A Heavenly Birthday

 Well, it’s been a little over 4 1/2 years now since that cold February day when I last held your hand in mine and you slipped from this world.  I still find it hard to believe that it’s been that long already.  There are moments that make it seem like much longer since we had to say good-bye and there are still moments when I can still feel your hand in mine as if it were only seconds ago.

But today is a special day.  Today is your birthday.  This used to be a day we celebrated with you.  But for the past 4 years it’s been a day we celebrate without you, but we still celebrate you.  We celebrate the fact that you were brought into our lives and that we got to share so many special moments with you over the years.  

When people ask me how you came into my life I often take a moment to think of how to explain it to them so they understand.  That it was a chance meeting so many years ago of a solider who had just returned home, who was looking to restart his life back in the real world again.  A meeting of two people who met at some point, got to be friends, and who just happened to have parents’ who were willing to take on a border who also just got a job working at the same place as my Grandpa.  It was alot of chance things that took place that brought you into my life.  I know that when you first came to live with Grandma and Grandpa that you likely never thought it would be forever.  But I’m glad that it was.  Because it was that forever that brought you into my life.  And once I came along, forever didn’t seem long enough for the two of us to spend time together.

I want you to know that you are thought of every day.  Your name is spoken all the time with loving memories of times spent together.  I am blessed to have known you for so long and have so many awesome memories to share with my boys’.  I know when you left us that K had a very special place in your heart, he was your Red Fox.  The smile he brought to your face every time you saw him always made me happy.  He may have just turned 3 the day we buried you, but he remembers you as if it were yesterday.  He remembers you always having peanut butter M&M’s waiting for him at your house when we would visit.  And how when we left you always sent the rest of the bag home with him ‘for later’.  He doesn’t eat much for candy now, but he still enjoys a special treat of peanut butter M&M’s from time to time and some good memories of time spent with you.  You wouldn’t believe how big he’s getting.  He’s almost as tall as I am now and is such a handsome young man.  You would be proud of him.  He’s had his struggles, but he’s turning things around and is doing well in school.  Art is still his most favorite thing in the world.  And he’s getting really good at math.  He likes to talk about you and the memories he has of time spent at your house.  He says it’s his job to share those memories with his brother’s so that they get to know you too.  Like I said, you would be proud of the awesome person he is growing up to be.  And yes, he still has red hair.  A crowning glory that he is proud to call his own.

When you left us you had just met your 2nd ‘grandson’ for the first time.  Only 3 weeks old when you first met.  So tiny and new.  I am so very glad that I had you hold him and took that picture of the two of you.  I wouldn’t have guessed at the time that it would be the last picture we’d ever have the chance to take.  Or that when Adam took him home that night that it would be the last time that you ever saw him again.  Needless to say alot has changed in the past 4 years since you went away.  My ‘baby’ started school this year.  He was so excited!  He’s doing well and loving every moment of it.  What you would have never guessed is that I ended up with a little blonde boy with beautiful blue eyes.  He’s energetic and loud and crazy.  Everything a little boy should be.  lol  

And just like that talk we had in your hospital room the night before you left, I did have another baby.  At the time it felt like that would never be the case.  Facing the future without you was all I could think of at the time.  But you said that someday I would have another baby.  You always wanted me to have a little girl, just like me.  Well, still waiting on that one.  As I’m sure you know somehow we had a 3rd little boy.  While he’s not a girl, he does look just like me.  You would be so surprised to see him.  Looking back at pictures of me as a baby and looking at him is like seeing my twin.  And he is amazing.  He’s got this curly hair that gets all wild and crazy when he’s been running around playing with his brothers’.  And it’s just the cutest thing.  We are all in love with him more than we ever thought we could be.  He’s just an awesome little boy.  

You would have had so much fun with these 3 little boys’.  I can just see you smiling and laughing as you watched them run around.  Energized, no doubt, by peanut butter M&M’s.  😉    But those are the moments memories are made in though.

Today, I admit, a few tears have been shed.  We cry because it’s over, but more importantly we smile because it happened in the first place.  We smile and laugh because we had the chance to share our lives with you, and you with us.  Nothing can take that away.

So today, we will speak of you fondly, as we always do.  We will relish in the fact that it’s a beautiful sunny day and the first day of fall.  We will enjoy a meal together that you would have enjoyed.  And, with the help of your beautiful grandsons, we will make a special treat to share together in remembrance of you.  And who knows, maybe there might even be a peanut butter M&M or two to share today too.  😉

As always, we wish you were still here.  We miss you more than you’ll ever know.  There’s a whole in my life that can never be filled by anyone.  I miss being able to talk to you, spend time with you, to come to you for advice, to just have you around.  You left us to early, there was so much more we wanted to share with you.  But we know that you look over us every day from Heaven.  And for now I guess that is all we can hope for.

Happy birthday!  We love you and we miss you so very, very much….

 

Happy Birthday to you up in Heaven

from your family here below.

We love you, and we miss you,

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.

Your birthdays aren’t forgotten.

and your memory yet lives on.

We still celebrate your life with us

even though you’ve gone.

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If we could send a present

to your heavenly home above,

it would come in bushel baskets,

filled with all our love.