Dot`sThoughts

Walt`s Birthday I am writing this the day before his birthday and will be posting it tomorrow on his Birthday. Here I sit thinking of tomorrow and what it means to me. It would have been Walt's 81st Birthday, but he has been gone since three months before his 76th birthday. In September I celebrated my 76th Birthday and all daylong I kept thinking that he never had his 76th Birthday. I remember how I used to think the same way on my 72nd birthday, that I was older than my father as he was two months short of his 72nd birthday. Always leaves me wishing I could go back and give them more Birthdays. Guess we always wish we could keep our loved ones around forever. Does it ever get easier, or does the emptiness feeling last forever? Will I end up like my mother who spent 20 years alone without her husband, she was almost 91 years old,lacking just 4 days. My father (Jan.31st,1903) was 1 year 3+ months older than my mother (May 4, 1904). At times like this you sometimes think that if your marriage had been an unhappy one you might be glad it was over, but when it was a good marriage,it is harder to accept. You remember that there were times when things weren`t as good as you would have wished, but your next thought is how much you miss all those wonderful years together and wish you could have a lot more years together. Honey, I love you, Honey I care, Wherever I am I still want you near. I wish you a Birthday With your Family up there, I know how much you missed them When you were down here. I remember those dreams Before out first child was born, When every night your mother came To help me handle those hours alone. She begged me to stay with you, Told me things would get better, If only I was willing to hang on And trust our life together. Well Darling, she was right, I`m so glad I believed in your mother`s love. Together in love was our future`s plan, Thank you , Mother, for teaching me about love. Happy Birthday, My Darling, I love you so, Stay close to your mom `s love above, It is now her time to care for you till God calls me home to share our love. Before our first daughter was born was the time when Walt used to join his bro in a bar and come home real late. I was thinking of leaving , I was feeling so unloved. He would tell me he wouldn`t have married me if he hadn`t loved me. But every Friday night when he would leave to pick up his bro at the bar, he would end up staying there with him and I would start wondering again about his love. When I had finally made up my mind I was going to go find a job , move out and plan on raising my baby alone, that was when the night time dreams started. There was this woman who I had never met and she told me she was Walt`s mother. She begged me to give him more time, that things would work out if I would just be patient. These dreams continued for the rest of my months - right up to the day of delivery. Once the baby was born I never had the dreams again. Walt`s mother had died when Walt was only about 14 years old and he didn`t even have a picture of her. I never told anyone about those dreams at the time. But her image stayed with me after seeing her so much. One time when we were visiting his only sister I asked her if she had any pictures of their mother. She had this one picture taken on a wagon shortly after her first set of twins was born. His sister had lived way up North and came down to show her mother her new grandchildren. I bet my face showed what I was going thru because that picture was identical to the woman in my dreams. That was when I decided to tell her about her mother showing up for months every night in my dreams. I am still puzzled on how I was able to see a woman (his mother) in my dreams so clear when I had never even seen a picture to know what she looked like. Also, how was she able to keep me from leaving? Why was her visits so strong I didn`t have the power to go against her wishes. Yes, I probably wanted to believe her, that things would turn out ok if I just waited a while longer. I remember trying to convince her that I already had waited long enough- we had been married a year by then, so hadn`t I waited long enough. I always awoke feeling I should go ahead and leave, but her strength over me was too strong to win over. After our daughter was born and the dreams had stopped I again started thinking of taking our baby and leaving. But I got thinking of how hi smother kept saying things would get better. So, I decided , before just walking out, I would give him the choice of meeting his bro in the bar and losing his wife and daughter, or staying home with us. I even went so far as to get some boxes from a neighbor and packing the baby`s clothes and my own before Walt got home from work that Friday night. When he came home there were the boxes sitting by the front door. When Walt asked me what was in the boxes, I told him and said that - if you go out tonight we won`t be here when you get home. We will be finished. - The boxes must have convinced him because he stayed home and our marriage became happy again.I have to admit that his mother was right, if I was just patient a little longer, everything would turn out ok. I am so thankful to her and hope she knows I have her to thank for over 50 years with the man of my dreams. It still leaves me wondering how dreams like this can happen. I know that our thoughts can produce dreams, but there is no way our minds can make up a picture perfectly of a person we have never met and never even seen a picture of. That is one puzzle I still will never figure out.Sometimes I wonder if his mother stayed watching over her youngest son till she felt he was with someone who would watch over him for her. Walt was the only one still living at home and came home from school to find his mother on the kitchen floor. He never forgot that she was making apple pies at the time and had a heart attack. He told me that his mother lost a pair of twins so small they fit into one of those boxes the wooden matches used to be sold in. he must have seen the twins as he told me they were so tiny and still looked like babies. Apparently the heart attack had brought on the miscarriage. Walt`s father had died over a year before his mother. He was a drinker and not a good husband or good father from what Walt`s brothers and sister told me over the years. Walt had a step father for a short time.All the family seemed to like him, except the sister never actually knew him since she lived a long drive from home. I remember her once asking Walt if he was nice and Walt told her he was always nice to him and Mom. Happy Birthday Walt- October 3rd, 1926- July 19th, 2002. I do believe in love at first sight I fell for you the first time I saw you sitting eating supper in the Hospital cafeteria. It was August 28th, 1950, my first day working as a Nurse`s Aide while you were working there as an Orderly. I learned that you had only worked there a couple months before I started.What a coincidence that we had started working at the same place just a couple months apart. It was a few months that I just looked and finally we did start dating, and after dating for about a year we got married on December 23rd, 1951. Happy Birthday Darling. I still love you and miss you more and more everyday.