last sunday we blessed piper. my dad, with the help of my brother-in-laws paul and travis, brian's brother kevin and our bishop, gave the blessing. as usual, he did an incredible job.
i took this picture to show piper what she was doing ALL morning long -- and we hadn't even got her in her dress yet! nothing gets you in the mood to feel the spirit like the continual cry of your baby. i thought we were in for a stressfull, i.e. loud, blessing, (come to think of it, 99% of all the pictures we have of her she is either already crying, or getting ready to! she's going to L-O-V-E all her baby pictures. yeah.)
but miraculously as soon as we pulled out of our driveway she was SILENT for the rest of the day. totally silent. my dad even accused me of drugging her. i didn't, but i confess that he did put the idea in my head and i've considered it several times since.
my mom made piper's blessing dress from my wedding dress material and we used the same flowers we made for my dress as well. how cool is that? she just whipped it up like it was a simple pot of macaroni and tomatos.
she's a master seamstress. it's one of her talents i've ALWAYS wished i'd inherited. but since i didn't, i've tried, trust me,i've totally had to depend on mom to make the creations in my mind become reality. and she always does.
i love having this dress because i'm totally into traditions --big and small -- whether it's a once-a-week "tradition" or something we do once-a-year, i'm into it. i like having "moments" that i can count on -- look forward to -- whether it's popcorn and limeade with our thursday nite shows, or the summer trek to the ranch, it's how i track time. and how i feel comfort. and i get anxious when people try to change or mess with my traditions. and now i can add the blessing dress into the mix. sure, i'll have to wait a good 25, hopefully 30, years before we can re-live this particular tradition when my 1st grandchild gets blessed. but i can't wait. and luckily i have LOTS of other traditions to fill my time until then.
the day was a bittersweet one though. a few hours before piper's blessing my sweet, sweet grandfather passed away. i wanted to cancel the blessing and do it next month, but my dad insisted that we keep to the plan. my dad is notoriously emotional when it comes to these type things, and it had to be immensely harder to do hours after losing his father. i was very proud of him.
i was devastated that grampa wouldn't make it to piper's blessing. besides the obvious reasons, it would have been the first time he would have met her. i found some comfort in the fact that he had come to visit her in the hospital when she was first born, but she was still hooked up to oxygen and so many cords and tubes and wasn't allowed out of her isolette yet, so i didn't get to do proper introductions. i had been feeling badly about that all morning -- along with all the other emotions of losing gramps -- and was really wishing he was with us that day. i kept wondering if maybe he would still come to the blessing and prayed that i would know if he did. right before our turn (there were 4 baby blessings that day) i knew he was with us. i felt a tingling, little hug around my shoulders. i could literally feel him there. it was a huge relief.
many pictures have been circulating and posted of gramps, but this has always been my favorite. even at 92, i could still see this young, strong man in him. the only thing that really changed is his hair! i look at his eyes in this picture and they're the same eyes i saw last time we were together. i also like it because it's how i imagine him being now. back in his prime.
this may sound corny, but when i was in my 20's, and not having babies, it's one of the things i would think about all the time: that if i didn't hurry up and get to it, my children wouldn't be old enough to get to know my grandparents. and since my life has been so profoundly affected by them, and some of my best traditions revolve around them, i really really wanted to share some of those experiences with them.
over the past couple of years, since levi was born, i've been trying to calculate how old he'll be when his experiences and people will become life-long memories. i don't think 2.5 qualifies. so i'll just have to brush up my story-telling skills -- hopefully i got some of those genes from gramps -- and do my best to help levi & piper understand the legacy their great-grandpa left and do him justice in how well they get to know him.
luckily i still have BOTH of my grandmas and i'm confident they'll be around for a long-while. levi & piper are super-lucky. they will definitely get to have relationships with both of their great-grandmas. and how lucky am i? how many people get to be 38.9 before they lose their 1st grandparent. i've been extremely blessed. love you gramps. i miss you. see you soon.
