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.