Willow spoke to me yesterday.

   So this is going to be the entry where you are going to start wondering if I am losing my mind. Let me start your wonderings by telling you simply this. I had a conversation with Willow yesterday. I will alleviate your minds by telling you that no, it was nothing audible and no, I did not see her face but the conversation we had, well. in the same way that God speaks to you, Willow spoke to me. If you want to get the full effect of what I am trying to tell you then it would be best to go to youtube and listen to Jono Manson sing "I'm almost home." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhjSScAIylo  There, I even gave you the link so you have no excuses.
   Yesterday was like most days have been. I woke at 2 A.M, checked my email, showered, went to work and slung milk all over Baton Rouge. I did have one unfortunate incident when a customer who only receives an order on Mondays called me and asked me to bring 60 half pints of milk to her. I told her that i simply couldn't right now as on Friday mornings I had three grocery stores waiting for their weekend deliveries and she was at least a 30 minute drive one way and I couldn't put myself behind by at the minimum one hour to bring this to her now but I could come between 12 and 2. She replied by telling me that everyone is going through a hard time in their lives and that I needed to get off my little pity party (Willow) and bring her some milk now! Obviously she did not get any service from me that day. It was about 3:15 when I finally got back to the dairy and began to unload my returns, wash out my truck and prepare to load milk for Mondays deliveries. For any of you who have known me for 5 minutes or longer you know that I sing a lot. The song going through my head as I was washing out my truck was "I'm almost home" from "The Postman" sound track. I was singing loudly, I really have lost the ability to care about what people think of me, and I had one of those moments that plow through me like a freight train. Everywhere there are reminders of Willow. Sometimes I see a school bus and hear her scream out "school bus!" with joy. She loved seeing them and I was always on the look out for one, at times driving out of my way to where I knew one was parked so she could see it. There are so many different "land mines" out there as I call them, things that I come across blindly and am suddenly blown away by the surge of emotion that overcomes me. Yesterday, on the back of my milk truck I stepped on one such land mine. (I shall not create a paragraph break in honor of Adam Smith.)    :-)
   The lyrics to the song I was singing, which I had probably sang through ten times at this point go as such. "Well its said that you can never, never go back home, and if you're bound to wander, you're bound to be alone. You say I've got no right to feel what I feel when I look into your eyes, but that I dream of you most every night comes as no surprise. But I've been out on this road for so long. Far and wide do I roam, but something in your smile tells me I'm almost home." That is the first verse anyways. As I was singing through it for the umpteenth time, and I cannot tell you how real this conversation was, not audible, but as if my soul was conversing with her soul Willow spoke to me. "You don't." I was stunned. She was referring to the lyric that says "you say I've got no right to feel what I feel when I look into your eyes." I cannot look at a picture of Willow without being overcome with grief. Her eyes were so beautiful. They were brilliant. The day before I was trying to change the picture on my facebook away from her so that I didn't have to step on that land mine as often when I came across one that I dearly love but had forgotten about. Her hair was in these little balls on the side of her head, she was wearing a yellow dress and her head was slightly tilted down and her eye brows furrowed as if she were mad at me. It is the most beautiful picture. I remember taking it because the look she was trying to hold she just couldn't and I broke out with laughter at how cute she was, although she was "chastising" me at the moment and she broke out with laughter too. "Willow?"
   "Why do you get so sad all of the time?"
"I miss you baby!"
   "There is a shepherd here that I talk to a lot." He says you know Him."
"I used to."
   "He said that you don't talk to Him much anymore."

   One of my land mines is the thought that although Willow and I spoke a lot, we never had a thoroughly developed language conversation. She wasn't there yet and still here I was, seeing her in my heart and she was speaking to me as if her language was developed to the fullest.

   "You shouldn't cry so much."
"But I miss you lovey. I miss you so much!" I was fully weeping by now and completely overcome. Still, she smiled and had none of the looks that other people give me when they see me break down. There was no pity, there was no sadness, just that twinkle in her eyes and that contented smile."

   "The Shepherd wants me to remind you of something He told you a long time ago."

   This is where shame crept into the moment. I don't speak with Him anymore. That is a relationship that I have let slide as I sought out answers from pastors, books, creation science, evolutionary theory, anything I could get my hands on to give me solid, concrete answers that were not arguable. Proof. I was talking to and seeking out everyone except Him.

   "Do you love me?"
"Oh! Willow! Baby! How could you ask me that? Of course I love you!"
   "Feed my sheep."

   Willow loved sheep. They were her favorite. The one she clung to the most, dirty and missing an ear, the one I nick named "Van Goat", was her favorite. I could've sworn she was wearing that yellow dress, sitting in a green field with Van Goat in her lap. Again,

   "Do you love me?" She had this look on her face as if she were searching me out, trying to bring me closer to a truth that was so very necessary for me to see.
"Of course I love you Willow! I love you so much and I miss you! (Tears streaming by now.) I miss you so much that I can hardly go a minute without thinking about you. I'm so lonely for you!"
   "Feed my lambs."

   I was so lost. So confused. Here i was speaking with my baby whom I missed so much, and she was calm as I've ever seen anyone, not a hint that she had missed me or was even capable of any type of sadness and she was speaking to me. Not just teaching, but the roles had been reversed and I was sitting at her feet waiting to learn and she was a teacher with more wisdom than anyone else in the world.

   "Do you love me?"
"How can you ask me this Willow? I love you more than I can possibly say and you have to know that!  I love you! I love you so much!"
   "Feed my sheep."

   At this point I just stopped. My head was swirling and I needed to get a hold of myself, stop crying and really listen. I needed to know what she was asking me or telling me or trying to tech me. I just stopped talking and I calmed myself, and I listened.

   "My mommy needs you. Mawmaw needs you. Carpenter needs you. Feed my sheep."

   There was no question now. I knew exactly what Willow was telling me and I knew exactly at that point that there was a change that needed to happen now. All of this time I have been embracing my grief, my sorrow, my loneliness. I have been keeping myself busy so as not to have down time when I would inevitably revisit my grief. What I had not been doing was assuming my position as the shepherd in my home. My sheep were lost and I was lost and I was not looking for them. It was time for me to stand up, dust myself off, and go find my sheep. It was time for me to lead them to their safe place. It was time for me to stand watch at the gate and keep the predators away. In the Bible, John 10:10-15 says "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired man, since he does not own the sheep, leaves them and runs away when he sees a wolf coming. The wolf then snatches and scatters them. This happens because he is a hired man and does not care about them. "I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they follow me, as the father knows me and I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep."
   So this was my message from the shepherd. His example to me of who I am needed to be. All of my life I have sought out what it truly means to be a man and a good father and never could understand it until Willow sat down and asked, "Do you love me?" and then passed on a message from the shepherd that she has come to know.
   I don't even know what to write now. After relating what happened yesterday, what Willow said, what the Shepherd said, my own words seem so hollow and pointless. There is no way that I could add to the message I received yesterday so i will just stop now.