Family

Last Thursday Chad flew to Florida to go to a conference.  He was gone from Thursday to Tuesday.  This trip was planned several months ago so I was planning to stay home with the kids by myself.  After Chandler's accident, I wanted to change those plans.  I didn't really want to be home alone for 5 days.  Yes, I would have the kids with me but I didn't think that would be enough right now.  So, my mama and sister were talking about making a trip up here sometime.  So, I told them the week that Chad is gone would be perfect.  They could keep me company.  It worked out that they were able to do that.  So, when I took Chad to the airport to depart last Thursday, my mama and sister arrived about 20 minutes before his flight left.

We had the best time while they were here.  We did lots of shopping and eating.  We made some decorating changes in my house.  We did crafty things with the kids.  We laughed.  We cried.  We were exhausted by the 2nd day because we were staying up late at night and then our days were spent running the streets.  But, we kept doing the same thing.  We continued to have late nights and kept ourselves busy during the day.  On Friday, we went to the cemetery to visit at Chandler's grave for a while.  We cried a lot and talked about him.  We talked about what an awesome son/grandson/nephew he was and how much we miss him.  It's so emotional being there yet it's so hard to leave after you get there.

On Sunday, Brandi and I went to A.C. Moore to get some more craft stuff for the kids.  While we were there, we ended up purchasing some things to make a new flower arrangement to place at the cemetery.  We got hearts for the kids to paint since we're approaching Valentine's Day.  We got 4 hearts.  One for Caleb, Corben and Carlie to paint and write on and we got one that Brandi painted and wrote on to represent Chandler's cousins, Cade, Connor and Claire Michael.  We also found some dragonflies to add to it.  There's a story about that coming later.  When we got home, we put it all together and it was so beautiful.  It had a personal touch and it just looks perfect. 


One day while my family was here, we were all getting ready to go somewhere.  Corben was in my room talking and asking what year was Chandler born.  I told him 1994.  Then he started talking about how Chandler was 16 when he died and how young that was.  I agreed and then began to share that sometimes even babies die.  He asked "why would a mama want to have her baby die"?  I said the mama doesn't want that but sometimes the babies aren't healthy and they die before they are even born.  Then, I began to share with him some of my story.  I told him that before Chandler was growing in my belly, I had another baby growing there.  I told him that the baby's heart stopped beating and died.  I told him the doctors had to get the baby out.  I also told him that after Chandler and Caleb were born, I got pregnant again and the same thing happened to that baby.  So, I told Corben "You have 2 more brothers or sisters that are in heaven.   We don't know if they are boys or girls but they are with Chandler now and Chandler knows already."  Corben said "you should have told me that already!"  He acted like he was so happy to know that he had other siblings even though he wasn't going to know them until one day when we get to heaven.  It was so sweet the way he responded to that story. 

On Monday afternoon I took mama and Brandi to the airport to send them back home.  We tried to make it  as easy a goodbye as possible.  I told mama that I didn't want to make it hard on all of us.  I didn't want them getting on the plane so upset and I didn't want me going home that way either.  We all did really well. 

We were blessed with several days together and had a wonderful time.  We all needed the visit together and I'm so thankful it worked out for them to come see us.