Pop Quiz!

You know the dream (nightmare, really) where you are a student and somewhere in the middle of the semester you realize you have somehow forgotten to attend one of your classes? I may be the only one with this dream, but the panic that sets in and the anxiety that follows is almost unbearable.  I try to stay calm and play it cool like I meant to do that but it never works out and my twisted brain always throws a pop quiz into the dream on the day I decide to show up for class (after I spend hours trying to find the classroom because I am directionally challenged whether conscious or unconscious).  I feel sometimes like this in my waking hours lately.  Dan did so much for me and for our family.  I depended on him for stuff that I didn't want to know how to do....like buy a printer, program a sprinkler system, find someone reputable and reasonably priced to replace my fence, tell the guy at the oil change place whether I want the standard or the deluxe oil change (I actually said I wanted the Deluxe as if I knew the difference and as we walked away my 14 yr. old daughter called my bluff and said 'So Mom, what IS the difference between the standard and the deluxe?' with a smartypants grin on her face).....the list goes on and on and I no longer have the luxury of being ignorant about all of the things Dan did for us.  As I learn to do all of these things (yes, I have accomplished all of those things I mentioned earlier) the feeling is most definitely bittersweet.  The more I learn to do, the more real it seems that Dan is never coming back.  I cried when my printer printed the first page because I was so happy I had actually purchased and set up a printer by myself and because....well, you know, 'by myself'...I was talking to a sweet friend recently about all of this and she said Dan would be proud of me.  It's true, he would.  I may pass this Pop Quiz after all.