You would have just finished your first week of Kindergarten today. You would have been exhausted and exhilarated from all the new experiences, from joining your big brother at our church’s elementary school, from finally graduating from the church’s preschool playground to the “big kid” playground. But instead you started this school year across the parking lot in the church’s Prayer Garden cemetery. This is not the first day of school I dreamed of for you. And while I don’t grieve your place in Heaven, from time to time I find myself grieving of what could have been here on earth.
But those moments of grief are fleeting. And if there was any place on earth more fitting for our final goodbye, I can’t think of it. Your daddy and I met at this church. We were married here. Your brother and sisters were baptized here. Your funeral was here. This year your brother will celebrate his first Eucharist here. We celebrate mass here every weekend and your brother and sister go to school here every weekday. And today is your first day of final rest here. This place is the heart of our family’s community for worship, fellowship, and education and I am so grateful that you have a place here now.
We had a small ceremony for you today. Led by the prayers of our dear friend and favorite priest, we said goodbye on a beautifully warm September morning. The sunshine sparkled on the pond your gravesite overlooks. Your mama was so very specific that you absolutely must have the plot, in the ground, closest to that sweet little pond so that I could come and sit with you and visit. (Someday maybe I’ll find that sweet couple who was choosing their future plot the same day as we were choosing yours and so graciously let us have yours, even though it was their first choice, when they heard we would be burying our daughter).
It wasn’t easy watching the dirt fall over your heart-shaped urn. And when we returned that evening for the church’s annual fall festival I took a moment between the food trucks and bouncy houses to lie with you. And I wept. I wept like I haven’t for a long time. My hands ached to rip the fresh sod off your grave as my fingers combed through the grass. To pull you from the earth and hold you like my child. But you are not mine, you are His. And I know it’s not fully YOU in that earth. I know your soul waits for us in Heaven. But in the meantime I will cherish the sweet moments I have visiting what remains of you here on earth.
All my love,
Mama