Everytime A Bell Rings...

You know the rest. Or I assume you do. A very special person became a very special angel recently and I've been trying to blog about it ever since. I haven't blogged in over a month. I've thrown this particular blog post around in my head for days, weeks even maybe. How does one post a tasteful farewell to someone without becoming "Debbie Downer?" Maybe I should have chosen to skip it altogether. That's a thought, so I don't lose any of my faithful blog readers, but I simply can't. I love to write. I write about all the special and important moments in our life, I treat this blog like the scrapbook I'm neither patient nor creative enough to do for real. To not blog about this particular time in our life would be like skipping a birthday or Christmas. It's simply too important to leave out.

On December 13th, I lost my father to that horrendous "C" word. My grandparents lost their first-born son. My children lost their grandfather, my husband lost his father-in-law, my step-mother lost the love of her life, my 3 uncles lost their big brother and so, so many people lost an amazing friend, boss and family member. Much like Christmas morning, the season's first snow and a love for all things miniature, I've tried to look at this through the eyes of my children with a different kind of approach. As parents of a 4 and 5 year old, we've had to get creative when talking about death so we don't make it scary or tremendously sad... 2 very easy things to do. Cooper and Kendall have a view of Heaven similar to an episode of The Care Bears. It includes, but is not limited to, puffy white clouds, bright beautiful rainbows, rivers, mountains and probably a few Matchbox cars and Barbies, too. Vovo was sick for 2 years so the kids don't really remember a time seeing him without his oxygen in his nose or when he was able to get down on the floor and wrestle with them. To them, Vovo has always been sick and now he's the lucky one that gets to go meet God and play in the clouds.

Everytime a bell rings, an angel gets it's wings! When discussing angels, Kendall was very enthralled with the idea that her Vovo would now have wings and would be able to fly, much like Tinkerbell. She even asked if Vovo could fly back down to see us now that he has wings! Cooper seemed thrilled that Drew's grandaddy, who passed away in November, would have a new angel-friend. His exact comment when we told him Vovo was an angel now was "Oh! Now we have two angels! Vovo and Drew's grandad! They can be friends!"

With death comes sadness, for sure. Even though my father was suffering an unimaginable pain and burden at the end, we were still praying for miracles right along with the prayers that he would go with peace and comfort. We're human, so we act on human nature which is to not wish someone to be gone. That being said, I've tried hard to not be sad for anyone else but myself. I'll allow myself to be sad for my loss, but in regards to my father, much like my tender-hearted children, I choose to believe that he's the happiest he's ever been, bouncing like Cheer Bear or Love-A-Lot from cloud to cloud with his new friend, Fred and all the others gone before him. Watching over us, special angel wings and all.