Envelopes

Last night I was looking through stuff trying to find our tax return from 2009 so that I could finish our tax return for last year. I came across the bag that was given to us after Erik died. It had several different envelopes in it. One had all the online condolences. Another had the cards that were on the flowers that were given to us. Another had the details of the costs of his burial. Another had pictures of Erik in it - some of those pictures were the last ones that were ever taken of my sweet boy. And another had a HUGE stack of Thank you cards that I had filled out and never sent. I had forgotten all about those cards. I made several trips to the post office and had every intention of mailing them, but I would always talk myself out of it because I didn't see the point in thanking people for flowers, cards, prayers, food, singing, preparing and cleaning that were done in the days that followed my son dying. I know now that that seems selfish because a lot of those people went above and beyond to help me and my family out during that awful week of November 15, 2009. There were constantly people at Mama's house cleaning, bringing food, praying, talking, laughing, crying, watching my girls, checking on Mama (who had just had neck surgery 2 days before Erik died), and just being there. They deserved to be thanked. They actually deserved an award.

I had a thank you card for Marcus and Mark because I know that preaching at a small child's funeral couldn't have been easy. I had thank you cards prepared for Gail & Rita because they sang "Jesus Loves Me" at Erik's funeral. I had a thank you card for Heather who came to WS every night just to be with me and then took a day off of work so that she could make sure the slide show she had made was perfect for Erik's funeral. I had a thank you card for Wanda who graciously agreed to give my angel one last hair cut.

As I was looking through those thank you cards last night, the thought went through my head that I could still possibly mail those cards out, but I couldn't stand the idea of making those people who had put Erik's death in the back of their mind go back to that week that they gave so much. So I carefully put them back into the envelope that they were in and put the whole bag back in the top of the closet. I don't wanna anyone to have a reminder of the constant daily pain that I'm in and the battle I go through every single day just to get out of bed.