I dream to heal your wounds/ but I bleed myself

In order to write properly about my dad, I feel it necessary to divide both him and to some extent, my life and the life of my family, into three parts:

1)Dad/life before Mom died
2) Dad/life after Mom died
3) Dad/life after Dad got diagnosed with mystery lung disease

The story I'm about to tell is from Dad Part #2:

Shortly after I graduated from college, my dad bought and moved into a small house in Leesburg, Virginia. Farmland. He's an old man from the Bronx. He spruced up the old house, demonstrating interior decorating skills of which I wasn't aware. Hired outside contractors to fix up the land, the exterior, update appliances. Made friends with the redneck neighbors. They learned to understand each other's accents. It was an adorable house, a far cry from the gargantuan Colonial in which I'd grown up. He ultimately sold "da cottage" and made a ridiculous amount of money.

On most days the summer after I graduated, Dad woke me up, as per usual, by throwing Mr. Brown (his toy poodle) on top of me:

"Good mohr-ning!"
(Groan.)
"Rise and shine. Make some noise, Kad!"
"For the love. No licking, Mr. Brown!"
"It's a beautiful day. Da birds are singing, da sun is shining."
"Coffee."
"Ya coffee is downstehs. Look at dat sun, Kad. Take a pictshuh."
"Urgh."
"You could write a poem, Kad: "Da sun rises in Leesbug.""
"Mr. Brown! no licking!"
"Kad, huh-ry! I have someting to show you."

I stumble downstairs. Mr. Brown hops on a box of old taxes that my dad kept near the side door so he could see out the window. I pour a cup of coffee, rub my eyes. My dad points outside. On the freshly completed stone walkway to our sidedoor stands a gleaming white pigeon.

"Look, Kad."
"It's a pigeon."
"It's a dove."
"It's a white pigeon."
"It's ya mudder."
"It's a pigeon."
"It's been coming every day for the last week."
"The pigeon?"
"It's da spirit of ya mudder, Kad."
"In a pigeon?"
"It's a dove, Kad."
"Huh."
"I bet if I took a pictshuh, it wouldn't show up."
"Because it's a spirit?"
"Yes, Kad."

I hoped, for my dad's sake, that the supposed dove wouldn't appear in the pictures I took. But it did. A few days later, the dove stopped coming. Even when the picture developed and the dove was present, my dad swore up and down that it was Mom coming to tell us something but "what was it, Kad?"

To this day, seven years later, my dad has a picture of the Leesburg dove propped up against a framed photo of my mom on his dresser.