Memorial Day

So, another Memorial Day has come and gone, thank goodness!! I realized this year that Memorial Day, your birthday, and the date of your passing are probably three of the hardest days for me! I really want to change that, though! I've decided that on your birthdays, I really want them to be happy. I want to have them be a day of celebration that you were born to us and are a part of our family! I don't want to ever think of it as "you would have been ** years old" type of a day. I mean, I will always know which birthday it would have been for you, but it's too hard for me to think of it what could have been. Instead, I just want to focus on that day about you as a person, spirit, and permanent part of our family, and remember you and celebrate what is true and what really is. I mean, you fulfilled your mission here on earth, and that all started with the pre-existance, your birth here, and then your death here, which led to eternal glory for you where you are now! How wonderful and lucky I am as your mother here on earth to get to be a part of that journey with you! That's what I want to celebrate and think of on your birthdays. Hopefully that will help that day not be so hard. As for the day you passed away, about the only positive with that one is to try to focus on your side of the experience, that you passed your test and earned eternal salvation, but it's probably always going to be a hard day. It seems no matter how I try, when I think of that day, or when it starts to come up, I remember a lot more of my experience of the whole thing, and they aren't fun thoughts! Hopefully I'll get better at controlling my thoughts as time goes by. As for Memorial Day, I once again found myself feeling down and sad, almost like I thought I was "suppose" to because that's what that day is for! But, I realized this year that it doesn't need to be like that. I enjoy visiting the graves of other ancestors who have gone, but most of them I never knew, or was so young that I really didn't know them anyway. I think it's a great day to enjoy focusing on family history and making the effort to visit and think of those that might have gone before, but as for you, it should be a day just like any other! I mean, we visit your grave at least once a week, most of the time more than that, so it's nothing new or different for us to go put something on your grave, and we think about you daily, so it's not like we need a reminder to do so! I have to admit, though, that while I like visiting other graves with family, I wasn't able to do so with your grave. I think it's still so close and personal that for your dad and I, we just couldn't bring ourselves to go there with everybody else because we didn't know how everybody else was going to act, or what they were going to say, and we worried about getting too emotional about it, or getting offended over something we shouldn't just because we would have been so sensitive. There are some people I wouldn't mind going to your grave with, but others are still difficult to do it with. I'm glad they went, but I wasn't ready to go with them. We took flowers up to your grave last Friday night, and we did go by on Sunday after everyone else was already gone, but once again, it was almost weird to have so many people around! We visit so often, and usually there might be only one other person there, if that! It seemed almost caotic with so many people around, and we are more used to spending our time there with more peace and privacy! I'm glad people come, but it was almost sad to me that people often only take that one day of the year to make an effort to go visit and think about some of these people. I know I'm guilty of it as well, and I understand more if it's an ancestor that's been gone for a long time, or that you never knew personally, but I think it can still be hard for me that so many close family members of our family don't even take the time to visit your grave, even on Memorial Day, let alone every other day of the year! I think there are some people who are pretty close who haven't even been back since your funeral! But, I know I have to be careful because you aren't at your grave, you are in Heaven, and it is more important to just remember you and try to feel close to you anytime and anywhere than to think it can only happen if you visit a grave. I think about the pioneers who had to bury loved ones along a trail, or bury them at sea, and they never got to revisit a grave! An ancestor on your Grandma Dickey's side was traveling to the US on a boat with her two small children. One child got sick and died on the boat, and she had to bury him at sea. Then, just days before they reached land, her other child also passed away, but she couldn't bring herself to bury him at sea as well, so she hid him until they reached land and then she buried him. I cried when I read this story, and my heart just broke for this ancestor who I haven't met, but I had to remind myself that she has been reunited with both of her children and carries that pain no longer! How wonderful! She has had her happy reunion with her beloved children! I can't wait for that day for us! I wonder if you have met them, and I'm sure you have! How cool! Anyway, I hope Memorial Day doesn't continue to be a day that I struggle with feeling happy!