Thank you everyone for all the nice comments. I know I am certainly not the first person to lose my dad. But its still nice to be able to talk to people about it. And for them to care.

And yes, I could be in Darfur. I do realize this. I do remember the picture of the starving child. The one that effected me so much that is still carved into my brain. My life could be so much worse. Please don't think that I don't realize this. I don't want to sound whiney, but this is my place to vent. So I vent. I can put it in perspective though. And everything that is wrong with my life right now is probably my own fault. I do realize this. My mother just drives me crazy.

Its weird.....Most of the time she is Mom - that overbearing, bossy, loud, legalistic, critical person that she always has been. Then there are other times, every so often especially lately, that she is just this little, old, wrinkled, sad, little lost person that I just want to take care of. Its weird. I see changes in her. Subtle but definately there.

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I had another dream. I had it today when I was taking a nap.

My mom and I were out in the desert. We had been there for like 5 days. We were the only ones there. Its like we were taking care of funeral/burial stuff. But we were still there. And it was isolated in the desert. A few shrubs here and there. But I don't remember ever seeing or being aware of a gravesite. There were things from the funeral there - like a tarp, to stand under for shade; a set of chairs that are hooked together, like chairs at the theater, like 5 of them; and other things, small things, but I don't remember what they were. It was the end of whatever we were there for, and we were packing up getting ready to leave. We were putting stuff in a vehicle, and cleaning up. And talking, my mom teary I think, just basically cleaning and talking. I'm standing by the trunk of the car, and I turn my head and look down on the ground to my right. About 8 to 10 feet away is a dead baby, about 2 months old. It is laying on its back, like a baby would be in a car seat kind of, and is obviously dead, the skin is darkened, but it is a caucasion baby. I remember the skin - it was very taught, and wrinkly, and hard and stiff. But it looks very peaceful. I simply turn my head and glance down at it. I am not alarmed by it, just kind of sad. And it wasn't there earlier. My mom is by the car then, and I show it to her, and we are both sad. She says,"I wonder why it didn't make it?" I kind of shrug, sadly, and we continue to clean up. I have looked away from it at this point. While I'm cleaning up it starts to bother me that we are just going to leave it there like that, so I decide I should dig a hole and bury it. I'm still standing where I was before, and I turn my head to look at it again, and now it has a bunch of sticks on top of it. I look away, then look back again, and this time the whole baby quickly decomposes right before my eyes, like film that is sped up. Like the Nine Inch Nails video of "Closer" where that animal is filmed decomposing - and then sped up. So this baby completely decomposes and disappears totally. The next thing I remember, there is a building and a room that wasn't there before, it reminds me of our gradeschool, in the back where the office is, and my mom goes in this room. She says something, I think to me, but I can't understand her cause she is in the room. I ask her what she said, and she looks over her shoulder at me, tears in her eyes, and eerily says "Oh, I was just saying something to your Dad."

And then I woke up.

Me and my dad, when I was about 4. I love this picture.