Visiting H & G

It's been 2 & 1/2 years...

All most every Sunday after church Chris, Maria and I visit Hope and Grace at the cemetary.  Typically, when the weather permits we will bring them flowers and say a hello or a little prayer and continue on with our day.

At the beginning when we first started what is now becoming a beautiful weekly tradition,  I felt eager and anxious to get to them.  Like they were waiting for me to pick them up and take them home.  I'd sit by their grave, view the their names side by side and read over and over what reads on their stone "together forever".   And all I felt was pain, sorrow and unrest.   Those first few times, after we visited, I would cry and ache over the fact we had leave them there. I just wanted to hold them.

Fast forward to this past Sunday.  It was a beautiful day.  After church I am always eager to what direction Chris will take out of the parking lot.   And never fail we turn left, down to St. Mary's Cemetary.  I love turning left after mass.  (right turn, means we go home) We picked up some beautiful flowers.  That particular day I chose peach roses, something about them stood out to me.  It was a nice enough day that the whole family got out of the car to visit the girls.  With the cold weather we usually take turns and Maria stays in the car.

Chris always makes their resting place beautiful.  He edges around the stone, where the grass is over grown.  He brings a scrub brush , dawn soap and lots of water to clean the stone of the girls and his grandparents (who the girls are buried with) to make it shine.  He clips the flowers to fit the vase and we stand together.

I am uncertain what Chris thinks when he is there.  He is a very deep human being with feelings of love so unfathomable for his children.  I am sure he does his own sould searching and talking to the girls.

I usually repeat the words, "together forever" to myself over and over.  I think of their bodies that lie beneath the clover that covers the ground and miss them terribly in my arms.  As soon as I begin to feel sorrow, I pray my hail mary's as fast as I can.  I cling to Her.  She calms my mother instinct of wanting to dig threw that clover and dirt and pull them back to my chest where I think that they belong.
I am immediately drawn to imagining them in heaven.  I imagine all those who accompany them and keeping them safe.  I am comforted.  I imagine the love they are pouring on us as they look down at the three / four of us.  I am comforted.  I look at Maria and feel baby klare flutter inside of me and know that without Hope and Grace the path for Maria and the rest of our children would not have been set.  I am comforted.  I remember the truths of my Faith, that this life is but just a fleeting moment in comparrison to my life in eternity, and eternity where I will hold all my children and be in the presence of God for.ev.er!!!  I am comforted.

I am able to leave St. Mary's no longer crying in agony.  It's taken some time, that's for sure.  But the pain I feel is the longing for Heaven.  Time has healed so much.  Maria and Chris have been suchconsolations to my heart, in ways that I am in debt to them FOREVER.

Maria is starting to say "Ope / Hop and Ges /Ace" (hope and grace) , more often now.  It's a new pain that I haven't dealt with... I am still trying to feel out what it is.  But I think it is me hoping that my all of Hope and Grace's little siblings will feel the impressioned that they have left on all of us.  Though they will not meet them in person, I hope they will know the amount of HOPE, GRACE and LOVE God gave to us the day they were born and feel that some way too.

Thanks for reading a deep post.  It's been on my mind since Sunday and I would have exploded or seriously regretted not logging these beautiful feelings I am having.

*** And to add:  To my children, (if they ever read this)
 Remember them and remember us.  Do not forget your place in time and eternity.  Visiting your sisters is so peaceful and mending for your Father and I.  I hope you find it to be also.  ALWAYS, ALWAYS pray for your father and I.  We need it.

all my love.