Random thoughts on boogers and tears

I am sick. Sick in the sort of way that makes my head spin as I walk due to the vertigo that is nestled behind my ears. Sick in a way that causes me to use evey single tissue in the house and fill it with green mucous. And it sucks. I hate being sick. And I hate most everybody around me when I am sick. I am not sure if the reason for my illness is because during the winter months I work in a drop-in nursery where we daily have urchins from all over the world spitting and farting on us. Or it could be that I am just feeling the after shocks of the three day weekend during shich I actively bonded with my off spring by taking them skiing, sledding and swimming. On the other hand, I believe it is likely due to the fact that I just don’t have much resistance right now and the combination of working and mothering is kicking me in the ass.
This morning I awoke at 5 a.m. to discover both of my nostrils clogged and the hideous sounds of the worst snores ever echoing throughout the house. Funny enough they suddenly stopped when I opened my eyes. I tried to talk myself out of bed but to no could do. I called in to the nursery and left a message that I planned on spending my day in bed. I then puttered around until the kids got up. I clothed, fed and nurtured them and sent them on their way with my mother. I then returned to bed where I slept until 1 p.m. While I slept I had a wonderful dream about my father. I haven’t dreamed of him in a month or so and I kept telling myself to hold this dear so that I could remember it when I woke up. In the dream he was younger than 65, maybe in his 40′s. I can’t recall all of the details, only that he was smiling and seemed relaxed. As the dream wore on I kept encountering him, each time he was a bit younger until the end where he was about nine years-old and looking so very much like my own kids. Each time I met up with him I hugged him and asked him, “I see you, but where are you? Everyday I wonder just where you are. Can you tell me?” His answer each time was just to smile and hug me back. At the end I was holding his cheeks in my hands and asking him the same question, he finally responded and said, “Not for now. You’ll know someday.”
This is one of the few days in the past six weeks or so that I have had some serious relaxing time. When I haven’t been sleeping I have been reading or just sitting in bed thinking. I have thought much about grief today. The grief over losing my father has not subsided, giving the saying “time heals all’ little credit. The hole has not healed. If anything the hurt grows more permanent. I think the ability to compartmentalize the hurt develops, but the pain is still there.
It’s negative two degrees here. And that is so wrong. If I could, I would chuck my sinus infection, pack up the kids and head to Maui. There we would lounge on the beach, eat fresh pineapples -except for Devon who would still insist on cookies and yogurt at all meals- and none of us would need to where wool on any of our body parts.