The Groundhog is Fired

55 degrees out a couple days ago and today... a snow storm.  I noticed it had started on my way to bed last night and this morning we already had about 6 inches and it was still coming down.  It's kind of depressing.  A snow storm in the spring...

Is the winter ever going away?

Today is April 1st.  It's also Friday.  That means it's been 17 weeks without my girl and is my day to visit her, but it also means that it's the day the cemetery wants all items other than headstones removed from the graves so they can get the grounds prepared for when they have to start mowing. 

I can tell you one blessing about this crazy winter...  it's keeping her grave decorated while she is yet to get a stone.  If she was born in the summer, I would have still had to wait months for her stone, but I wouldn't have been allowed to decorate her grave like I have.  It's the only way I can still nurture her and I'm glad to have that opportunity.  Now that it's snowing on April 1st, I doubt they will be doing spring cleaning today and so I am able to leave her stuff there a little longer. 

Her stone won't be set until some time in May, but my friend Donna bought us a beautiful garden bench that is engraved with the same things that will be on her headstone to put there in the meantime and then to bring to our garden at home once her stone comes.  Normally that isn't allowed, but I called the cemetery and they gave me permission to only have the bench there in the same spot her stone would go.  The bench hasn't come in yet either and I was sad thinking she would have nothing there for a week, but the snow just solved that problem!

I did take some of her flowers home cause the weight of the wet snow messed them up.  It's ironic to see a "think spring" sign in a snow storm... apparently we're not going to think our way to nice weather, believe me I've tried!

I didn't stay long today, it was cold and I have a ton going on at home.  And I already know I can't go next Friday, which will be the first Friday in 18 weeks I don't go.  I apologized in advance, as if she's concerned with that.  I wonder sometimes if (since she has everything she'll ever need or desire in heaven) she even notices I'm there.  I don't know that her spirit is really concerned with earthly things.  Honestly, as her mother, I am glad that she doesn't miss me; that she doesn't long for me like I do for her.  I would never want my daughter to feel that much pain.  But oh, how my heart so longs for her to just know I haven't forgotten her. 

We got home from our visit and the kids went to play outside.  This is the first time they have ever made a snowman on their own and they did a pretty good job!  You can tell it's a "spring snowman" because it's got dirt all over it!  So, even in the middle of a ridiculously long winter (which kind of matches my feelings anyway) there are blessings.  Who would have ever thought my kids would make their first snowman in April?

Isaiah's a goofball

I've heard it said that no matter how long the winter, spring is sure to return.  I am actually more convinced that it applies to my heart than the weather right now!  But I've also heard that long winters make for beautiful flowers in the spring...  so once again, the hard road leads to beauty. 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you

1 Peter 5:10