April Angel Birthdays

 Happy Angel Birthday

to All Angel Children celebrating

birthdays in the month of 

April!

YOU ARE LOVED!

YOU ARE MISSED!  

YOU ARE REMEMBERED!

Rae Anne's 9th Angel Birthday

 Happy 9th Angel Birthday

to my Lil'

<3 Rae Anne <3

Owl ways Loved!

Owl ways Remembered!

Owl ways Missed!

Owl ways in my Heart!

Remembering Janessa

Today it has been 13 years since I buried my baby.  

I don't even know how to feel even typing that sentence.  Maybe a little empty and lost.  I had so many disappointments after Janessa died and the graveside service was one of them.  I wanted to see Janessa one last time.  I wanted to put her in her coffin.  I wanted reassurance that her life mattered and that she would be resurrected and I would see her again NOT just a paragraph in a handbook shoved at me to say we have no answers as to what will happen--that hurt so bad that because she never took a breath that I had no promises like other babies who took 1 breath and then died.  I wanted her coffin to already be at the grave, not, my husband and I having to see it in the hearse and then my husband having to carry her coffin by himself to the grave while I walked behind.  I wanted to spend time at the grave not have to rush off.  I wish I had felt comfortable taking pictures because I wish I had pictures of her coffin and the flower bouquet on her coffin.  I wanted some alone time with my baby, but, instead I had people coming up to me hugging me and saying over and over how sorry they were.  I physically didn't want people to touch me or hug me because my milk had come in that day and I was miserable and it physically hurt to have people hug me.  I was sick of people telling me they were sorry and it was God's will and she was in a better place.  A lot of those people who were there have walked out of my life and never spoken with me again and that hurts too.  A lot of those people have never mentioned Janessa again and have basically erased her from existence.  I wanted to release balloons to the heavens that day.  I wanted to come home and cry and find peace, not come home to the neighbors having a rock concert that shook our house because it was so loud. 

I think more than anything, I wanted this to NOT be my life of burying my child rather than having her safe at home with me.

I am grateful that the flower bouquet I bought a week before Janessa's angel b-day this year still continues to keep giving and bringing me peace this year.  I have been able to spread rose petals and a lily on her remembrance stone to bring me peace today and I still have 2 pink roses and purple flowers that are still blooming and that I can continue to enjoy--definitely a tender mercy for today.

Janessa's 13th Angel Birthday

 Happy 13th Angel Birthday

to my Precious

<3 Janessa <3

I can't believe you would be a teenager now. It seems unreal that so much time has passed. It is so hard every year to not have you here. I know you are happy in Heaven and that you watch over us as our guardian angel now. I just wish we could see each other and talk or write letters and emails like I do for your sister who is on a mission for our church. You are on your mission too--it is just different than hers and different than the life I had anticipated for you and your mission last much, much longer than 18 months it is a lifetime until I get to see you and hold you in my arms again and that is at times really hard to endure. I am doing the best I can on this journey in life without you here.

I Miss You!

I Love You!

I Remember You!

I can't wait to see you again!

Love, Mommy

How to Celebrate a Birthday at the Cemetery

 

How to celebrate a birthday at the cemetery:

Step 1: Dress in warm clothes, boots, gloves, etc.
Step 2: Make sure to pack a snow shovel
Step 3: Grab all the decorations and trudge through mud, ice, and water puddles to reach the snow drift that your daughters headstone is buried in somewhere!
Step 4: Do math as you line up the telephone pole and the tree at an intersecting point so you know approximately where the headstone is at.
Step 5: Start digging and digging and digging
Step 6: Keep digging and digging and digging
Step 7: Get frustrated and wonder if all the gravestones just disappeared during the snowstorm??? Wonder if she was already resurrected and there is no grave anymore!!!
Step 8: Finally find the headstone!!! Dig all around the headstone and a place for you to kneel in the snow to decorate.
Step 9: Have the cold wind whip up and blow stuff around to make it even more difficult and to make it even more freezing!
Step 10: Finish decorating and take pictures.
Step 11: Stand over the grave wishing she was not out in this awful cold and snow and that you could have her come home with you to celebrate a real birthday with presents and cake and ice cream.
Step 12: Kiss your hand and place that kiss on her headstone and wish her a happy birthday while tears stream down your face.
Step 13: Trudge back over the snowdrift, ice, mud, and water puddles back to the car. Sit in the car with heater running while you look at pictures and stare out at the grave you just decorated wishing with all your heart that things could be different.

Yep just another birthday celebration at the cemetery--not fun! I am grateful that it wasn't a snow blizzard and the sun was shining even though it wasn't warm, that some of the deeper snow had melted and that we did find her headstone under all that snow so I could decorate it. In the 13 years I've decorated her headstone for her birthday, this is the worst experience we've had so far. I'm grateful that for most of the other years it has been nice dry weather and that I have never had to dig for her headstone like we did today!

March Angel Birthdays

 Happy Angel Birthday

to All Angel Children celebrating

birthdays in the month of 

March!

YOU ARE LOVED!

YOU ARE MISSED!  

YOU ARE REMEMBERED!

February Angel Birthdays

  Happy Angel Birthday

to All Angel Children celebrating

birthdays in the month of 

February!

YOU ARE LOVED!

YOU ARE MISSED!  

YOU ARE REMEMBERED!

January Angel Birthdays

 Happy Angel Birthday

to All Angel Children celebrating

birthdays in the month of 

January!

YOU ARE LOVED!

YOU ARE MISSED!  

YOU ARE REMEMBERED!

Christmas 2022

 Merry Christmas in Heaven

Janessa, Hope, Jason, Rae Anne and

ALL their Angel Friends!

We Love You!

We Miss You!

We Remember You!

We can't wait to see you again!

Finding Joy at Christmas