Orange is All Around

Bonjour! It's been a happy Tuesday. This morning I made a trip to my orthodontists office and I'm right on track with my braces. I also went by Joann's craft store to help her pick out a few detail items for a sewing project she's working on, and while there we also picked up a few decorations for "Sam's spot" -- the name my family uses to refer to my younger brother's grave in Eternal Valley Cemetery -- including a scarecrow, silk flowers to last, and two fairy wands that we used to stick into the ground because they looked like honey bees. Then add a home-grown pumpkin from Granny's garden and it's perfect. My orange scarf went right along with the Autumn theme. 

Nathan and I also went to visit Sam's spot last weekend. That's our idea of a fun date, lying on a blanket spread in the middle of a graveyard finding shapes in the clouds. Romantic, right? At least it has a touch of Halloween feel. 

I love visiting here. Every time I do I never want to leave. But it's such a bittersweet experience. Being there makes me happy and leaves me wanting to cry all at the same time. I don't like the thought of my brother being in the ground, even though I know that he's not really in the ground, that only his body is in the ground while his spirit, which is his real being, is in heaven doing marvelous works. It is still a feeling I never ever ever in my life wanted to feel. 

It took a long time to get Sam's headstone finally put into place. Between uncertainty on my parents part and mess-ups on the cemetery's part, it was finally done just before Christmas of last year. At first I was excited. I thought "yay, now he no longer has to lay in an un-marked grave." But when I visited for the first time since its being put on I had very different feelings. Seeing his name etched in that stone made it official: my brother is not coming back. And no matter all those moments when I'd forgotten for a moment that Sam was dead so I wanted to ask him a question, or tell him something, or at a glance I thought one of my other brothers was him and my heart skipped a beat, no matter all the disbelief and un-reality of it all, my Sammy was buried six feet under the ground. And now that stone was there to prove it. Mocking me, tormenting me. Even now, over a year has gone by and I still have my moments when I think of him and I still can't believe that he is gone.

I didn't mean to be sad. Unfortunately that seems to be the direction my thoughts turn so often.

I had a great week in Mammoth with my family! We had all sorts of adventures. More pictures of them will follow shortly. 

I hope I didn't get you too down, I'm really not depressed. I've been quite happy today. Orange is all around me, so how could I not be?? xoxo

P.S. Sport Chalet called me in for a second interview! Dear God, please let this mean that my job hunt will soon be over.