved, and after I have my coffee and get going every day, my mind is filled with prayers and plans for finding where to put the puzzle pieces. Given my track record, it may take another thirty years to figure things out... oye.  As a dear one pointed out recently, some folks are late bloomers, so... it's all good. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 Sometimes He even works for the good of those who aren't called, because that's the kind of Dad He is. The Best Dad, Ever.