July 18th was my dad’s birthday. He would have been 95. Historically, this has been a really fun time for my family. My brothers would visit, we’d have a party for my dad and my sister, go to the Greek festival, celebrate my parents’ anniversary, spend lots of time laughing, playing, swimming, and just being together. In fact, my dad said many times before he passed away, “95 this year. Gonna be a BIG celebration.” He didn’t make it. I almost didn’t make it either. The past months, since my dad died, I have been stumbling through. Fumbling for the energy to live, to be a wife, a mom, just a worthwhile person. This month, I actually started to live again.
For my dad’s birthday, Chloe and I made our annual pilgramage to Lilydale with our soul friends. My SOLE purpose was to get a message from my dad. In fact I was almost giddy in the days leading up to our trip because I felt like I was going to get to visit him. My dad believed very much in people’s ability to communicate beyond the boundaries of the human life, so I knew he would find his way to Lilydale and to me. And of course he did. In both my reading and Chloe’s, my dad spoke to us through the mediums. I had never doubted that he was okay, in heaven, happy, any of that. My sadness stemmed from the fact that I missed him so much, and he hadn’t spoken to me.
After each of my brothers died, they came to me in dreams–very vivid visitation dreams–to tell me they were okay. In these dreams I was able to to feel them, hug them, ask them questions, and know that they were okay. I felt sad that my dad hadn’t “visited.” I wasn’t worried about his place in the afterlife; I knew he was in heaven. I can’t really explain it. Both of my brothers died tragically, violently even, and I needed reassurance that they were okay and not stumbling around in Limbo or worse yet hell–as my good Catholic upbringing taught me. My dad died very peacefully, as I had prayed, and for the first few weeks after his death, I could feel his presence. I would find coins, that I believed he’d left out for me; my kids even started referring to this phenomenon as “pennies from Papa.”
So on Sunday, when we celebrated my sister’s birthday on Sunday, and she said, “There’s only one thing missing…” I didn’t fall apart. I know that my dad is okay. And I do miss him, but now I feel as if I was able to speak to him, hear from him, know that he is okay and in heaven with the God he loved and worshipped for 94 years, and with my brothers, who loved him so dearly and only got to spend a short time with him in this life.