Strange Things are Happening

Logan was signing the song "Strange Things are Happening" tonight and I thought it was absolutely appropriate. This entire past week has been more than strange. Most who read this regularly know that my stepdad passed away last Monday. He had become sick 2 weeks prior. He had a large tumor on his liver that had ruptured. We had no idea he even had cancer, so things moved very quickly. Unfortuneately I wasn't able to see him until after his surgery 2 weeks before his death. He never really recovered from the blow of the surgery. Everyone says they can hear you and I do believe he heard all of our prayers and love that we shared with him his last two weeks here on Earth. He had a few days here and there where he was able to talk to us a little bit and his words made us really think he was understanding. I know his mind was still strong, his body was just too sick and too weak to recover. A couple of days before he passed I was talking to him about random things like I always do. I said something about the presidential race coming up and how Hillary Clinton is running (he was a political guru). Oh boy, when I mentioned her, he had few words to say, but we definately got the point! He didn't like her.

After he passed last Monday afternoon, all of us tried to pitch in and prepare for the funeral. My stepdad has a large amount of land that overlooks the river. It's beautiful property and he was there everyday, so he always said he wanted to be buried there. He even had an acre legally plotted as a cemetary. My husband told my mother he would help prepare the land for the burial. He said he was honored to do it. So...my husband and BIL spent a (very rainy) week excavating the area for the burial. After digging about 10 inches they hit solid rock! They jack hammered and dug. One layer was 13 inches of solid rock! Bless his heart I have the best husband ever. I don't think anyone could have guessed just how much work it would entail though!

Wednesday night I was trying to make a montage for my stepdad's visitation service, but I needed to free up some space on my computer, so 2 nights before the service I was trying to delete some things and I all but crashed my computer! I eventually had to do a complete restore an just got it going today! We had the visitation Friday night and I put the montage together on my sister's computer. Everyone loved it, then the funeral was on Sat. and it was beautiful. There are four of us girls. I'm 2nd to oldest. Two sisters and I read at the mass and the other played Ave Maria on her violin.

The morning of the funeral we received a call that the hole the guys had dug was completely full of water. We were all dressed and headed to the church. My BIL's little brother changed his clothes and rented a gas powered pump, then drove to the farm to pump out all the water before we all arrived. Despite the rain and cold weather we've had for 2 weeks, the burial was perfect. We had a short period of sunshine just during that time and as people were leaving the clouds came back. It was so strange.

As we were leaving the service at the farm my father in law asked the man sent out to help how many people he had to help him put the casket in the ground. ONE. So instead of attending the dinner for family, my husband (did I mention he's the BEST?) along with my BIL, FIL and some cousins stayed behind to help. They had to get the casket into the vault and then into the ground. It was a sopping mess. The ground was so muddy, and of course it's all torn up now. Once it dries out the guys will finish up and we'll figure out how to make things look nice.

By Saturday afternoon we were all exhausted. Fortuneately my mother has a large house, and there were people sleeping throughout the day in different places in the house. I laid Chelsea down in her bed b/c it's dark and somewhat quiet. I laid down with her and started to doze off myself. As I laid there I was startled when I heard a voice. It was a man's voice that said, "go home". There was noone else upstairs. It's the most bizarre thing. I just can't figure it out, I know I heard it, I wasn't asleep yet. If it was my stepfather talking to me, that's probably what he would really say, as I really wasn't his favorite daughter. Because I was a very rowdy child and teenager, he always thought I was out to get him. That night my sister turned a nightlight on in my mom's bathroom and closed the doors as she went to sleep. My mother and her are sure all the lights were off in the bedroom. When my mom woke up Sunday morning, a light outside the closet wes on and the light in his closet was on. I'm beginning to think he's in her room. I never believed in those kind of things, but I'm beginning to believe. Like I said, Strange Things are Happening!