Easter

This our second major holiday now without Calvin. Although Georgia is still too little to appreciate the holidays yet, we mark them and celebrate them for her nonetheless. True, I didn't buy her a gazillion chocolate eggs like we did for Lorelei (well duh, she's only five months old), but we did mark the occassion for her by buying her a pretty spring coat in angel white. Lorelei had a blast ripping through the house with her Easter basket shouting "The Easter Bunny was here mom and dad!!!" and although it was at a horribly early hour, we hauled our butts out of bed to watch her hunt for eggs. I do however feel a stab in my heart every time a holiday rolls around and Calvin isn't here to celebrate it with us. Since his death, I have the emptiest feeling inside that our family is now incomplete. It hurts. It makes me wonder if the holidays will forever have a shadow over them, an ache inside that one of our children is no longer with us. I worry that in time the girls will notice my sadness and that it will spoil their joy. They are so beautiful in their innocence.

Although I know Lorelei is acutely aware that her brother died, I don't think she really knows what that means. I do know that she is aware of my tender spot for Calvin, lately when I give her heck for something or have to reprimand her for her behaviour, she will cry and start saying "Calvin died mommy, I'm sad Calvin died...". I feel like I'm being manipulated by my three year old and it angers me that she uses her brother to worm her way out of consequences but I know in my heart that she really doesn't understand what's happened or why it works the way it does when she hauls it out. Still, it tugs at my heartstrings and then in the aftermath pisses me off. I've had more than one rant at Shane at night about our darling daughter using Calvin's death to her advantage, thankfully he is more patient and understanding than I ever could be as far as that is concerned. Nevertheless I love her with a fierce mama-bear love, my first born and it's impossible for me to stay angry with her for long. I know this too shall pass in time, but for now is a painful reminder of what we've lost.

Last night, after our delicious family dinner of turkey and every vegetable known to man, we were relaxing out on the back porch and it started to rain. The next thing I knew it was pouring and there were strikes of lightning and clashes of thunder and I became worried that the girls would wake up afraid. Then, as my husband stood in the doorway admiring the downpour, I started to wonder if Calvin was getting wet in his casket and I started to shake. Every part of me wanted to go and bring him home, keep him dry. I started to tear up and then had a vision of myself in the cemetery madly digging in the rain and it made me kind of giggle..."I am going nuts", I thought. Imagine that. Now, the next day and out of the situation I can appreciate my desire to protect my son from the elements so maybe I'm not that nuts afterall, maybe it's just my built in mama bear sense of love and wanting my children to be safe that made me feel so horrible about the possibility that my son was getting wet as he lay in the ground. Learning to separate the feelings from the reality is such a bitch sometimes. How do you accept that this is the way things are and there's no changing it when every pore and cell in your body is programmed to protect your young at all costs....? I miss my son. I hope his Easter in Heaven was spent with all the other lost children playing joyfully and eating at a table fit for a king with Jesus Himself...One can only hope.