As I trained the new grapevines, I could almost hear,  ‘just remember Janae, remember where you came from.  Remember this blood, our family, you, me; who we are, and how I am with you.’ 

The joy my Poppy felt gardening, I feel it now.  I feel that Poppy’s saying, ‘I’m proud of you.’  As I observed the flow of the new growth budding,  I remembered the times I’ve felt Grant’s presence too.  

I think about the family lines connected before me.  My Poppy, the father of my mother and that connection of father to daughter. The continuation of my mother to me; his granddaughter and now my little son standing next to me helping with the grape vines.

 I feel this moment with Poppy is a gift.  A gift I'll remember. It has been some time since I’ve noticed the feeling of Grant around; so it was nice to feel some connection to the lives passed on in those I have loved here.  

Now I have it through my Poppy.  That connection to the other side feels like a reminder of Grant as well.  In that thought, Poppy felt my burden, the loss. He knows, being on that side, what it means to have watched those on my side live with loss.  

I appreciate the love I felt and the joy it brought me. I’m always feeling the deep burden of increased responsibility I have.  I raise Grant’s and my children without Grant around. 

So this joy and lightness that enveloped me with the love of Poppy just as when he was still physically here with me has meaning.  I’m more aware. I appreciate it in ways I wasn’t conscious of while I was young and he was temporal.

He came to tell me he’s proud of me.  Thank you Poppy.  I needed to feel that tender loving feeling toward me from a male and father figure. The pure love of someone there who has nothing but unconditional love for me and understands my heart.  

There was no judgment from him on anything I’m doing or not doing, just love.  I am basking in it and it felt so good to be understood and loved fully, perfectly. To be loved exactly as I am, being who I am, ahhh.  I feel seen.  

Poppy did that perfectly for me from his angelic realm of space wherever that is.  I want to love my children this way.  I don’t feel loved this way on this earth.  It feels conditional all too often, especially from males. 

I know that’s a belief I’m choosing, and I don’t want to keep it.  This is showing me a different way.  I need that kind of love from a man.  Whether I have it or not here on earth, I get it in the infinite of eternal never ending love.

That love does not know time or space bounds. It doesn’t start or end in the physical realm in which I reside; only transforms to something bigger than me and you in the angelic realm in which Grant and Poppy now reside.  

This shows me a little taste of it and how I can create it here in my life. Also how I can create it in the next relationship I have with a man because I want that.  It’s beautiful.  What is; is beautiful.  

What is to come is beautiful; unconditionally loving just like the way I felt Poppy’s love for me on his 95th birthday.  Happy Birthday Poppy!  Thanks for the birthday presence.