A Mommie Day!!

I just have to say, once again, how much I love my husband!  This week I was feeling very overwhelmed and so he arranged for me to have a personal day today – ALL DAY!! :D  Very special thank you(!!!!!!!) to Grandma Kerri and family for watching the children for me!  I’ve been racking my brain, and I do believe that this is the very first full day that I’ve had to myself since Roen was born… that was nearly 4 years ago.  Wow!  I think it was a little over due! 

I’m just thankful that I got to have this day to do whatever.  I didn’t use it exactly the way I would have liked to (This morning I had a flat tire that had to get changed in town and I had to make a trip to Mason), but I’ve enjoyed it, regardless!  Right now I’m just relaxing, writing this post, and uploading photos from our collection of memory cards onto the computer.  

I’m also loving the fact that, even though it’s still chilly out and we had snow this morning, the sun is shining through and warmer days will be here when they get here!  :]

I do have a big favor to ask.  Please pray for me, Derek, and my family.  We’ve got an emotional day ahead.  Tomorrow, Saturday, April 20, will be my brother’s birthday.  It will also mark exactly 7 months since the day he died.  He would be 19 years old.  Now he is, as I say, “forever 18.”  Very heartbreaking. 

We have been planning for months to spend the day together as a family.  It just so happened that Dollars for Scholars, the H-D high school’s senior scholarship club, is having a Color Dash 5K that same day!!  What a fun way to be all together!  So we’re all signed up, all ready to participate!  The weather will be nicer than it has been the last few days, and sunny, but still not as warm as you’d think it would be in late April!  Oh well!  “This is the day that the LORD hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!” :]  

I created a personalized design for our group, TEAM T.CARR!!  (That was Taylor’s nickname, T.CARR)  This will appear on the back side of our color dash t-shirts.  This whole thing kept getting bigger and bigger and now there are around 70 people in our group!!  Crazy!  

After the walk, we’re going to a rented building in town where we can all be together, eat food, and share sweet memories of my brother.  I asked friends and family members to please send a birthday card to Dad and Loretta – one they think Taylor would have loved, and to write something special in it.  I thought it would be a nice keepsake for Dad and Loretta.  We’re also asking anyone and everyone that is celebrating with us to please come prepared to share a memory, their thoughts and feelings since his death, and maybe if they have something special that they’ve created, like a poem they’ve written, etc.  I am going to record a song that I wrote for my bro and play it for everyone.  I originally wanted to sing it at the party, but even just thinking about singing it in front of every body chokes me up and I can’t get through it.  I’m pretty nervous because I’m not like a really good singer by any means, but this is something special that I’d like to share with everyone.  

We’re also planning at some point to visit Taylor’s grave site and do something special.  I’ll report on it later.  

I’m very excited to be with family and friends again and to talk, talk, talk about Taylor, but I’m also unprepared for the emotion that has been hitting off and on throughout the week in preparing for this day, and the flood that will probably hit while it’s happening.  It’s very hard to grasp that he is not here and I will never see him in this life again.  It really hurts.  I can’t describe the pain and the feeling of loss.  I miss that kid so much and life is moving on whether I want it to or not.  

So as I said, please, pray for my family and I.  We’re in for a heart wrenching day ahead.  I know there will be many tears, but I also know there will be many big smiles and lots of laughter and fun.  It’s very sad that Taylor is gone and we won’t be able to build any new memories with him, but I’m so thankful to God that the memories I do have with him are just awesome!!  The last day I ever saw my baby brother alive is one of my favorite memories with him.  He gave me a big old hug.  But that was just like Taylor.  Always ready with a hug.  That was the last thing I ever got from him and I’ll never forget it.  :]