Flower Garden

Today I got a wild hair and decided to build a flower garden between two trees in my front yard. So I had a friend with a truck go to Walmart with us, get the pavers and 60 bags of soil I was going to need to make this flower bed. Then Faith and I picked out flowers, flowers that she thought Papa would have loved, flowers that I knew he had liked a lot that I had planted in the past. It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of love in it. She did a wonderful job. Then I found this little resin statue of a little girl on a trike, I had to get it, it reminded me of Faith and Bren on their red flyer tryke that Joel bought for the girls for christmas the year before he left for Iraq, he put it together and loved watching them ride it. Faith saw it and loved it, so we had to get it. Then as I was checking out, I saw this cherub angel and I immediatly thought of Joel when I saw it, so I decided to get it and surprise FAith with it, wanting to see her reaction. She saw it, and said, "mama, that is a beautiful angel, just like Papa." She loved it and held it the whole way home. It will now sit in the garden with a "special" flower right in the front of it, one she picked out just for her papa. I picked Bren up from school, knowing that I would have to get a few more flowers for one other bed, so we went and I let Bren pick out some flowers. She picked some flowers out and I said, "brenna, your papa would have loved these, mama used to plant those a lot and he loved them." She said, "ok mama" and picked out another flower and my response was, "mama loves these, but papa thought they looked like weeds." She got really quiet and did not say anything, just stood there staring at the flowers. I knelt down and asked her what was wrong and she said, "I miss my papa and I want him home, that is why I am worried about him". I said, honey it will be ok, I miss him a lot too and that is why I want to do this flower garden for him, I miss him and know he would love the flowers. I told her that papa would love any flowers that she picked out because it was something she loved and that was the truth, it did not matter if it was the ugliest plant out there, Joel would have loved it because of the love that was in the decision. So we finished picking out our flowers, paid for them and came home. Bren saw the cherub and she was so excited, she said, "mama it is our papa angel garden, it so cool". I know this will be a good thing, this will be a healing, healthy thing for the girls and I. We are doing it together and that is what is sooooo important right now, what means the most. We will find ways through it and maybe this wild hair was not so wild, maybe this is just what we needed right now to heal, just what we needed to do as a "family". I will post pictures when we are done and show everyone our "papa angel garden". I am so proud of my girls, they are two beautiful strong little girls. They amaze me.