Remembering a child or children who died is such a person experience and there really is no right or wrong thing to do, as long as it works for the person and their family. My celebrations and remembrances tend to be private in nature. I have a special painting of three tiny birds hanging in my family room, a Swavorski crystal bouquet of 3 "forget-me-not" flower blooms, those types of things. I don't hang stockings or make birthday cakes or do balloon releases.
But I do think of Fall as "their time" and every year since they were born and died, Rod and I have ventured to the pumpkin patch and picked out one pumpkin for each member of our family. We get 2 larger ones for Rod and me, Joey and Laura pick theirs out and then we get three smaller ones for Hannah, Ryan and Abby.
This October has been very crazy for our family. Rod and I took a much needed "grown up only" vacation together and spent a blissful week on our boat exploring the creeks and rivers of the Chesapeake. We returned home and are now heading out to the Outer Banks, NC for a family vacation and when we get back from that, we turn around and head north to Cape Cod for a "Celebration of Life" service for Rod's Grandmother who passed away recently. We will be gone every weekend but Halloween this year.
Although my brain has known about our schedule for months now, it has only recently registered that it means that as a family, we wouldn't get to pick out our pumpkins this year.
And while it may seem like a silly thing to cry over, I know that the tears I shed today carried so much more meaning than just a missed trip to the pumpkin patch.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I understand.
Honestly, I'm feeling more blue this year than last year. I wonder why that is?
Is there any way to do a mid-week trip to a pumpkin patch? Or even just down to the supermarket? That's probably what we will end up doing! :) Timothy is our one who always picks out two small ones for Molly and Joseph. I love that he remembers this is their time.
Actually, Rod and I talked about it and on our ride home from the Cape, to break the trip up, we plan to stop at a road side farm and let the kids run around and we'll pick out pumpkins together then. I'm very glad that he understands...
feeling blue this year. I'm much more edgy and sad. I don't know why either-I thought 5 would be a knock-me-out milestone but it wasn't as bad as I expected. 6 is worse.
Post a Comment