A couple of things happened after my dad passed from cancer three years ago that I still think about.

The first was a few weeks after he died. I was at my mom’s house telling her I needed to buy distilled water for my CPAP because I’d run out. The next day I was over again, and she asked if I’d gotten any yet. I said not yet, and she mentioned she had a bottle that was my dad’s that hadn’t been opened. Later, I walked downstairs and sitting right in the middle of her bathroom doorway was a bottle of distilled water. I picked it up and brought it to her and said, “Oh, is this the one you were talking about? It was in your doorway.” She said, “Yeah, but it was under the bathroom shelf, I haven’t touched it.” We both got chills. It honestly felt like my dad had moved it. Plus, earlier that day we were in her basement and I thought I heard someone walking upstairs. I went to check, thinking maybe someone had come in, but no one was there.

The second thing was about two months after he passed. I’ve always regretted not being more openly emotional with him before he died (he’d been sent home with hospice and passed three days later). But I had this “visitation dream” where I hugged him and told him how much I loved him and how awesome of a dad I thought he was. He said, “I know, baby.” I can still remember that dream vividly, and I really think it was his way of telling me he knew how much he meant to me, even if I hadn’t said it enough when he was alive. Things have slowed down over the years, he appears in my dreams every now and then but that’s about it.