Balloons To Heaven

Well, I had read Lori Ashton's blog a while back and she wrote about sending balloons with notes in it to her dad.  This surfaced to my mind as I was wondering what I should do to make my Dad's death date something I could more easily manage.  My sister is crazy busy this summer so we decided to meet at her house for a brief window of time to send our balloons.  (Mine is the yellow one.  Can you see the note?) 

I showed up with full page notes that the kids and I had written/drawn and Lisa, who tends to see things more logically than me, mentioned that I may want to make the notes smaller so they could fit.  Hehehe. 

Let me tell you about Jake's note.  It was a picture of my dad--he had a halo on top of his head-- and Jake.  There were arrows and names pointing to each.  Then he wrote a little note telling his grandpa that he loved him and he hoped that grandpa would show him that he got the letter--like in a dream or something.

Well, I don't know whether this is possible or not.  I don't want to be skeptical, but I am not sure how he is going to take it if he doesn't get a "sign", so I say, "You know Jake, you may get a message from grandpa in a dream.  I don't know.  You may not.  Are you going to be okay if you don't?"

So, he looks up to me with those gorgeous dark chocolate eyes and says, "Yeah, mom.  I know.  It might take grandpa a long time to get his mail."      :0)

The kids were so excited to send their notes to heaven.  Ben drew a picture and as he drew it, he told us that it said, "Grandpa, I love you more than Mama."  I was ok with it.  If there was someone he loved more than me--grandpa is a good one--but did he have to keep saying it over and over. . .     :0)

Michael wrote in beautiful cursive and when I told him we would need to cut his letter so it would fit, he took the scissors and cut it into many little pieces.  Lisa helped me find the ones with most of his name on them.  :0)

And Thumper had crayola markers all over his face, mouth, hands, etc, but he sure drew his grandpa a nice picture.  :0)

What a blessing we all have of having my dad, Albert Sherwood Anderson, in our Eternal Family.  This has been a painful year.  One full of ups and downs.  One full of growth and sorrow.  One outlined in a few spots with laughter.  And you know what, the laughter is what he wants.  He was not a person who wanted people to wallow.  He looked upon self--pity as such a weakness.  He never had self-pity. 

It is now that I am starting to see the sunshine again.  I still miss him like crazy, but I am ready to truly celebrate his life and the blessings I have because he chose to be the father, husband, grandpa, friend. . . he was.

I love you Dad!