Countdown To Brielle Day: Day Two

November 9, 2016November 9, 2016 ~ lovingbrielle ~ 1 Comment

Can we just take a moment of silence for my horrific selfie skills (or lack thereof)? This would be my deer in the headlights look. No worries, this face is awkwardly reserved for my front facing camera.

You know, I expected this whole random acts of kindness to be nice and uplifting for David and I. Instead it feels more like a burden and something I’ve saddled myself with and I’m left thinking, “What was I thinking?!”

Tuesday was planned to be a day where David and I would go to Dave & Buster’s and attach paid game cards to the machines. For those of you who are new, Dave & Buster’s was where Brielle had her first Father’s Day. It sounded like a great idea. I was genuinely excited at the thought of blessing others on a day when most would be stressed, anxious, and nervous over the election.

But when I couldn’t find my jeans in the piles of wadded up clean clothing mixed with dirty clothing and had to put on my, I can barely move, skinny jeans I was about in hysterics. However, hysteria would require breathing and that wasn’t really possible.

This compounded with, “Do we just tape the cards to the machines? Do we hand them out? No, that’s weird. Do we print out a message with them? Would anyone read them? Does it matter? Do we write the blog address on the note? Is that like advertising? That’s weird, right? Why didn’t I plan this out sooner? What in the world is Brielle Bear going to wear?”

Dogs barking. Everyone’s hungry. Bernice doesn’t understand why we want to do things for Brielle and is confused.

I finally threw my hands in the air and said, “This was supposed to be a fun night and instead it’s a nightmare!”

We stayed home. Bought Brielle’s birthday dress. Ate chicken noodle soup and watched the news. And for an hour I was mad at myself. I wanted to do this right. I wanted to make something good out of this whole situation.

But I had to step back and think about what was realistic and what was best for all of us today. And I had to be honest with myself, I took on more than I could handle. I took on a bunch of good things, but just because it’s a good thing or a good idea doesn’t mean I should do it.

Me, doing my best with milk and oatmeal creme pies (yes multiple). Who cares if they’re fat bombs? They’re delicious.

So I’m just going to do my best. And really be kinder to myself, for crying out loud Brielle died a year ago, and I’m running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and then I’m feeling guilty and like I failed.

Brielle died, I don’t need to be super woman, I just need to take a chill pill. Now if someone could just smack me on the head every morning and remind me, that’d be great.

Oh, and my jeans? Found them. They were mixed in with the half clean half dirty Bernice pile, naturally.

On the bright side my hair was on point today. This is my, “I hate selfies” face.

Countdown to Brielle Day: Day One

November 8, 2016November 8, 2016 ~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

*Sorry for the late posting, I wrote this on Monday!*

Re-posting, just in case you missed it the first time.

I hope you are all doing well. Today we are starting our random acts of kindness stuff (really having a hard time finding the right word) with a truck full of donations to charity. I’ve been in the process of cleaning out our house and streamlining our stuff to the bare minimum. It’s been great and freeing.

I do feel a bit weird calling it a random act of kindness since I feel like I’m gaining in this situation, but we’re going to roll with it. But hey, I wanted to do good things for Brielle’s birthday…and life has been busy, not to mention kind of painful, so here’s to doing the best you can! And I do have to say it’s so nice knowing we’re starting another year since Brielle died, without the things of our past cluttering up our life. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. As if my never ending to do list has shrunk and is almost manageable.

We will be doing something different each day of the week and then Saturday we will be celebrating! I’m excited for Saturday and plan on sharing some sweet videos and pictures of Brielle Bear and filling the day with happy memories of her.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t want Brielle’s life to feel sad and I don’t want her birthday to be sad either. We were given a sweet blessing, that we were able to share with the world, and Saturday is a day that can be celebrated, because I know that I got to be the mommy of the sweetest little girl there ever was! And I’m not biased at all.

68de15b93edf06358fd015c3f0526d0b — Did you guys know that most of you wont even read my posts unless I have a picture attached to them? Doesn’t matter what kind of picture either. Maybe I’ll just post memes that make me laugh, so that you can enjoy my humor while you read about my feelings. Then I get to laugh after I’ve written a serious post. 😉

I encourage you to participate in this celebration and if we all lived near to one another I’d want to celebrate with you all personally, but we don’t, so this is my way of bringing the party to you all. I hope this week and this coming Saturday is a little bit brighter for you.

We’ve cried together, laughed together, and grown together and I look forward to coming together again this week.

David’s Father’s Day Weekend

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016 ~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

David and I spent this past weekend with family and celebrating Brielle. Saturday afternoon we had a really nice visit with Bernice. We had a great conversation and she was incredibly clear, even giving David some much needed encouragement. It was great to see her doing so well.

We then went to David’s second cousins wedding. David’s dad was the youngest child and David is the youngest child, so David and his second cousin, Jimmy, are just six months apart. I love it and think it’s hilarious.

Jimmy has been a great source of encouragement to David as we’ve dealt with the loss of Brielle. He’s a great guy who’s always there when you need him. I count myself lucky to have a friend like him and to be a part of his family. That being said, we were very excited to see him marry Tammy.

The wedding was beautiful, one of the prettiest weddings I’ve ever attended. It was outside, the weather was perfect, everyone that came loved Jimmy and Tammy, it was just wonderful. And I’m so glad we were able to attend. I love David’s family, they are incredibly kind and have been very accepting of me.

We came home that night and took Brielle to church with us in the morning. David dressed her bear in her Star Wars dress, she was so cute! Dr. Cooper was on fire that morning and gave an incredible talk on David and Goliath. The talk is part of his valleys series, God guiding us through the valleys of life. David and I love attending Mt Paran, Dr. Cooper has a message that speaks directly to us, every single week, and we always feel the spirit of God there. I’ll talk more about this message later.

Sunday evening, for Father’s Day, we took Brielle back to Dave and Buster’s and recreated the photo booth picture. It felt so good to celebrate her again. It hurt to remember the pain of her absence, but it felt good to remember all the love and happiness we shared with her.

I think that’s one of the hardest things about grief, figuring out how to move forward. David, who has worked past the numb stage of grief, unlike me, held my hand and said, “I didn’t know how to go on. She was our world and now there’s nothing left. But this feels good, I want to celebrate her, I want to do all the things with her that we didn’t have the time for, like fly a kite. I want to keep doing her bucket list.”

This kind of took me off guard, so I was a little shocked, but David was sure, this is how he wants to move forward. So I said okay. We’ll make a new bucket list. We took her back to D&B and then, not feeling like video games, we decided to see Finding Dory. Which is a great movie.

We left Brielle in the car and later regretted it. It’s hard knowing where to take her and where not to take her. It can be embarrassing at times, carrying around a dressed up teddy bear, no one knows it’s an urn bear. And sometimes we feel silly, but then, like this Sunday, we regret it.

We’ll do better in the future. We’re still figuring out our new normal. But, at least, this incredibly sad anniversary, ended up being a very good weekend.

Thank You, Jeralyn!

May 16, 2016May 9, 2016 ~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

This is a very special post to me and something I’ve been planning and wanting to do right for a long time.

Jeralyn S. used to take care of me when I was a baby. She attended church at Airport Freeway where my family attended when I was young. And when she found out about Brielle she took it on herself to dote on Brielle just as she had doted on me. She has been sending David, Brielle, and I handmade cards throughout Brielle’s life and recently sent us a sweet Little Mermaid dress for her American Girl Doll, Grace (which also fits Brielle’s urn bear!).

And even more recently, she sent Brielle an adorable Star Wars dress. David and I are in love with it.

These cards mean more than she’ll ever know to David and I. She would write special messages to Brielle and I would read them to her. David would come home and get a big smile on his face as he read them. Each card was unique and different and we had so much fun seeing what Jeralyn had sent us! David especially loved the Star Wars themed card she sent for him.

Her cards always arrived when we needed them most and brought us joy when we were often deep in despair. I am so thankful to Jeralyn and her incredible kindness to my family. She has been such a blessing to us and especially to sweet Brielle. Thank you, Jeralyn, for everything you’ve done for my family.

Brielle Bear’s First Sunday at Church!

March 7, 2016 ~ lovingbrielle ~ Leave a comment

25594035815_2e5d706a0b_b — Daddy and Brielle Bear. He loves his little girl.

25567947286_e3b5319458_c — Selfie with mommy.

We brought Brielle in her urn bear to church on Sunday. I dressed her in one of the church outfits we’d bought her in October. I was so nervous, I thought it would be weird or we’d look ridiculous. But it felt right. David carried her in and we sat with some friends. We took turns holding her through the service. David wanted to hold her the most, he’d take her from me and would say, “It’s my turn to hold my little girl.” It was cute, he needed her there just as much as I did.

Our friends were very supportive and thought it was good. They’ve been very understanding and encouraging. And it was just nice. My arms didn’t ache as bad. I didn’t feel like I was falling apart. It felt right. It felt right, to bring her to the place she loved most.

David and I don’t have a grave site to visit or decorate. We have Brielle bear. And even though Brielle isn’t a part of this world, she still exists, and David and I are still parents. And we still need to parent her. We need to love her and celebrate her. And we’re still connected with her, so it’s not as simple as just saying, “She’s with God now” and moving on.

I don’t know what she sees. I don’t know what she knows. No one does. She loved God and church. She’d jump for joy when the pastor said, “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.” She danced when we sang praise songs. So David and I feel it’s right to still bring her to church, she’d want that.

We still need to honor Brielle. We still need to celebrate her and acknowledge her. And we’ll figure out our way of doing that. I’m not going to apologize for remembering Brielle and I’m going to do what’s best for my family. And right now, bringing Brielle to church is what is best for us. If she can see us, I think it made her happy.