A long overdue post…

Even as I’m sitting here, ready to type, I’m not sure what to write… a lot of stuff happened over Christmas but not sure what to say or how to say it. I come to the page, every day, meaning to write.. but then find it hard to log myself on here and actually write anything.

There were many times, while I was home for Christmas, that I wanted to write things as they happend, but people and things kept getting in the way.. then I would lose my energy to write and would say “I’ll do it later.” I promise Kerrie, every day, that I will do it… so today, I will do my best to keep that promise. This will probably be a long post.. so either get comfortable or come back to the site, later, when you have time to ready my ramblings 🙂

Christmas was hard. Unless you’ve gone through it.. you can’t really understand it.I couldn’t get my shopping done, because I just couldn’t find the “desire” to even be interested in Christmas, but once I forced myself to get in the car and go to the stores Kerrie was helping me shop and actually telling me what to buy.

Every since we were 18, our Aunt Mary Jo has given us Christmas ornaments. I’m sure we didn’t always have such a love for them, but now that we each have enough “Aunt Mary Jo” ornaments to decorate entire trees we appreciate them so much more than we probably ever thought we would. Kerrie loved this, and started this tradition with our niece and nephew a few years ago. I know they couldn’t care less about Christmas ornaments right now, but I keep telling them some day it will mean a lot to them. Back when all this stuff started with Kerrie, I promised her that “if anything happened” I would make sure that Robyn and TJ got their Christmas ornaments from Aunt Kerrie every year. I had forgotten about this, until I was in the store.. plain as day I heard Kerrie say “Don’t forget the Christmas ornaments for Robyn and TJ”. She even made me look through a few stores before she found the ones that were “perfect” for them. When they got the gifts, with “From: Aunt Kerrie” on the tag they thought it was kind of funny, but they have no idea that she really is the one that picked these out for them. Their too young right now to really understand this, but someday they will.

Kerrie always gave Ron a box of chocolate covered cherries for Christmas… again, as I walked down the aisle, I heard her say “get the chocolate covered cherries.”

My mind was not on Christmas, or shopping, so I have no doubt she was putting these thoughts into my head.. I could “hear” her saying them.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve given Kerrie a slinky for Christmas. I don’t know how, why or when this started but it’s always been a tradition. I had to go to three stores before I could actually find one.. and it felt so weird buying it.. but I just had to.

Mom and I were sad alot, over the holiday, but did our best to make this a nice Christmas and make sure Kerrie was there with us. A few days after I came home, we opened her boxes of Christmas decorations and tried to decide what to put out. When we opened the box of decorations that had been in her hospital room last year we just couldn’t do anything with them. Anyone who was in her room last year, will remember the beautiful fiber-optic angels that sang in three part harmony.. we looked at the box of angels, looked at each other… I told Mom I just couldn’t listen to them.. and we closed up that box of decorations. Maybe next year…

There was a box with Kerrie’s tree ornaments.. and in it an angel ornament that she had given to each of us years ago when she was living in Tennessee. She’d had a woman she knew make Ron, Mom and me and angel that matches one she had and she mailed them to us that year. In the box that they came in there was a letter she’d written.. I had intended to write, word for word, what that letter said and put it on this blog.. but never got it done before I left Michigan. The letter’s in Michigan… so again.. maybe next year. In short, the letter said that she happy in Tennesee except at the holidays when she missed her family. She was giving us each a matching angel so that, no matter what happened, we could look at our Christmas trees.. look at that angel ornament.. and know that we were together even when we were miles apart. It was the most beautiful letter I’d ever read.. even if I didn’t really, truly appreciate it at the first time I ever saw it. We put the angel ornament in the center of the tree, so that it was our focal point… I looked at that angel several times a day and wished, more than anything, I could have Kerrie sitting in front of me. One of the first things I did, when I got back to Richmond, was tear through my boxes of Christmas decorations to find MY angel ornament. I didn’t have any decorations out this year, but wanted that ornament where I could see it.

Christmas eve we had dinner at Ron’s and TJ asked me if I was going to come over in the morning. I told him I probably wasn’t going to come over, because I was going to visit Aunt Kerrie. He was so precious… He suddenly got this excited look on his face and excited sound in his voice and said, “Aunt Kerrie?”.. almost as if he couldn’t wait to see her and was going to ask to come with me. Then he realized what I meant, the look on his face fell and he just said, “Oh.” That just broke my heart..

Christmas morning I drove Mom to work and went to the cemetary. I guess I thought I would be there alone.. and was more than a little surprised to see the place so full at such an early hour in the morning. It was such a sad thing to see so many people there, and suffering so much, on Christmas morning. Especially for those of us where it was obvious, by the look of the sites, that this was the first Christmas morning we were visiting our families there.

We’d had really strong winds the few days before this, so the wreaths that were with Kerrie and Grandpa had blown over. Ron had drilled them into the ground, but the winds were so strong it bent the metal frames they were on right to the ground. I’m sure I looked pretty silly trying to straighten them, but I didn’t care. All around me there were wreaths that had been knocked down.. so I started picking them all up and trying to put them back where they belonged. I finally had to stop, just due to the size of the place ( it’s massive), I would have been there all day and still not been able to pick up every wreath or flower. It probably would have been a two day job… but I didn’t want another family to show up and find their wreaths and flowers blown all over the place.

I talked to Kerrie for a while and then it was time to head home. I walked back to the car and got my gift for Kerrie.. Along with her wreaths I left her Slinky.

If nothing else, the strange looks it would get from other people would make Kerrie smile:)

There was one really important thing that happened over Christmas, but I think I’m going to make that a seperate post. It’s a long story.. and this one has aready gotten to long, jumped around too much and more or less had no direction in my writing.. but who cares 🙂

What we did, and what happened, may upset a few people.. but it’s a story we want to tell. Kerrie’s beliefs have always been on the spiritual side.. mine too.. and Mom and I were lead to a woman who is a medium. Not a psychic or a fortune teller.. but a medium. Someone who can communicate with those that have passed on. We have no doubt Kerrie lead us to her.. We know we have family and friends whose beliefs this would go against, so we hope we won’t offend anyone.. but what happened was real.. and I think it helped us both get through Christmas. We had a conversation with Kerrie.. or I should say, she had a conversation with us. I’ll put this whole event in a new post… if you choose to not to read it, we understand.. and if you feel a strong need to say a prayer for us.. by all means.. go ahead 🙂

Jenn