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The story of our precious little girl's 17 months of life with Trisomy 18 (July 4, 2010 - December 15, 2011) and of us, re-learning to live "after Lilly."
"I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made ...." Psalm 139:14

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A Memorial Day "hello" from Lilly

This past Memorial Day I smiled to see that some of the lily flowers in Lilly's memorial garden were starting to open!






Today I can see out the window that a bunch more lilies have opened up.  I'll take a picture to post here soon.  I can not recommend a "memorial garden" highly enough.  I feel like every time a flower opens up, it's Lilly sending me a "hello."  :)  I don't know much about flowers and am not really "into" gardening much, but I really do enjoy having a space where beautiful things grow, in honor of Lilly.  Each spring I will add in some more lily bulbs.


The chicks greatly enjoyed their time outside Monday.  They seemed to especially like being in this area.  Can you spot the chicks?


They liked getting into the middle of the flowers and sitting in there.





I've gotten a number of comments and emails about the "snake flicker" mentioned in my last post.  So I wanted to share pictures of it.  We still have it right outside the kitchen chimney where Mr. A left it:



Did you notice I said "kitchen chimney"?  Our farmhouse is over 100 years old so there was once a big cookstove in our kitchen.  (You can not see the chimney from the inside anymore.)  Earlier this month, we were blessed to have a visit from the woman who's grandmother lived in this house.  Mrs. M and her husband accepted our invitation to come over and share with us about the house.  We learned where that big cookstove used to be!  Mrs. M had several pictures to share of our house, and of her grandmother and grandmother's first husband who built the house.  I LOVE history so this was really interesting/fun for me. 

Speaking of houses, sadly some friends of ours - the L family - watched their house burn down on Memorial day.  It was a devastating loss.  Though, praise God, no one was hurt.  They were able to save very little.  I feel so terrible for them.  They have a son that is special needs and eats via his g-tube.  Yesterday I made him some blenderized foods and thankfully already had chicken broth and some pureed foods of Solomon's on hand.  When the kids and I took the food to the L family, I joked we were "Meals on Wheels" for g-tube eaters.  I've already made a list of all the things I'm going to make for this little boy to take to him Friday.  I guess you could say it's another Lilly blessing - that through her I learned how to make food for feeding her through her g-tube and now I know exactly what to do to help feed this little boy.  (I highly recommend feeding children real food, rather than just formula, through g-tubes.  I have a number of posts about this topic, here is one.)  I am so happy to be doing this.  It's rather bittersweet.

Thinking about the L's family loss of their home has weighed heavily on my mind.  But I know that God can bring about beauty from (literal) ashes.  And the L family, who are very strong spiritually, are already talking about the positives that will come out of this.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." - Ecclesiastes 3:11

2 comments:

  1. Oh how very sad for your friends saying a prayer for them now. I love the idea of a memorial garden but honestly I have a hard time getting grass to grow. Lily's flower is beautiful!:) How special to know the history of your home and have that special visitor.

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  2. I know of one mama that buys a special silk flower for her angel child every year and adds it to her slowly growing collection in a beautiful vase. :)

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