Where.

There were, the very day my father died, signs that maybe something was going on in my parents house--the house my Dad had built way back in 1950s. The switch to the hot water heater was switched off--randomly. Mike discovered it, when there was no hot water. Sitting right next to the water heater: my Dad's gloves and a screwdriver. He always left the proper tools with the item that might need fixing.

My Mom decided it was a sign.  A week later, someone reset the outlet used for the home phone. And then, some how the furnace was shut off. It could have all been flukes. Or maybe, like my Mom believes, these were signs that my Dad was still around--tinkering, communicating and checking in.

The week before his funeral, my cousin Sue went to the racetrack and bet on a horse named "Bill's Presence." My Dad was her Uncle Bill--and the horse won, against the odds. I have the $100 bill on my bookcase--I can't spend it.

But, all these signs--all these little glimmers seem to belong to someone else and not to me. My Dad never said, when I die you will see a rainbow or a bird. He never said I will be watching over you. He never said that he was going to go a better place. Those things--those things were not my Dad, who was always so hooked into the here and now. My Dad, my Dad was always present.

I've had one dream--just one--featuring my Dad. We were sitting in church. My Dad was sitting criss-cross applesauce, something he was last able to do in the 1970s. Next to me was my brother. My Dad spoke to the faceless minister, "I know I have to go, but I don't want to." Then he cried. We all cried. I haven't stopped. 

And that was it. But where is he now? Where did he go? Where didn't he want to go? At least ten times a day, I say out loud, "Where the heck are you Dad?"

It is not that I don't believe in heaven or the life everlasting. I do. But where is this place?  If he is watching over me, as every sympathy card, friend and good hearted stranger tells me--where is he watching from exactly?

Sometimes I turn around in my desk chair and expect to see him.

But he isn't there.

Miracle Giggles.

 I have this friend Jessica. I met her in Second Grade. We instantly tried to one up each other with nonsense. Within ten minutes, we were best friends and totally ruled the school.

We spent most of our early years getting into trouble (minor trouble, we were sneaky and our mothers were up to their own ridiculous hi-jinx, like running naked through locker rooms during their kid's swimming birthday party--seriously).

But what we really did best, was laugh. At everything. At everyone. And Jessica's laugh, it is infectious. It is a gift--something that I hear in my head when days are tough or when people are just idiots. I hear it when I have the choice of throwing a fit (which I am naturally prone to do) or just making fun of it and laughing my ass off.

This shared laughter we inherited from our mothers. When they ran naked (yes, naked. I am still traumatized.), they laughed their bare asses off. When a skunk sprayed my back porch and the smell was noxious, my Mom and Mrs. D. laughed too--through bandanas tied around their faces and with hands covered in tomatoes. Our mother's laughed it up so much that I was certain they were drunk.

This past week, Jessica finally met my two girls. And I took this picture:

I love this picture. You can practically hear the giggles, the hysteria, the pure ridiculousness of moment. It is a miracle, these giggles. It is a legacy, passed from mother to child, from best friend to best friend.

And when my ridiculously enormous dog finally gets sprayed by a skunk and I am outside with my face wrapped in a bandana, cleaning noxious odor and considering torching my home--

I will just whip this photo out of my underpants and giggle until I pee.