The man in the brown pants

A full week at work is now under my belt and I'm feeling "normal" returning slowly but surely.
I had a few funny-oops moments this week with some colleagues who came by to say that they hadn't seen me in a while and wondered how my vacation was. I think not that long ago I'd be stuck for something to say, but now it's easy to just say, "my Dad passed away". They of course feel guilty, but I remind them that there's nothing to feel guilty about! It's not like they knew and pretended they didn't know, right? They didn't know, so don't feel guilty about asking.
It's interesting to see how many people have lost a loved one and feel the exact same things I do. It's really kind of cool in a way. We're our own group out there!
I had a friend this week who recently suffered her own loss. Her beloved fur baby died and she was devastated. She's had her "baby" since he was a 3-week old kitten, and although he had been sick for some time, it didn't soften the blow. She mentioned how sometimes she seems him out of the corner of her eye, and I told her that I too had signs from my Dad shortly after he passed. That's when she told me about "the man in the brown pants".
Her husband, a friend of mine as well as a work colleague, lost his Dad suddenly to a heart attack a few years ago. He was devastated by the loss, and told me that it took a good one-and-a-half to two years to recover. (That scared me a little bit!) Over the years, he and I have pondered the following: If you had it to choose, would you choose to lose a loved one suddenly, or would you rather lose them to an illness?
I know, from our conversations, losing a loved one suddenly leaves a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of things unresolved. I know from experience that losing a loved one to a chronic, long-term illness is emotionally, physically, and mentally draining to everyone involved. There are scary days when I feel like I don't even remember the way my Dad was anymore - I can only think of him in terms of his illness. I see flashes of images of his frail body laying in a crumpled heap on his hospital bed. I see his once strong arms and hands as nothing more than skin and bones. I see old birthday cards from my Dad, or a piece of paper with a note that he's written, and I see his once-upon-a-time beautiful penmanship, which near the end turned into scrawly printing. It's heart-breaking.
I guess we never found an answer to our question, but I know that my experience, and that of my friend are the two extremes. Something in between is probably the best case scenario - not too long to suffer, but long enough to say goodbye.
So - what of "the man in the brown pants"?
My friend and I were talking about the "signs" that I saw in the days immediately after my Dad's passing. She said that she saw signs too after her father-in-law passed away. At the time of her father-in-law's sudden passing, she was about 36-weeks pregnant. In honour of his memory, they gave their daughter a middle name of Kenley in memory of her father-in-law "Ken". Apparently Ken was known for wearing a certain type of brown pants which his son has been known to wear as well.
Shortly after "Kenley" was born, my friend went up to Kenley's room to see her in her crib and she saw the "man in the brown pants" standing near the crib. She didn't see a face, not even really a torso, but saw the familiar brown pants, and then they just disappeared.
The man in the brown pants came by every now and then - she would see him floating from room to room, or he'd be "communicating" with Kenley, or more accurately, Kenley was communicating with him. She recalled how one night she was feeding the baby and the baby was stretching her arms out as if to be picked up, but she wasn't holding her arms up to her mother, she was holding her arms up to someone or something NEXT to her mother. My friend didn't always see the man in the brown pants even when the baby did, but she knew he was there just by the way the baby was acting.
It's been some time since the man in the brown pants has made an appearance, but in listening to her story, I couldn't help but think that the signs come when we need them most.
Last night I was at Chapters browsing through the books and came across a book titled "Drood". My Dad's name (an you'll recall) is Dood (Drood minus the "R") and the irony is that the title of the book was written in script in much the same way that my Dad wrote his own name. It was freaky, but as of late, I've been wondering why the signs aren't as frequent anymore. And then there it was, (or maybe I'm making too much of it). In any case, I remembered my Dad and smiled for a moment thinking that he knew I've been thinking about him and needed to know if he was ok.
Anyway - enough of my rambling for tonight.
I'm off to fill out my census form on-line. If you haven't already done it, and there's still time, please do it (today is the deadline)! For each Manitoban that doesn't fill it out there's a $42,000 reduction in provincial transfer payments from the federal government. Do your part!
Good night everyone and enjoy your weekend!