Just some random thoughts.....

I frequent a scrapbooking website EVERYDAY :) Recently there was a post about a Christmas card that someone recieved from a family member with a picture of the sender's daughters at the grave of their brother who had died 3 years ago. It raised the question on if people thought it was "appropriate".

I have to be honest --before Kaitlyn died my answer would have been "YES" very weird -- but now --not so weird. It is my greatest fear that Kaitlyn will be forgotten -- I want her to ALWAYS be remembered. I notice that I go out of my way to include her in conversations. When her friends come over I make sure that they have pictures of her, I gave everyone windchimes for Christmas as a rememberance of her. I totally get where that mom was coming from -- this is her reality -- her son is in a grave BUT he is still her son. So who knows what I will be sending out in three years for Christmas cards -- My only hope that Kaitlyn's memory is still strong in everyone's mind.

The post also had conversation about grieving parents -- We WANT to talk about our children, we appreciate the random phone call asking how we are doing. A card in the mail touches us in a way that you will never understand (hopefully).

Now for an update of sorts -- I went to speak to the prinicipal at Kaitlyn's school today -- I want to preface this by saying that I think he is a wonderful prinicpal -- he showed us tremendous support when Kaitlyn died and he had always been there for Jeremy -- BUT today I felt somewhat sad and disappointed when I left --

We are able to put the tree up in Kaitlyn's memory BUT he does not want a plaque anywhere because "where would they draw the line" he even compared it to the crosses on the side of the road -- at first I said I understood BUT since I have had time to really think about it I have to wonder if Kaitlyn had been a star athelete or an honor student would his stance had been different -- does her life not mean as much because her death was related to drugs --does she not matter ?????? Will other parents "complain" because she used drugs???

My son thinks the reason is not so much the fact that she was not a "star" at school but it is the way she died -- they don't want to draw attention to it because that would be admitting that there is a problem here -- Jeremy's word were -- "until they are ready to deal with the obvious drug problem here more kids are going to die and they will keep pushing it under the rug." Pretty smart kid I have there.

My question to Mr Murrel is -- Is Kaitlyn less of a person because she died of drugs instead of something else -- is her death less tragic -- is her friends grief not real because of the way she died -- do they miss her less ????

I guess I have a decision to make -- let this go and plant the tree or fight for my daughter to be remembered for more than just the way she died................................