Ivy's Memory

This blog has been one or the most difficult things of my life.  When Ivy died I thought it could not get any worse than this.  Nothing in life will be this bad,  this terrible....this unthinkable.  But as I found the funeral past and the days changing I found something else to match it.  Memories.
I truly believe that memory's are a way to connect with our past and bring it back into our present.  Sometimes this can be a blessing while other times a painful hardship.  Our family went to visit Ivy today and it was just to difficult to pull up to the cemetery with the expectation of painful memory's and today was no exception.

One of the memory's that bring me to tears most often is the last time we talked.  I had taken her to the emergency room to be checked because we were worried about her,  afterward we were leaving the hospital with her prescription and I had her all wrapped up in her little blankie that she loved so much.  She had her long curly hair pressed against my cheek as she leaned in against me and told me she loved me.  Then she said the oddest thing, she asked if I would always protect her.  I promised her I would.  This memory and this promise come to mind everyday.  The pure love she had for me as she snuggled close.  A childs innocence still with her and the promise of a long and happy future was assured.  We had just left the hospital and gotten that reassurance that a worried parent needs.

Now away from the memory's and into the morrow we must move.  Thoughts of her will fill my mind at all times and places,  in school, driving, and at home.  During sacrement meeting I can no longer stay for all the meetings.  I sit close to the back with my family and bow my head to hide the tears that pour forth.  Not a single Sunday meeting has gone by without my tears running the entire time.  We had her funeral in that very chapel and the memory glimmers at me just out of the corner of my vision a constant reminder, something that I must look at like a flashing light.  This and other places have become a memory that I cannot escape.

Others say things to friends and family and you eventually hear some of them.  Things like "they are not the same person" or "They are taking it very hard".  True statements both of them along with others.  Not meant in an unkind way but a statement from a caring individual.

Do I go out and see movies with friends?  Or take the family out to do something fun?  Sometimes....not nearly as often as before.  It is hard to find joy in anything.  Books become a hardship rather than a relaxation.  A movie becomes a reminder rather then a distraction.  Lunch with a friend becomes a chore as you "try and be normal".

Can the beauty of life be found again?  I remember days before her death with clarity and vividness while the days following drag on with tedium and grayness.

The things I need most the support of my family and friends is wonderful.  The outpouring of love and especially the comments about my blog and followers of it help me feel that there are some people out there that might understand.  So please if you are my brother, my friend, my cousin, an aquaintance or even someone who I have not had the chance to be friends with yet or a complete stranger, leave your comments. Share your thoughts.  Help me make some new memory's that might be as bright and as strong as those that I have for my little one.

As always Ivy....
Love Daddy