remembering rex

Every year in October, we spend the weekend of Rex's birthday out in Western MA.  We like to be close to the tree that we planted for him, scattering the ashes of our sweet first-born baby into the earth beneath the roots.  So this year, Harper, Hunter, and I packed up on Friday after dance class and rode out to Mimi's house in her car since she's off from work on Fridays.  Dallin met us up there later that night, making the drive after he was done with work.

Hunter, checking out the squash at the farm stand

En route, we stopped at a farm stand to pick up some more pumpkins.  Even though we are developing quite the pumpkin collection, I believe that you can never have enough during October.  We then spent the afternoon enjoying the gorgeous outdoors at Mimi's house.  Nothing makes our hearts happier than the expansive fields, the crisp air, and the beautiful foliage.  It's hard not to feel close to heaven when those are our surroundings.  As my friend Elizabeth pointed out to me this year, the foliage is always at its most beautiful for Rex's birthday; I just love that.  Hunter putted around with his little pretend lawn mower, only taking a break to chase his ball through the field, ride in the play car with Harper, and for Mimi to pull them together in her little antique wagon.

Little man, hard at work.

There's always room for two.

Mimi takes the little Hs for a wagon ride!

Of course, Hunter brings a basketball in the wagon with him.

Soaking up the great outdoors with my little adventurer

Since Hunter now equates Mimi's house with the Eric Carle Museum, no visit to Western MA is complete without a museum trip.  Dallin had actually never been to the museum before so it was fun to have him join us this time.  Harper especially enjoyed having Daddy in the museum studio with her, and he helped her work on her art project.

Hunter in his happy place--the Eric Carle Museum.

Harper was excited to show Daddy around the museum studio
and to work together on her art project.

Reading with Mimi and the very hungry caterpillar

Enjoying the rare occurence of having more adults than children present, I snuck into the museum gift shop for a bit, and I was thrilled to discover a special new Halloween book that my friend Talyn was just telling me about, Creepy Carrots.  It couldn't have been a more perfect time to read a story about funny, eerie carrots because, later that day, Harper helped Mimi harvest some creepy carrots of their own.  Some of the carrots were white, some were orange, and one even had two carrots attached!  Creepy indeed.  Harper thought it was super funny, but we all agreed that they were delicious in the carrot râpées that we had at dinner that evening--which had been a favorite of Grandpa Nick's.  

Creepy carrots!

Harper loves helping Mimi in the garden, this time harvesting carrots.

Harper and Daddy take a night time tractor ride!

Sunday would have been Rex's 5th birthday.  So Dallin and I walked down to his little tree with Harper and Hunter.  Harper calls it "big brother's tree."  We talked with them about their big brother, up in heaven.  

Harper and I have talked a lot about heaven this year, both with Marjorie's passing and also because sometimes she gets curious about her big brother.  Now that she is another year older, she understands just a bit more about life cycles.  She talks about how Rex is together in heaven with her friend, Marjorie, and how one day she will give him a big hug.  Sometimes she talks about how he is with Grandpa Nick.  She wants to know when she will go to heaven, which is such a difficult conversation.  I have told her that I hope it will be a long, long time--once she is older than Gramzy and has white hair.  She is so earnest in her desire to understand, so sweet that it breaks my heart.  In some ways, I hate that she has cause to understand death at not even four years old, but I am also grateful that she has a knowledge of heaven that is not scary.  Still, it is a heavy subject, and I am glad that there is a physical place that we can go to reflect on our angel baby with our earthly children.

Love this little pumpkin

Harper was excited to bring one of the little pumpkins we had gathered down to Rex's tree.  "Hunter!" she said, "Do you want to go see big brother's tree?"
"Uh-huh," he replied.
So they trotted down the hill towards the tree, with Dallin and I trailing behind them.  Then the most beautiful thing happened: it began to snow.  Surrounded by the stunning fall foliage, tiny snowflakes swirled around us.  Heaven felt so close.

"Hunter, do you want to go see big brother's tree?"  Love.

We wish that we were able to know our little boy, to know the person he would be at five years old.  Harper claims that he is taller than her up in heaven; I imagine that would be true.  Having gotten to know our precious little Hs, it feels sad and wrong that we didn't get to do the same with our first born little boy, but we are grateful to know that our family is forever, eternal, and that one day we will all be together again.  What a day that will be.

We were touched by the most heavenly of snow flurries for our angel baby's 5th birthday.