Pin-wheel...

It feels like spring has finally arrived here.  There are more flowers blooming, the trees are budding out.  Today I did my big shopping trip and at Wal-Mart got the goodies for the girls Easter baskets.

Well, first I went to the silk flowers.  I picked out a white lily for Marie that we will put in her vase Easter morning.  I picked out  white, purple (her favorite color), and blue (they match her eyes) hydrangea flowers.  I sorted through until my bouquet felt right and then Sarah carried them, even though the stems were as long as she is tall.

Then  I went to the candy.  There are so many toys, so much.  So much glitter, and cheap stuffed animals, and too much sugar.  None of it felt right.  I couldn't find the chocolate crosses I normally buy.  I had a very hard time as I sorted through the isles of stuff finding something suitable for a cemetery and a stone.  Something that won't blow away in the wind.  When Luke and Sarah found me I was nearly in tears with a silly rubber duck in an Easter hat in one hand and a plastic pin-wheel whose stem was filled with gum balls in the other.  He asked what was wrong and I really started crying then.  Right in the middle of Wal-Mart.  People looked at me I'm pretty sure.

I told him that nothing was right, nothing was right for Marie.  And I need to do something because this is it.  The one thing I can do to care for her now.  I can care for that patch of ground, that silver stone.  She isn't there but I can keep it nice, I can decorate for the seasons there.  I can do something...  I wound up getting the pin-wheel.

It's hard to know what to do sometimes so I sort of follow my gut.  I think I do the right thing.  I know it helps Josie to have Marie included in our holidays.  She likes making sure that Marie's "place" is still there.  And it is.  That empty chair at the table, the shelf with a few t-shirts and pj's on it in the closet, she is in every family portrait that's drawn, and she is everywhere here in our home that whispers memories.  There is the creaky place in the hallway I stepped on every night carrying her to bed.  I can look out the window and see her still, swinging, by a grapevine that isn't there anymore.  I can see her smiling in the swimming pool, I can see her so clearly. 

Today was a little rough.  It would be nice if stores would have a section for us lost parents... the Easter gifts for your daughter in Heaven aisle.  That would be useful.  I think the pin-wheel will be nice.  Goodness knows there's enough wind here in Eastern Colorado in the springtime to make it spin...