Careers in the afterlife

Once my long-widowed grandmother awoke to find my deceased grandfather standing by her bed. "Maurice! Your here. So tell me what's it like?" (in the afterlife)
"I'm a barber." He enthusiastically replied.
"A barber!" I can just picture the tone of disapproval in her voice. "You never wanted to be a barber before."
"I know, but I love it."
Who would have thought that a man who had little hair in life would be cutting it after death. Makes you wonder.

Last night I dreamt that I was at my childhood home. I was late, which isn't unusual, and I came screeching up the driveway to find our sprawling lawns covered with wildlife. Deer bounded over pristine hedges, sprightly bobcats walked regally amoung them. Small black hedgehogs slept in clusters, their bristly fur was covered with dew drops big as crystals. I was surprised to find my father in the kitchen reading the paper instead of in the driveway with a .22 rifle draped across his lap, which was his usual residing place when I returned home late.
"Dad, did you see all the wildlife outside? What's going on?"
He gestured with the stub of his cigar and beamed at me. The bruises and agespots which was his normal complexion toward the end of his life faded before my eyes. His long legs, those which I hadn't seen since a child were crossed lazily in front of him.
"I see 'um, beautiful." He was more thrilled by my obvious childlike wonder then of the spectacle outside. Still not sure if he could walk, I ran outside and picked a huge amethyst colored mushroom, one of many that dotted the lawn.

I brought it back inside to share with him. We stared at each other, the fungus momentarily ignored. "I just love you so goddam much." he told me, his cowboy drawl filled me with memories.

"Whats it like, daddy?"

"I'm a teacher now, I teach kids."
"Really?" I couldn't take the hint of perlexity from my voice. My father, though a brilliant man, never graduated from high school.

"Soon I'll be on the board." Apparently this was some sort of promotion. "Looking forward to it, but in the meantime I love what I do. I teach kids about the outdoors, about wildlife." He gestured outside again with his cigar. Apparently this wildlife spectacle was for me. He beamed again at me, so proud of his celestial present. My father was a lifelong hunter. He loved animals, but loved them most hanging from the walls, as decreative rugs, or wrapped up in white butcher paper in the freezer. This new "ecologist" dad would take some getting used to.

"I love what I do" he repeated. Who would of thought?

I love you to daddy, and miss you so goddamn much.