Mothers Day 2015

Today is Mothers Day. A day in the United States set aside to honor mothers. It is my third without Amy and my first as a grandmother. I have had mixed emotions the last few weeks. The tears still come so easily. 
My mother has been ill for a few months. Nobody seems to be able to diagnose her problems. She and my father live over 1000 miles away from us. I can't just go visit whenever I want. I wish I could  be with her today. 

My mom two years ago.

Last Sunday Tessa brought Marissa to church for the first time. For almost half of the service I held Will and the rest of the time I held Marissa. I cried through almost all of the worship.
I am so very very thankful for my two dear grandchildren, but I still miss Amy so much. 

Will is sitting very well by himself now and he loves to play with toys. He will soon be crawling and then babysitting will get interesting. I think I will be buying some gates! 

Will at 7 1/2 months

 Marissa is a doll. She loves to be cuddled and she is so peaceful when she sleeps and actively moving her arms and legs when she is awake. I think she will be an early crawler and walker if she continues to have as much energy as she does now.

Marissa at one month

I still struggle with fear..... Fear that something will happen to them. It is an emotion that I take to the Lord often.

I still see Amy is so many little things. I saw this figurine and the way the little girl holds her hands reminded me of Amy. It now sits in her memory garden. I also saw a cute little fairy that I added to her (overflowing with gnomes) area.

God has given us a gift of an overabundance of beautiful flowers this year. 

This past week Tessa gave me another wonderful gift. She copied all her pictures from the last two and a half years on a flash drive for me. I finally looked at them last night and thought my heart would break. Sometimes it still hurts so much to look at Amy's pictures. It gives me a pain that I cannot describe. 
But what a gift it is to have these. She took photos of when Amy was in the hospital and of her in the casket. I know that sounds morbid but I am so glad to see what she looked like once again as I have blocked that out of my mind. I only remember how hard and cold her skin felt. What a joy it is to see how beautiful she looked and how pretty we fixed up her casket. She took pictures of Amy's room and her flowers and balloons people had sent to her and to us.

Thank you, Tessa. I know you feel bad because it took you so long to get them to me, but God knew that this was the time I needed to see them.

Sisters, hand in hand a few days before Amy left us here on this earth.

Another blessing was a surprise group of photos of Amy's class releasing  balloons.  I sent her class a bunch of balloons in memory of Amy on the second year of her celebration of life. I never dreamed that they would release them. That was so special and precious to me. Thank you. I cannot share the picture because of privacy laws, but you know who you are.  Thank you so very much.

Happy first Mothers Day to my daughter, Tessa, and daughter-in-law, Laura,  and Happy Mothers Day to my dear Mama. 

My sweet Amy, I know that God allows you to send me "gifts."  I saw a big yellow and black butterfly yesterday. Thank you, sweetheart. Mommy misses you.