I’ve been fighting this nagging cough for over a week. My house has suffered, and a few days ago I got sick of trying to keep up with it. I snagged my little man and just got us both the heck out of the house for a bit. We bought us each a Little Debbie snack, and we took a trip to the cemetery to visit Laynee Leigh.
My son doesn’t remember Laynee. She’s been gone for as long as he’s been here -it’s a little surreal, and I can’t help but look at my son and add about 10 months to him and wonder about Laynee and what she might look like/be like/talk like today. What would she be for Halloween? What would I have given her for her birthday?
In two days, we’ll pass the mark -the gone for 4 years mark. It doesn’t feel like four year, and at the same time: it does.
I’ll never get over the surreal feeling of seeing my brother’s last name on a headstone… of knowing that a little body bearing his eyes and expressions isn’t running around and catching bugs with her sisters.
I’m so grateful for the sure knowledge that families can be together forever -that those little eyes WILL beam back into her father’s one day. And I want my son to know -I want to teach him. I want to acquaint him with the things that really matter in life -like love and eternity and families and laughter. I don’t want to acquaint him with THINGS. I want to acquaint him with Laynee.
We sat down on the dirt next to her little plot, and my son asked all kinds of questions about bodies and where they go and, “So can we start digging now?”
Um, gross. And NO.
After a bit, we got up and walked around visiting other graves. He was undeterred by my telling him once that he weren’t going to dig up any bodies.
“Can we just dig up great-great grandma and see her?” He asked twice, since two of his great-great grandmothers are buried pretty close to one another.
“NO,” I said. I wanted to be completely grossed out, but his honest curiosity and big, huge eyes were redeeming. That boy is adorable.
and heroic!
If you’re lucky enough to have little ones near you right now, please scoop them up and tell them how important they are.
Please?
Thanks ever so.
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