A Hard Day

Two posts in two days, not something you should get used to :)

Today was a really, really hard day. It actually just felt like an extension of yesterday, also a really hard day. Maybe that is what made it seem harder, maybe not. Yesterday was the first holiday without Grant. There are many to come, most of which I am not looking forward to at this time. Yesterday evening was also hard for non-holiday reasons. Jonathan and I wrote Grant's obituary yesterday evening. Jonathan also wrote a beautiful piece for a class assignment that hopefully I can share with you at some point with his permission. It's a very odd feeling of accomplishment. You want to write these pieces and make them perfect for your son, but you don't want to write them because that means your son is no longer here. Finishing them and being proud of them brings you a sense of peace that you have done something right, that you've done something for your child. I really don't think I'm explaining this well, but oh well. Sleep was hard to come by last night, as it has been quite often in the past month. Then this morning Jonathan received a phone call from the funeral home letting us know that Grant's fetal death certificate was there if we wanted to pick it up. We had been waiting for this to be there so that we could pick it up at the same time as his ashes. Walking into that funeral home, the one I pass almost daily on my way to take the kids to school, to pick up my cremated son just felt so wrong. Standing there in the office of some very sweet people waiting for them to hand us a box, a tiny box, that holds the ashes of our son broke my heart and the tears fell. They handed us the box of his ashes and his death certificate and then approved the obituary we had written less than 24 hours later so it can be put in the local paper.  I left there and sat in my car sobbing. I'm ready for today to be over. Hopefully tomorrow will be not quite as hard.

Tonight I ordered the guest book for Grant's memorial service. I personally think it turned out beautifully. My little sister, the best little sister in the world, the one who took the amazing pictures of Grant, has designed a birth announcement for him with his memorial service information on it. I am so proud of her and her talent. She has given us an amazing gift in beautiful photos of our son that were taken with love.

Before I share a few more pictures of our beautiful baby boy I want to explain the picture at the top of the page. Bluebonnets are my favorite flower. They show me that spring is finally here and symbolize the beginning of everything that I love (baseball, flowers, warm days, thunderstorms, flip flops, fresh mowed grass, longer days, and that summer is just around the corner). The day that Grant was born was a beautiful spring day. The bluebonnets had been really blooming for a little over a week when he was born, but if your from Texas you know that they are at their most beautiful about 1 1/2 -2 weeks after they start blooming, right when Grant was born. The bluebonnets were so bright and bold when we went home from the hospital and I instantly knew that I would always consider them Grant's flowers. I told my sister this and she surprised me with the picture at the top of the page as well as a few others, see I told you she is amazing. Ok, here are a few more pictures of our beautiful son.