The plans we had and how they were once happy dreams, now they are nightmares.

My very favorite movie, Pretty Woman (I know, I know), starts off and ends something like this......,  Welcome to Hollywood! Whats your dream? Everybody comes here.  This is Hollywood, land of dreams.  Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep on dreamin'.  This is Hollywood.  Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin.  Okay; yes, the man was a homeless man talking to himself.  The very type of person that we would normally avoid.  Maybe chuckle.  Ha ha!  He's talking to himself.  I never really gave him much thought.  He didn't add too much to the movie.  Or did he??  Isn't the entire movie about dreams coming true?  Doesn't "Prince" Edward rescue "Princess" Vivian at the end?  I've been thinking about the homeless man from the movie quite often lately.

This was a very emotional weekend for me.  Yesterday started the Smart family vacation.  Right now, Rick's family is living it up at a luxury resort in Brainard for a week.  I am not with them.  I am home.  Lucas is in therapy as we speak.  It's not that I didn't want Lucas to be with his cousins.  I did.  It's not that I wasn't willing to pull him out of a week of therapy that he so desperately needs.  I was.  I was really hoping that, by giving up mine, Rick & Lucas's cabin, that the family would give me the money that they got back for the cabin towards Rick's headstone.  They wouldn't, and they didn't.  Poof!  There went another dream I had right down the toilet.  The dream of Rick's family still caring about us after Rick died.  When I questioned some of his family members motives, one relative actually said (I kept the Facebook message, because I couldn't believe it myself), "What would Rick rather have?  A week of our family loving each other, or a ROCK OVER HIS DEAD BODY?".  The relative did not cap lock those words.  I did.  It might as well have been a knife in my heart.  I'm not hurt for myself.  Even though I really considered them family, I really am not hurt for myself.  I'm devastated for Lucas.  He got written off because his mommy dared to ask for financial help for a headstone.  I need to let you know that NOT everybody wrote me off.  I have a few members of Rick's family who do not think I am a horrible human being.  Thank God.  I need somebody to be able to tell Lucas stories of his daddy when he was a kid.  I met him when he was 35, so it can't be me.  I'm very thankful for the one family and one aunt who decided not to "show me" by unfriending me on Facebook.

Rick was a dreamer.  Great while you're alive, Horrendous after you pass away.  Let me tell you why.  We had thousands of dreams.  They ranged from one day we will paint the living room to one day we will go on vacation to Vietnam.  He wanted to move to Florida very badly.  I thought it was funny, I always wanted to move to Florida, but never told him that.  He desperately wanted to see Europe, and was a little envious of how much I had seen.  Okay, we will go on a grand European tour one day.  He wanted to finish the basement SO BADLY.  He had a theme picked out for the basement.  Since he gave me free reign to decorate the house the way I wanted, I felt he should have free reign to decorate the basement.  He didn't want to make it into a "man cave".  He wanted to do a log cabin theme.  Log paneling....the works.  He said Lucas would love it as he got older.  He was never thinking about himself.  Always thinking about us.  So many dreams, little did we know, so little time.  We never had the money, so the dreams got pushed to the side.  Even the necessary ones like a fence for Lucas, a minivan or larger SUV so my back (which I have been trying to avoid surgery on for years) would hurt so bad when I got Lucas into his car seat.  Everything had to be pushed aside. 

We accomplished some of our dreams.  Rick painstakingly did half the landscaping, a few rooms got painted.  We built a deck.  I bought Rick a dream grill out of my savings that I stashed away when I knew I would be leaving Frontier.  My problem lies in the thousands of dreams that we couldn't make happen.  I have guilt for every one of them.  Tears for every one of them.  I got a travel book in the mail the other day.  Addressed to Rick Smart of course.  The first vacation in the book was one to Vietnam.  I balled my eyes out for 2 hours.  It's odd.  Rick was very practical, and I was the impractical one, but when it came to dreaming, that was where Rick became impractical, and I was the practical one.  He used to come home now and then with a Powerball ticket, and rub it on Lucas.  I can see it like it was yesterday.  When we win Powerball..........The dreams torture me.  If only I could have made a fence, a minivan, a finished basement, painted walls, a grand European vacation happen for the three of us; but I couldn't, and Rick worked so hard, but he couldn't.  Now all that is left of my life is reminders of the dreams that we spend countless nights in bed talking about, the memory of the excited look on his face when he rubbed a Powerball ticket on Lucas, and a whole lot of dreams that never got answered.  Let me through one more dream in the mix.  I dream of it being 6:00 and Rick walking through the door.  "Hi Baby Doll.  Do you know how much I love you today?  Where's my little boy?"

Welcome to Hollywood! Whats your dream? Everybody comes here.  This is Hollywood, land of dreams.  Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep on dreamin'.  This is Hollywood.  Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin'.  Rest well Baby Doll.  I love you and miss you so much.

Positive of the day: After a very hard weekend, I'm up and going through the motions.  Lucas is also doing well in therapy today.  I'm not living the dream, but I am living.