Do you remember...

Before I begin...yes Carrie do plan for a visit next year!! Either the whole family or just you--we will have a guest room + my scrap room to play!! YEA!!

OK--onto my topic for the day. My dad passed away over eleven years ago now, and rarely do I dream about him anymore. Memories, no matter what, typically fade all too quickly over time. And my memories of my father are very precious to me, so when I start dreaming about him coming back into my life it's bittersweet. It's wonderful having his memory come flooding back to me but those same memories tend to leave me out of sorts for the next few days. I rarely mention to anyone when this happens, as I am not very good about opening up with these things. Anyway, didn't mean to depress anyone, and this will end on a happy note--promise.

I love soundtracks, and my latest one I purchased was "The Wedding Planner". You know the cheesy girl movie with JLo and Matthew McConnahey (spelling not my strong suit--People magazine's 2005 Sexist Man Alive). Well this soundtrack has an equally cheesy song by John Denver called "Annie's Song." For some reason I chose to put that on my iPod. Listening to it last week, a memory came flooding back to me about my Dad. I remember sitting in his boat of a car (blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville circa 1976) all pimped out with the latest 8-Track player and his John Denver 8-Track. I have no clue why Dad had an 8-Track of John Denver, but that's not the point. I think I was between six and eight years old, and I remember making my Dad replay that song over and over again because I thought it was such a pretty song. He must have grown so sick of it. I had completely forgotten this until last week when after hearing the song for a few days, then memory popped back into my head.

The mind is a wonderous thing...lots of my memories of my father are fading away, but one obscure song, by John Denver, caused my brain to go into overdrive and not only bring that memory back to me in vivid color, but triggered my dreams about him. I miss him still to this day so much it still hurts to talk about him, but Dad and I will still have this funny, pretty song together.