Small reminders

It feels like it's been forever since I've had time to sit with my thoughts and write.  We've made it through one of the busiest weeks of the year for us.  Trip down south, Disneyland, Thanksgiving, Kellen's birthday, back up north and Farrah's birthday party all within a week.  I'm tired just thinking about it!  Farrah's 4th birthday was on Tuesday and when we asked her what she wanted to do she just said she wanted to stay home.  She's a bit of a homebody.  Abe and I are too so it's no surprise she's the same way.  So we decided to make it a day filled with Christmas festivities.  We put up the decorations inside and outside the house and just had a lazy day.  Kellen made his presence known throughout the day.  Still hoping I'll get to the point where I think of him and smile, but right now I still hurt when I think of him.  When Farrah and I were decorating the tree, I pulled an ornament out of the box that I didn't recognize at first and when I looked at it closely I realized it was Kellen's "baby's first Christmas" ornament from last year.  What started off as a happy activity with my daughter, quickly made me sad.  I tried to ignore it for her sake and continue decorating.
Abe had gone to Target to buy some Christmas decorations for the house and he came home with these big block letters that say "JOY."  They were very pretty so while he was outside putting up the lights I thought I'd set them up on top of our China hutch.  While I was playing with Farrah in her room I heard Abe come inside, up the stairs, and then I heard him doing something in Kellen's room.  We've kept Kellen's door shut since he passed away so I looked in to see what he might be doing in there and saw him arranging the "JOY" letters in Kellen's window sill with Christmas lights all around them. 

This picture doesn't do it justice, but this is what it looks like at night from the outside of our house.  It looks beautiful.  I still feel sadness when I think of him, but he did bring us so much joy that I think it fits nicely. 

After we finished the lights we headed out for Farrah's birthday dinner.  We made a stop on the way for me to pick up her bike I ordered online on black Friday.  Don't worry Farrah isn't quite reading yet there's no chance she'll read this and find out what she's getting for Christmas.  Besides, even if she could read, my blog doesn't have princesses all over it so there's no chance she would read it.  While I was waiting for them to bring the bike up front I was looking around at all the toys thinking about how different Christmas will be this year.  Then the gentleman working pushed the cart out with Farrah's bike and another toy that belonged to someone else that happened to be Kellen's favorite toy. 

This was his favorite toy.  He would mostly just chase the balls around on the floor but this monstrosity of a toy took up half my living room for a long time.  When I saw it on the cart I couldn't help but picture him crawling all around the living room chasing after the balls and I got really sad again.  I knew it was his way of saying hi to me, and while I love thinking of him, I hate the sadness that is still there.
I was able to keep it together until the car ride home from the restaurant.  I cried the whole way home.  Then when we got home I kept it together again for a while until I laid down in bed and I just let go and cried until there wasn't much left.  I didn't have a specific reason why I was crying, and yet I had every reason to cry.  I was crying because I was sad, I was crying because I was angry, I was crying because I felt robbed, I was crying because I miss him so very much.
I want this sadness to go away but I'm afraid that will mean he's being forgotten.  For now I will try to remember these small reminders are Kellen just making his presence known.  I find comfort in knowing he's still around us... that he's still here, just in a different way.