The Unraveling of Spring

Dear Caleb,

Last month your little brother Montey turned 4. Two weeks ago little Tamara turned 8. Spring is such a hard knot to swallow. It is painful to my heart to see your siblings growing without you, especially when they catch up to you. It was so difficult on me when Liahona turned 8 and at that time it seemed forever away until Tamara would be there, and now here she is. It was so hard on both me and her as she would be turning 8 as well. She said in the past that she never wanted to turn 8 because that's your age she would say, and now in a few months she too will physically be older then you. I feel uncertain about my emotions with all this aging without you aging with us, and I seem to be a bit bipolar about it too. I go from being an emotional mess trying to hold back tears as I watch your siblings grow older each year; to the next day crying out with joy in prayer that we are one day closer in being together again. I try to remind myself that age is irrelevant; it is just the natural processes of life that we all go through. And that you will always be their older brother, that they will always look up too, no matter the physical age.

It has almost been 3 years now, with this whole new living life without you and it still doesn't seem real to me. I am using my eyes, but they don't see how they used too. I am using my ears but they don't work like they used too.

There is a song that we came across awhile ago that really summed up how I have been feeling, interesting enough it was on the movie Alice in Wonderland. I have always thought that movie was weird and a bit frightening as a child. There is a song called 'Almost Alice', the words hit very close to home for me. It starts off by saying:

Trippin out

Spinning around
I'm underground
I fell down
Yeah I fell down

I'm freaking out, where am I now?
Upside down and I can't stop it now

Can't stop me now

This is almost exactly how it felt from the beginning, we fell down hard and we kept trying to get up again but no matter our trying to move forward, our lives were upside down and nothing was going to stop or change that for our family.

I, I'll get by
I, I'll survive
When the world's crashing down
When I fall and hit the ground
I will turn myself around
Don't you try to stop me
I, I won't cry
In these two and three quarter years I felt that this has been our families motto, "WE'll GET BY, WE'LL SURVIVE." No matter how many knots we have to swallow, no matter how many tears we fight from falling. We are going to turn this heartbreaking experience into something good. You are worth fighting for, and no one can stop us now... we are on our way, we are pushing forward through these aches and pains.

I found myself in Wonderland
Get back on my feet again,
Is this real?
Is this pretend?
I'll take a stand until the end

I often get stuck in Wondering about the what ifs, the if only's, a place I like to call Wonderland.

It's very hard to get back on my two feet if I stay there too long. I start to question what is real, what is really going on? What does an all Loving God want me, and our family to learn from all this. As I struggle to get out of my Wonderland, I am reminded that this pain and heart ache, the bigger sense of life, this immense love for you Caleb, is REAL. And the spirit reconfirms to me again and again that this is not so pretend, but what we call temporary. And this is the stand that we as a family will take to the end. THIS IS TEMPORARY!

This aching and grief has been bitter, and yet a joy in the eternal sense, having been taught the bigger sense of life, of what is real, and what is pretend 'Temporary." Our hearts rejoice within us because we will see for ourselves that truly God is loving, that his promises are indeed real. We ache to be with you and to have our family together again. The push is strong and great, and we are thankful for that, for that is what keeps us heading forward. How thankful we are to have been blessed to know the bitter, for we look forward to receiving that sweet joy of peace and rest from all our sorrows and cares someday.

See You Soon, Love Your Mommy

May Memories (Part 1 made in 2009)

May 1st Liahona remembers how Caleb would pray in a stink bug position on his knees with his head on the ground.

May 2nd Liahona remembers how Caleb had a hard time saving his money. Once he earned it he would want to spend it.

May 2nd Liahona remembers how Caleb loved the song from the totally Zany cd called, 'Zero, Zero."

May 2nd Mom remembers how hard Caleb would try to sing the Primary songs at church. he would sing a couple of words then he would stop and stick his tongue out of his mouth to take a break when he didn't know the words, then he would sing some more. And he would also swallow gulps in between singing with the parts that he knew the best.

May 3 Liahona remembers how her and Caleb had an underwear party. They would gather all their clean underwear together and throw them up like fireworks and pretended they were strange people and would say, "Oh, Free underwear," as they would grab some.

May 3 Liahona remembers how her and Caleb would play parade. And would pretend to be on floats, going down the road. And they would pretend to be BIG animal balloons as they walked wide and put blankets over themselves.

May 3 Liahona remembers playing the Question game with Caleb. One would keep asking "Who, What,Why, When, Where?" As the other person would keep answering the Questions that were asked.

May 4 Liahona remembers when watching super why with Caleb, and each time they would get a new letter to make the super words they would try to sound out the word with just those letters.

May 4 Liahona remembers how in a race,Caleb would always beat her, she would always beat Tamara, and Tamara would always beat Montey.

May 4 Tamara remembers when on a family walk how a grasshopper jumped on Caleb's shoulder and stayed there for awhile to enjoy the free ride. She remembers how Caleb was kind of happy and kind of scared at the same time.

May 5 Mom remembers how Caleb taught Montey how to do love chest bumps as they jumped into the air into each others bodies.

May 5 Liahona remembers on Super Why a PBS kids show, that when her and Caleb and Tamara would watch it they would pretend to fly around as the Super Reads flew around in their jets.

May 6 Mom remembers how it took Caleb a long time to get used too and be okay with Rudy (our friends dog.) Yet he would still be a bit cautious with Rudy around.

May 6 Liahona remembers sitting next to Caleb at CiCi's Pizza at his soccer party. And sat next to him while he played a racing car game.

May 7 Liahona remembers how Caleb would sit on his legs when sitting on a chair, especially on the dinning room chair eating breakfast lunch and dinner.

May 7 Liahona remembers when we first got to Nebraska Caleb said, "It's so flat. Why is it so flat?"

May 7 Tamara remembers how Caleb loved to bite his straws from his drinks that he would get at resturaunts.

May 8 Mom remembers when driving through the neighborhood Caleb and Liahona would play I spy a flower on the door, by saying, "Flower," each time they found one.

May 8 Liahona remembers how Dad would have her and Caleb race each other as they would tie their shoelaces. She remembers how most of the time Caleb would always win, and sometimes she would win. Dad said they needed to do this to help them learn how to tie their shoes.

May 8 Liahona remembers playing hide'n' go seek with Caleb and he hid on the counter in the kitchen, standing next to the fridge.

May 8 Dylan remembers picking off the fuzzes with Caleb that was on Dylan's sweater.

May 9 Mom remembers how Caleb liked to play board games.

May 9 Liahona remembers how Caleb liked to play the game Life.

May 9 Tamara remembers that Caleb liked playing the game Disney Monopoly.

May 9 Mom remembers that Caleb did not like to play the Disney Character game because he would often loose to his mom , and he liked to win.

May 10 Mom remembers that Caleb liked playing the game Balloon Lagoon. But he did not like doing the part where the frogs had to bounce into the lily pad.

May 10 Dad remembers how Caleb liked to play Settlers of Catan on Sunday Evenings after church.

May 10 Dad remembers how Caleb liked to play Sea Fairs of Catan (just learned) on Sunday evenings too with Mom and Dad.

May 10 Mom remembers how it would often be Caleb bringing up the idea of playing a board game.

May 11 Tamara remembers how Caleb loved to play checkers and chess. He was very good at these games.

May 11 Liahona remembers how Caleb liked playing checkers and chess and other games on webkinz .

May 12 Liahona remembers for PE, her and Caleb would take turns using the Pedo-Meter that snapped onto their pants to count how many steps they took, and would have to make it a certain number to show before they were done.

May 12 Mom remembers that Caleb would rather do PE for school than anything else. He loved being active and being outside.

May 13 Mom remembers how Caleb loved to read and sing the Hymns and Primary songs from the songbook at bedtime after being tucked in for the night.

May 13 Dad remembers how quick Caleb was to obey even when he didn't want to do what he was told.

May 14 Liahona remembers playing the animal game ___ vs ____ like: Tigers vs Polar Bears. They would have to try to get the other animal on it's back or tummy and count to 3. Then they would win that round. And they would start another round.

May 14 Liahona remembers how Caleb liked to put olives on his fingers.

May 15 Mom remembers how Caleb loved singing and talking into the fan.

May 15 Liahona remembers how her and Caleb would talk ti each other through the floor vents.

May 15 Liahona remembers that her and Caleb would sit on the stair railing/ wall on the stairs from the OR home.

May 15 Liahona remembers playing lego land with Caleb. They would be lego people and they would color pictures like cars, stop signs, green lights, flowers around the house. They would carry the coloring of a car when they were in it. And would stop at the red lights, go at the green lights, And some times they would loose pieces as they crashed.

May 15 Mom remembers how Caleb would try to guess a webkinz code and try to adopt a new webkinz, but obviously it would never work.

May 15 Liahona remembers catching a butterfly with Caleb and put in in Caleb and Dylan's bug zoo.

May 15 Dad remembers how he played spear war with the kids and with the Draper kids with using ears of corn.

May 15 Dad remembers how Caleb liked to be the first when hiking.

May 15 Dad remembers how Caleb liked to use a hiking stick to walk with and whack things with while on the way.

May 15 Mom remembers how Caleb liked to drag his walking stick on the ground to make snake trails.

May 15 Liahona remembers taking turns with Caleb when tickling each others backs they would use their hands cars to draw on each others backs. One specific orange car was known as the 'tickling car.'