This past Monday we visited Lilly's grave. We took the beautiful "Lilly themed/colored" wreath we had been given as a gift. I had wired it well to the wreath stand and I pushed the bottom parts of the stand a couple inches down into the ground. I hope that it is secure!
Lilly is buried at Oakdale Cemetery in Washington, North Carolina. It is an old cemetery with quite a number of people buried in the 1800s. There is a confederate monument there. There are a number of wonderful, big old trees. I've realized that trees in a cemetery are useful in many ways - one way being that they help block wind! But it's still pretty windy there. I hope the wreath lasts a long time anyway. (I'm thinking of the beautiful flowers we took that blew away.)
While we were there we cleaned up Lilly's stone a little. There was some dirt in the lettering. She is buried next to my husband's youngest sister and her stone needed a lot of cleaning and the grass cleared back some from it. I had never really thought about grave upkeep before this year. But it's definitely something I want to do throughout my life.
After being at Lilly's grave for awhile, we continued on to my mother-in-law's house and stayed there through yesterday. She has several dolls displayed in her home and one kept catching my attention. I wasn't sure why at first but then it suddenly it me - this doll (2nd photo) reminded me of Lilly! Something about the little mouth and nose, and big eyes, something in the expression - it's just Lilly-ish.
On a recent blogpost, my sister-in-law N. left a really neat comment :
Happy Memories.... My friend Lou from England told me last night that she was out and about yesterday and saw a lady with a baby. Lou was intrigued by this baby which reminded her so much of Lilly and evidently was staring so, that the mother finally told her to "take a picture!". The mother thought Lou was being rude. Lou apologized but the mother was offended and told her that her daughter was not a freak show. When they got outside of whatever store they had been in, Lou approached the mother again and apologized and asked if her daughter had Trisomy. The mom was shocked and pleased and asked if Lou was a doctor. She'd never had anyone know about Trisomy besides doctors. This lead to a short discussion of how Lou knew about Trisomy and the mother was so touched that Lou cared and she WANTED to talk about her daughter. :) Thank you for sharing Lilly with the world and educating the public. Including myself.
I was so glad N. shared this! And it shows you - so many of these Trisomy 18 babies just have so many similar features. So that Lou, who had seen pictures of Lilly, was able to recognize one in public! I love it. Trisomy 18 awareness at a "grassroots" level.
My mother-in-law gave me a delightful book by an author named Lillian Hollowell! (Lilly's full name is "Lillian Eva Hollowell.") I was so surprised when she told me recently about the book, which she bought off Ebay. If it weren't such an old book I'd be suspicious that our Lilly had been busy working on it at night while we slept. :)
The book is titled
A Book of Children's Literature and was published in 1939. The author complied many many classic stories, prose, poetry, and biographies for the book. We will be using it for homeschool for sure!
Yesterday marked 3 months that Lilly has been in heaven. It seems like forever ago. We remain grateful for every second we had with her. I think of Lilly when I read this scripture:
"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" - 2 Corinthians 9:15
Late this afternoon the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, my friend C.S. was standing there with this beautiful Easter lily plant. She handed it to me and said that she and her family wanted us to know that they were thinking of us and Lilly.
