How on earth do you choose a headstone to mark the grave of someone you have loved lost? As I've been talking to Mary about them, I realized one more thing we (both families) laid on her shoulders. I'm sure that most of us didn't think about things like that a year ago. We thought we were just choosing whole we wanted Joie to live with. We thought of things like where would she feel the most comfortable, where would she be centrally located to still see all of us. And I have no doubt that all of us were guided by Nick and Ru. I remember talking to Maryann, the counselor at Primary Children's. She was so amazed that Stan and Diana and I were so in agreement over the hard decision we were making. Of course, all of us wanted Joie to be with us. But we all knew this was a time to listen to the spirit and do what was best for that beautiful little girl. We had to do what was best for her, not for us.
Ok, I digress. Back to the headstones. I had input into the design for Howard's headstone, but because of location I didn't do the actualy work. NOTE TO SELF: Call Brenda tonight and thank her again for doing all the work. She listened to my ideas, found someone to draw the train picture, met with the mortuary, and did so much work above and beyond the duty of a sister.
Thinking back, I have a lot of blank spots about picking Jim's headstone. I remember Lala going with me, and possibly Brenda along with Jim's Mom and maybe brothers.? I remember wanting the Provo temple because that was 'his temple.' And I remember the reaction when I wanted the roses on the sides of the book. I was told that usually that is for women and men's headstones have the leaves. But Howard's and mine has roses, and I wanted Jim's to match. My burial plot is right in between theirs. At the time I laughed at Lala's idea that I should put a double on Jim's with both our names on it, just like I had with her Dad. But now sometimes I wish I could have done that.
I opened the file Mary sent me this morning for Nick, Ru and Audrey's headstones. And I immediately closed it. I'm online before work, and I will have to wait until tonight. I don't need to go to work with puffy, red eyes. I kept telling Mary that I was ok with whatever they decided, because I know they got lots of imput from Joie. But after I hung up the phone last night I realized that I just don't want to have to deal with making decisions for the headstone for my son because he's not supposed to be dead!
