Easter Activities on a Rainy Day With Three Amazing Boys

So the boys are on spring break and we are cooped up in our house because, you guessed it, it is raining outside....

Today I decided since we can't go outside, we'd spend a little time and get our "craft on", and make some Easter decorations together.  I think the project turned out really well, but most importantly it was just nice to have some good quality time spent doing something together with my sweet sons.

So often in the last 5 1/2 months, I have wondered if my sadness over losing their sister is going to ruin them for life.  I have been so afraid that the "fun loving, up for anything, spur of the moment mom" they have grown up with, was going to be permanently replaced by the "teary eyed, pajama wearing, turning in circles mom" that this grief has, at times, caused me to become.

I have worried that missing Brynna and walking our road of grief was monopolizing my time and sucking away my energy to love my living children in the way they are so used to being loved.  I have nightmares that the boys will remember this time in their life as "the year mom went crazy and never came back".

What I am realizing instead, however, is that somehow, by a Grace much larger than myself, Colton, Aidan and Jackson have become MORE loving, compassionate, emotionally connected boys.  By being honest with them about our heartache, and by not being afraid to cry in front of them, they have been witness to what it means to love somebody so much that it hurts.  And they are comfortable with it.  AMAZING!

It warms my heart to hear from their teachers that they mention their sweet sister in class.  It brings me to my knees that they confide in both Steven and I on a regular basis, that they see and talk to Brynna in their dreams, and that she tells them to "tell Momma and Daddy how much I love them."  Colton told me last week that Brynna came to him again in his sleep, but this time she looked like a "little girl" and had "dark brown hair, just like you Mom.  And she had a sweet voice and brown eyes.  And she said she is having fun in heaven."

I am moved beyond words when all three of them, Cole, Aidan and Jackson, come to me separately and express their pain and broken heart in having lost their sister before they had the opportunity to teach her all the things they wanted oh so badly to teach her.

On a lighter note, one day Jack said to me, "Mom, I wish Brynna were still alive because I would have taught her all kinds of things.....like how to walk..... and how to talk..... and how to milk a cow....."

I laughed out loud at this and asked, "Jack, do you know how to milk a cow?" to which he replied, "uhhhh, I think you just squeeze the pink stuff 'til you get the white stuff..."

See what you're missing, Brynn? You have some amazingly versatile and very knowledgeable brothers!


So, today, after working together to make our Easter garland, I was reminded again, that we are in this as a family.  Together we will make our way through (not over) this, and together we will have bigger, more loving hearts as a result of our darling Brynna Elizabeth.

Happy Easter, baby girl!  We are learning so much.