Car

Colby's car has been sitting on my back patio for over a year. It doesn't run. Colby had forgotten to put oil in it and the engine is bad. I also cannot find the keys to it. Not sure I ever had them. There are are still piles and piles of his stuff in his room and in the basement. It is possible the keys are there. Somewhere.

The car has become a fixture on the patio. The dog sits under it when it is cold and wet outside and the neighbor's cat sits on top of it when it is sunny. Still, it accomplishes no other purpose than that. I need to get rid of it. Colby liked Pull-A-Part, a place where you can walk through rows of junked cars and pull parts from them (for a small fee) or sometimes get things left inside the cars, such as CDs and clothes, and you can get those for free. The car, I think, should go there.

I call AAA, but towing to a junk yard is not part of their emergency road service. So I call other tow services and am shocked at the prices. I spend half a day doing this, then frustrated, throw up my hands. I try to do with Colby's things as he would have wanted me to, but this is not working out with the car and Pull-A-Part. I throw up my hands and ask Colby, out loud, what I should do with the car.

An hour later I get an email from a friend of Colby's who asks if I still have the car. He offers to buy it so he can restore it. He has the knowledge to do so, but I will not let him purchase the car. Instead, I give it to him. I see how pleased he is with the car and I am very happy about it, too. We both believe that this is what Colby wanted.

The car is now gone, awaiting repairs from Colby's friend. The dog has found a new spot under a patio chair and the neighbor's cat sits on top.

Calm

I have a dream. Colby and I are setting up a booth in a stall in a large, old horse barn at a fairgrounds so I can sell my books. Our stall is located on a corner in the center of the barn. There is an aisle coming toward us slightly off the center of the stall to the left and a second aisle is in front of us. From the left, this second aisle comes in straight and parallels perfectly the front of the stall, but just past the stall, it takes about a 30 degree turn to the right. I know there are a lot more stalls down that aisle, but because of the turn, I can't see them, I have a sense that there are well over 100 stalls in the barn. Each stall is wooden with dutch doors and painted white. Unless people are going through it, the bottom half of each stall door is closed, while the top half is fastened open with a large hook. The floor of the aisle is blacktop and the background throughout this dream continues this black and white theme.

Our dog Katie is with us. Katie passed away in 1991. She was 11 then, and Colby was six. Katie is a small poodle mix. She weighed about 8 pounds here on Earth and I loved her so much I called her my first-born child.

In setting up the booth, everything goes wrong––rude booth neighbors, can't find the lunch counter and when I do find it right next to my booth there is no food, I keep dropping things––yet I have an unending sense of calm. Colby is there and we are talking regularly, conversing, yet he is not actively helping me. This is okay. It is as if he is overseeing a job I am supposed to do. He offers kind, quiet assurance that no matter what happens, all is well.

Colby looks well, too. He is wearing light blue jeans, scuffed white tennis shoes, and a yellow and blue and white striped polo shirt. He sits on a stool to my right most of the time and swings his right leg back and forth. Katie wiggles out underneath the stall door to explore the barn. Even though she is tiny, I do not worry. I know she will be fine.

At some point Colby and I leave the booth so I can go to another area of the fairgrounds to speak to a group of people. One the way we pick up Snoqualmie. Snoqualmie is the wonderful white Appaloosa mare I had for 23 years. During those years she was my best friend. Snoqualmie rides in a trailer behind a truck Colby drives, and I ride in the passenger seat. Even though we are just going to the other side of the fairgrounds, we drive through a busy downtown area with lots of tall white almost transparent buildings. The edges of the buildings are soft, fuzzy, misty. Busy people in black suits carry briefcases. I should be upset about the stop and go traffic, but I am not. I am very calm and relaxed. I should be worried about Snoqualmie riding behind us in the trailer, but I know she is fine. At one stop light I roll down the window and place my arm on the door. The weather is perfect.

We get to a small conference center, Colby, Snoqualmie and me. In the lobby we find a stand of complimentary beverages, coffee, tea, soft drinks, and a woman rushes to us; we are late. My presentation was to begin at 1:15. I had been told 1:30. I check for my paperwork, but can't find it. My watch says 1:23. It will be 1:30 before I walk down the long hall and get set up. The people in my audience, the woman says, are restless. I remain calm, relaxed. It is all fine.

Inside my room the people are eager to hear what I have to say. They are atttentive, interested. The mix up on time means I have to shorten my presentation from 60 minutes to 45, but that's okay, too. It goes well. As I walk out of the presentation room into the hall, I wake up. The details of the dream are as sharp and clear as if it had been real, but what I remember most is the overwhelming sense of peace and calm. All is well. All is as it should be. There is nothing to worry about. I have been so nervous and egdy lately, the dream is the perfect balance. Today I feel as if I can focus, and for that, I am grateful.

Sundance

From my last post 50 percent say to send a card to my mom for Grandparent’s Day and 50 percent say call her. Hmmmm . . . Sometimes it is hard to know the right thing to do. I decide to do both. I go to the store and find a blank card. In it I will write a message about how much I appreciated my mom as a grandma and how much Colby loved her. And of course I will also call her on Sunday. We talk every day, but on that day I will mention being a grandparent. This is hard for me because being a grandma is something I had looked forward to and now will never be.

While at the store I begin to cry. What I wouldn’t give to get through a trip to the store with dry eyes. What sets me off this time is a pair of men’s flannel pajamas. Colby’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks and normally at this time of the year I would buy gifts for him. I wander the store and wait for the crying spell to cease so I can check out. I have found it makes people in the checkout area nervous and upset if I cry during the process, so I wait.

While I wait I am drawn to the pet section. This is odd because I was here a few days ago to get cat food. Since my last visit an entire shelf has been cleared and removed and dog toys are now on sale in the cat section. I walk closer to the dollar bin and my heart jumps into my throat. There, in the bin, are two miniature cloth “hot dogs” with a squeaker inside. This was the favorite toy of Colby’s dog Sundance. Sundance’s hot dog is long gone and I had been looking for the past three years in stores and online for one for our dog Abby, and more recently for my mom’s dog. I had even tracked it down to the manufacturer only to be told it had been discontinued. And here, on this morning, I see two brand new hot dogs. They are the only toys in the bin and there are two of them.

This is the second time since Colby passed that I have been strongly reminded of Sundance, whose only purpose on Earth was to make people happy. He passed away 3-1/2 years ago and is missed every day. The first reminder of him was in Houston, the week after Colby passed, when an old horse named Sundance was the only horse to accept me. And now here are the hot dogs. I choose to take this as a sign that everything will some how, some way, some day be okay. The tears stop and I buy the hot dogs. They will make nice surprises in the doggies Christmas stockings. Thank you, Sundance.