Sunday, June 8, 2008

A Piece of Family History

One of my favorite bloggers, KBL 2 ORD 2 SAN has new concrete in her yard. She made a wonderful mandala of sorts, --perhaps not so much a mandala as a foundation dedication piece, made of personal art and artifacts, and placed it in the wet concrete. You can see photos and read about it in her posting dated Wednesday, June 4th.

After I left a comment on her blog, she suggested that I post a photo of our piece of family history that is set in concrete, so I am going to show it to you here. First, I will explain...In June of 2000, the concrete for our driveway was poured into its forms, and I kept David and Katie home from school (they were in 2nd grade and preschool, respectively), so that they could see the work as it was being done. A messy job, trucks and a concrete pumper with a big boom attached, like a huge elephant's trunk, spraying sloppy cement; what could be more fun for kids to watch?

The driveway is shaped like a sinuous "Y," with one leg leading into our garage (you can't see that part in this photo). I wanted to put beach glass in the concrete at one side of the driveway (surprise!), but it set too quickly for that to work. However, we were able to have each of the children put their handprints in it, and I wrote their names and "June, 2000" there. It is a small, yet meaningful, piece of our family's past, set into our property.

Thanks for asking, KBL.

I decided to ignore all advice to the contrary (I don't know that I like seeing that in print), and planted the Angel Wing in the garden. Ssshhhh. It's Washington, and we have mild seasons here. We will see if it decides to enjoy the summer.
Latte is very much interested in it. Maybe that's who was digging in its pot yesterday, dumping dirt on the floor!

7 comments:

Najia said...

Ooooh, her sweet little precious pre-school hands. How wonderful that you captured the brother and sister together this way. I love it. It brings tears to my eyes looking at Katie's precious handprints. Islam teaches us that when a child leaves our earth, that child is granted entrance into a special place in heaven. A place reserved for the innocent child's soul to be free and full of joy.

I am praying right now that Katie is busy using her little hands to sift through warm sand, feel cool ocean water trickle through them, or perhaps softly brushing the tops of wildflowers as she floats through God's gardens.

I know you miss her and my heart jsut aches for you. When God is ready for your arrival, you will once again feel her warm little hands loving your face. We will all be reunited with our precious loved ones when God is ready for us.

My prayers are with Katie and her resting spirit, and they are with you and your healing one. No matter where you go in this life, take that little slab of concrete with you. If you can't, let me know and I will store it for you in our home until you can retrieve it.

Gberger said...

Sweet friend, thank you so much. Your faith, your loving heart and your words are beautiful, & they mean so much to me.

Najia said...

Anytime, Karen. Anytime. Your Katie will never be forgotten. Her energy will take on many, many forms as the rest of your life unfolds. Look for her always.

You're not so bad yourself, sweet friend. :-) I've heard of your sage advice and kind words for our tiny friend. She's lucky to found you. God bless you both.

Me said...

Tears are falling from my eyes onto the keyboard as I type. Beautiful post, beautiful people. Love to you both my friends.

Maggie said...

I pray for peace for you and your family daily. I think of Katie often... the other day I was at a sale and found a copy of the Phantom of the Opera, I bought it and thought of that lovely picture of Katie on her birthday. Those hand prints are wonderful!

As a side note: I received my Jaqua body butter today and it is simply divine...I think I would like it even more if the dog would stop liking my legs (no kidding) Thanks for the suggestion!

HWHL said...

Hi Karen. First of all, thank you for stopping by my blog and thank you for your nice comments. I've seen your "face" on KBL's blog in the comments section, but this is the first chance I've had to come visit your blog.

Let me start off by saying I'm so very sorry to read about the loss of your precious beautiful daughter. As a mother of 2 kids myself, I can only imagine what that must have been like, and what it must still be like, every day. I will add you, your husband and son to my prayers, for God to wrap you in his Love and his Peace and fill your hearts with the 'peace which passes all understanding'.

A devotional book you might want to look into which has really meant a lot to me.... "Streams in the Desert" by E.B. Cowman.... really a wonderful and very profound book. Helped me through the darkest valley of MY life, when my son spent almost 6 months in the NICU after he was born (he was born at 24 weeks gestation, and weight 1 lb. 7 oz at birth)... Anyway, it helped me through the dark, dark days of that time, and gave me tremendous inspiration, and strength to go on when I felt I just couldn't do it anymore.

Blessings, love and peace to you, Karen.

Pam said...

Love the work you've done on your property. Sweet pics of the hand prints. We made garden stone impressions of both our kids when our youngest was terminal. I knew if we ever moved, I wanted to take them with me. When we were going through this, I found much comfort in the thought that our son was too young to grasp what was going on. It always broke my heart to watch older kids and their parents because I just couldn't fathom it. Your story is so touching... I'm praying for you as you continue this journey without your Katie!