Thanks for the stories. They are great! I have only one personal experience and it is maybe a stretch too even count it in the mix. Since you guys took the time to share, I figure I should at least offer up what I have...

Before my Dad died he had moved into an assisted living place. Every day, there was this row of scowling women that would congregate at the main entrance just down from the residents dining hall. You couldn't enter, eat, or leave without parading past their judgmental gaze and scowling faces. Yes it is true, I have no clue what may have been going on in these ladies minds. They never spoke to passers-by or each other that I noticed. If you smiled and said hello, you got nothing more than an eyeing up and down that made you feel unwelcome and maybe improperly attired.

My Dad was never a particularly social man, and I learned of this behavior talking to the staff after his death. I suppose since he had to walk past these women daily he took it upon himself to try to cheer them up or maybe just mess with them a little and entertain himself. The story is he would bring down a pocket full of starlight mints and hand them to the ladies and any one else I guess every day. I can't say it changed the reception I received from the ladies, but it maybe made a difference when I wasn't around. It was remarkable enough in within the walls of the facility that the staff placed a bowl of mints out the announce his death and serve as a memorial I suppose.

One of the items I kept from his apartment there was an unopened bag of those mints. The bag came home with me and landed on a low bookshelf along with a box of momentos. The mints sat next to the box on that shelf for 2 years.

One day I had had a bizarre dream involving the death of the father of someone with whom I am very close. I had called them and the conversation moved to my own father's dying and I got pretty emotional about it all. During this moment my dog got up and stood at the bedroom door doing his please let me out whine. I opened the door so he could go satisfy whatever he was suddenly curious about and continued my teary introspective conversation. He, the dog, wasn't gone but a few seconds it seemed and was back in the room and laying down next to me on the floor by the bed. I didn't really look at him when he came back in, just saw him come in and lay down. I am still talking, soon I hear these rustling and cracking sounds. I look down to see what he was doing and see him with that bag of mints he had ignored for 2 years previously in his mouth. I took one for myself, thanked my Dad, and smiled a little.