4 Weeks and Counting

Yesterday was the 4 week mark. I have thought about Poppa several times over the past 2 days. He would have been the 1st call we made on Thursday after picking the W's up from school actually, we probably would have gone to his house for snack after school so they could tell him about their day. Instead, my mom went with me to pick them up. She was happy to be a part of their first day. Having to start new traditions is difficult.

Poppa was always so interested in everything they were involved in, especially school. Last year, #1W started taking Spanish. Poppa could speak Spanish and was always having her tell him what she had learned. They spoke to each other a lot in Spanish and had special terms of endearment that only they knew. After he died, she wrote him a letter that we put in the casket and buried with him. She allowed Mouse and I to read it and she had signed it in Spanish. I know that as this year moves forward, there will be so many times that she will long to share something with him. I hope that I can really stay in tune with her so I pick up on those times. She is not an open book.

Isn't it interesting how you find comfort in the strangest places? I recently attended a birthday party for a friend's child. There, I ran into an aquaintence (and I use that term loosely, I think I may have spoken to this person twice in my life) came up to me and told me how sorry she was to hear about my daddy. I gave her that obligatory "Thank you, I appreciate that" and was ready to move on when she stopped me in my tracks. She told me that she had been on the phone with a mutual friend as that friend was pulling in my mother's driveway on that day. She had shared with her what had happened. This girl told me that as soon as she got off the phone, she dropped to her knees and said a prayer for me and my family. "See I know how much it hurts, I lost my daddy two years ago," she said. We talked a lot about what our daddy's meant to us and she shared that she still has days that she misses him more that she can explain. But then she shared a conversation that someone had with her after her daddy died. It went like this, "After someone you care deeply for passes away, you experience you grief in color. Bright, vivid, harsh. You can feel it and see it with every part of you and in everything you do. But one day your grief will turn black and white." She told me that she remembers the day when she woke up and her grief had turned black and white and it was on that day that she knew she would be alright. I thought that was such an incredible analogy. I could never had put that into words but it was right on. I am eagerly waiting for my black and white day.