Posts Tagged ‘Friswold family’
Holiday Outing
Christmas 2023 is now a memory. Let’s get on with celebrating the new year and start preparing for Valentine’s Day. But before we go, how about one more glance at our festive holiday outing at CHS Field in St. Paul?
We went to the GLOW Holiday Festival on Christmas eve eve with Barry and Carlos and our friends, Paul and Beth.
The rain held off long enough for us to walk among the lights, features, and several thousand other people without getting wet.
The event added much-needed holiday spirit in the absence of snow this year. There were so many photo-worthy spectacles and selfie-hungry couples and families, that much of the time was spent dodging becoming an incidental photo bomber or waiting for a turn to get photo-bombed.
We unexpectedly ran into our friends, the Williams family among the throngs of strangers while strolling the concourse. That increased the festive energy of our evening in a most wonderful way.
There was barely a line when we came upon Santa Claus, so posing with him became a must-do.
Confusion broke out when two overly excited youngsters spotted him and moved in as if pulled by an invisible force. Our group quickly encouraged the kids to go ahead of us while the parents, unaware, were trying to remind the kids about the good manners of waiting their turn.
As Cyndie and I stepped up for our chance to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas, I leaned in and whispered in his ear, “They aren’t paying you enough for this.” It triggered the most wonderful knowing laugh from him that I felt as if my work was done for the night.
24 hours later, Cyndie and I were gathered with our kids, the Friswold family, and their relations at a party room of Friendship Village for the annual Friswold/Brolin Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas morning brought the Friswolds all together in Cyndie’s mom’s suite for breakfast and gift opening. In the evening, we met again, this time at Ben’s house for games and dinner.
I’m looking forward to a day after the holiday that should bring a return to our usual routine and an end to the over-saturation of Christmas music for a while. Maybe things will get so normal that we even receive some snow that covers the ground for more than a few days.
A guy can dream.
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Dream Visit
It’s a mystery to me, one which I believe equally that either of two possibilities could be true. When a deceased person makes an appearance in my dreams while I am sleeping, is it because my mind conjured up the occurrence or because the spiritual nature of the passed soul placed themselves into the perceptions going on in my mind?
On Wednesday night, or actually, in the wee early hours of Thursday morning, I was having a series of fantastical dreams. At one point, I found myself seated in a booth common to many eateries, with Cyndie beside me and her mother across from me, and then Cyndie’s dad, Fred, showed up, sitting on the corner opposite from me.
It is the first time I have dreamed of Fred since he died in June.
I was shocked to see him, and incredibly thrilled. He seemed to acknowledge my reactions, flashing an impish grin as I scanned Cyndie and her mom who remained oblivious. I was so moved with his presence, the rush of emotions made me want to cry.
It being a dream, and my body essentially paralyzed, I couldn’t get myself to act on the urge.
My question lingers; did my mind choose to create this scenario of Fred’s spirit appearing in my dream or did his supernatural essence actually show up to connect with me?
Either way, it brought me a lot of joy in the moment, joy that lasted all day long and expanded each time I described it to people.
Of course, the best was when I had a chance to tell Cyndie about it.
While he was seated, he took a swig from what appeared to be a beer bottle. He looked really happy to me. The thought occurred to me that he could probably have a beer if he wanted in his afterlife. Fred had been sober about as long as Cyndie and I have been married. He drank a lot of non-alcoholic beers, but I don’t recall him ever looking as happy about it as he looked when tipping that bottle in my dream.
Did my brain conjure all that up? Maybe. Since I don’t really know, I’m happy just relishing the great feeling the dream provided.
It did nudge up the emotions of missing him a bit more than before, but the fun of seeing him again, and his looking so perfectly happy and mischievous was worth it.
Missing Fred is something that a lot of us are adjusting to and will linger long. If we could meet him in our dreams at will, I suspect it would happen more often than it does.
Maybe that lends a little credence to the possibility that appearances of lost loved ones in our dreams is more their doing than our own.
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Many Feels
Time moves fast and time moves slowly even though it is always moving at the same pace. Our feelings are doing the same in the days immediately following Fred’s passing. Grief processes slowly, but comes on fast and furious in waves. Luckily, laughter comes just as fast. The Friswold family has plenty of laughs. In fact, I would say they are predominantly laughs.
Cyndie and I have been sleeping at her parent’s house –I hesitated writing that, avoiding the change to referring to it as her “mom’s house”– along with Barry and Carlos. Other immediate family have been showing up throughout each day and we have enjoyed the trials and tribulations of crying and laughing our way through the essential steps of what all families face after a death.
Hugging. If only we could hug all the precious people who have been stopping by with gracious gifts of sustenance and well-wishes, and more importantly, the shared sorrow of loss at the thought of no longer being able to hear Fred laugh again.
Curses to the coronavirus.
I truly hope we will be spared the tragedy of inadvertently experiencing a rash of COVID-19 spread among any of us in our moments of weakness when we give in to our emotions and reach out to touch each other, be it ever so briefly.
We’ve got the obituary figured out and submitted to run in Sunday’s Startribune newspaper and been in communication with the reporter who is also writing a feature remembrance.
Much energy is underway to populate a specific website we have created for Fred. See Fred Friswold Memorial.
Planning some manner of memorial service or celebration of life is proving maddeningly difficult under the current health constraints of the pandemic.
So many feelings all at the same time. Very happy-sad.
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Relative Something 