A Salute to Dreams, Love and Impossible Thinking

I woke up this morning and it was a gray rainy morning and now the sun is coming out.

Life is kind of like that, isn’t it?

The day after Thanksgiving I said goodbye to my Uncle Brad. He’s my mother’s older brother and it’s been a long difficult road for mom and her brothers caring for him, deciding the right course of action as he was clearly dying.

I am grateful I got to hold his hand and tell him I loved him before leaving New York for the winter. I knew it was my final goodbye. He was in the military and saluted me as I left his room. I saluted him back, singing goodbye, my legs spontaneously kick dancing as I walked out — it was strangely perfect, and we were both laughing.

Yesterday was his funeral and I was sad I was going to miss it. But I woke up with the download that I could attend by FaceTime. My son sat his phone next to him in the funeral home pews and I got to be there. It really made my day hearing people eulogize him.

My Uncle Brad was a dreamer. He always had some plan or idea to make a million dollars or buy a family compound in Florida so we could all be together. His dreams were often unrealistic and fantastical — the last few years he couldn’t walk or take care of himself. But it never stopped him from dreaming.