Over the weekend, I thought about my mom a lot. Nothing bad, but just thinking of how she did things, what she would say, and so on. When she passed away, I had DZL call my family’s answering machine and record the message. It’s the only voice recording I have of her. She left our family answering machine message in Thai so her family knew they were calling the right person. It is one of the few things I did not loose when my iTunes decided to crash and burn.

I spent most of the weekend in iTunes recovery mode and her message popped up into the player. Nick Da Dog’s ears perked up, he cocked his head to the side, and looked at the monitor. I played it again for him and he looked at me with the saddest eyes. It was like he knew her voice but it coming from a computer didn’t match what he knew of her. He put his head back down in my lap with a sigh. I let him know that I missed her too.

My dad sent me an email on Friday, letting me know that my mom had come to him. He’s had trouble sleeping knowing she’s not going to be there when he wakes up and he said she came to him, put her hand on his shoulder, and he fell asleep and slept the most he’s slept since she passed because he knew, she was there when he woke up. He also asked me to make a tattoo appointment for him because he wanted to tattoo a wedding band on his finger because he took a vow until death do you part and he wasn’t dead yet, so he was still married to the woman he so loved. It will break my heart to talk to him on October 29th. It would have been his and my mom’s 36 year anniversary and I know, it is not would have been, but will be his 36th year anniversary. I’m so proud of him though. I know his life of solitude on the road is hard because he’s out there with no one but his dog Lil’ Bear, but I also know that my mama’s voice will always carry him safely home.