One more class next week and the semester is over. Grades are due May 15.

I had a wonderful night of sleep two nights ago. It was cold and that helped. I had a dream with my father in it again. It was two glimpses, just brief snippets. In the second snippet we were watching some Chevy Chase or Bill Murray comedy -- can't remember which -- also not an actual movie, an imaginary one. He was enjoying it, but after a while he stood up and said "I'm going to bed." I responded "it isn't even up to the good part yet" but it didn't make any difference.

Last night was cold again, and I slept horribly. So much for the temperature theory! My mother got a second stent today and it was on my mind. It went fine and she's already home.

Gary would be 59 tomorrow.

Full disclosure: I have been annoyed about the university's mascot change to a cropped-ear, mean-looking Dane, and as a result I have not donated since the image was revealed. I'm not a sports enthusiast, but I would be outraged by this even if I was a fan AND did not care about animal cruelty. What a weasel response - playing the victim. Ever heard of taking responsibility? I agree with this completely. Bravo. Ever hear of transparency and accountability? Last post I mentioned my trials with a class this semester. Part of the reason is a student associated with this team who has done nothing in class and blew it off presentation day. Student had zero involvement with this scandal AFAIK, but I wonder if it has something to do with the slacker behavior? I don't know because student is MIA. It's certainly no excuse, but regardless, it makes me even more pissed off. /end rant

14 weeks.😢

April 13 would have been my father's 95th birthday. When things were "normal" (whatever that means), we'd have had a gathering to celebrate another milestone year. Instead, my mother was in the hospital from heart issues (she had a stent put in on Thursday). 

My father was a demonstrative person. Today I was remembering that for the past couple years, he would take my hand and put it to his cheek and then kiss it whenever I arrived or left. He did that to anyone who would permit it. It's a very dear memory.

The weather has remained cold and today feels especially "Marchy." That's what Elwyn would write in his diary about days like today. Such a wonderful image, I don't think I need to explain.

I have started to read the second book in Moody's Life After Life trilogy. I think I may have read it before. I am fairly sure I have never read the third book in the trilogy, which I will read next. 

The semester will soon be over and this semester it's my graduate class that is trying my patience. They are all adept at google and searching so I can't share more, but it is very irritating and stressful.

4.5 weeks ago I drastically changed my diet. No sugar (I am an addict), no simple carbs (not too bad except for sweets), and somewhat unintentionally, I cut down on dairy, but didn't eliminate it. I've been 98% compliant, even yesterday on Easter. It wasn't making a difference in how I felt until recently, and I think I do feel somewhat better. I didn't do it for this reason, but I have lost about 10 pounds.

 I had an amazing dream last night. My father was in it. He was old, looked about like he did for the past 10 years or so. He could walk and talk and make things! We were at a house, in a big, roomy, bright kitchen. A one car garage was off the kitchen, and some delivery men were unloading supplies, because the house needed some modifications. I am not sure whether the house was his or mine or someone else's.  My mother was there, as was Bob, for at least part of the dream. We knew my father had died, but he was back. He was sitting at a bar in the kitchen. My mother was taping Christmas cards to the wall near the bar. She already had a lot up, but after my father died, she received a lot more, and now that he was back, she was adding them to the display. A boy came over to work with him on Halloween decorations. They were working on a big cardboard box that was kind of like a coffin. In the dream i didn't specifically identify the boy, but after I woke up I thought it might have been a nice kid who was in the first year of our faith formation class in 2012-13 that another boy in class picked on. A friend of Bob's and mine that we have not seen in a few years was coming over for dinner, and my father finished the decorations and said he had to get dressed. Our friend came, and when he was in the bathroom my father grilled me about what he did for a living, whether he was on drugs and said he thought the friend was strange. LOL! It was such a wonderful, realistic dream.

Twenty-nine years ago, on April 5, 1993, Mimmie died. I think of her often, daily in fact. But since I'm currently reading a book we extensively discussed when it was first published, she is on my mind even more than usual. I remember her telling me that she would think about her employers, the Kearneys, at night when she was in bed. They had died in 1970 from murder/suicide. She would envision their faces in the dark, not their entire bodies, just their heads. For some reason we both found that funny, and we laughed.

It's April. Weather is still fairly cold, but it hardly matters. I knew it would be a cold spring, and it won't be a surprise to me if it is a crummy summer. I am going to have a hard time this month. When the world was "normal" (whatever that means), preparations would be underway for celebrating my father's 95th birthday in two weeks. 

I finished "Hello from Heaven" and learned that they interviewed 2,000 people over seven years. I am now reading "Life After Life," which I first read when it came out in the 1970s. Moody is the best writer of all the authors on this subject that I've read recently.