This Dog's Life

Kerrigan loved animals, plain and simple. Horses, cats, cows, sheep, goats, fish...you name it, she adored it. Most of all, Kerrigan loved dogs. But there was one specific dog that she held in the highest esteem: Heidi. Now, there are two forms that Heidi comes in. The first is her Oma & Opa's border collie, Heidi. In fact, "Heidi" was her first word. There was a time that dogs were not known as dogs but rather "Heidi." Anything that barked, had floppy ears or a tail was "Heidi." The second Heidi in our family was her stuffed puppy by the same name.

Heidi in a picture taken by Kerrigan

Never have I known a stuffed animal to be so loved! You never know what stuffed toy your child will latch on to, and Heidi was certainly not anything we considered. It was just a stuffed dog that Grandma & Grandpa Foulger had at their house. A few years ago when Kerrigan was diagnosed with a severe case of bronchitis that bordered on pneumonia, she latched on to Heidi and there was no going back!

Heidi went everywhere that Kerrigan went! The grocery store, post office, overnight stays at grandparents' houses, preschool, doctor's appointments...Heidi was Kerrigan's shadow. Not a night went by that Heidi wasn't cuddled snuggly in her arms as she slept; not a morning went by when Kerrigan didn't bring Heidi into bed with us when she came to wake us up. When Kerrigan was potty training, Heidi learned to use the potty right along with her (you can see them in the video a couple posts down). Heidi learned how to do the Time Warp, learned her ABC's, watched movies with Heidi, and was a frequent guest on our girls' nights.

Heidi was hands-down Kerrigan's best friend. It was only fitting that after spending almost every waking moment with Kerrigan for nearly three years, Heidi should be the one to keep Kerrigan company until the day when we're reunited as a family. No little girl could have asked for a better companion!

Potty Time

It's been a while since I posted one of Kerrigan's videos, and I figured it was time to add something uplifting to her blog. These videos were taken when Kerrigan was about 2 years old and was just starting to potty train. Needless to say she wasn't very keen on the idea and looked at her potty as more of a place to sit and read to Heidi than for anything else. It was a place where three of her favorite things could come together: Mommy & Daddy's bathroom, Heidi, and reading.

Monument for an Angel

One of the most difficult things I have ever done has finally been completed today. Apart from arranging services and making other arrangements after Kerrigan passed, designing her memorial has been the hardest thing. How do you create something that reflects your child's life while standing in remembrance of her for hundreds of years to come? How do you relate her life to compete strangers who would happen upon her resting place, yet provide a comforting place for your family to visit and remember her?

Our first step was choosing a company to create her memorial. We chose Bott Monuments out of Rivertone. They had created Grandpa Strom's memorial and did a beautiful job with it. They were great and worked with us every step of the way, whether offering suggestions on shape or stone type and color, to final preparation and accessories.

We started off knowing that we wanted a heart shaped memorial. Beyond that, there wasn't much else we were sure of. When we arrived at Bott's, we found that they were able to adhere broze casts to the stone. Because we had always associated Kerrigan with butterflies, we decided to add some bronze butterflies to the stone. We were even more pleased when we learned that the butterflies could be covered in a colored patina of our choosing. Naturally, we went with her favorite colors: pink and purple.

Here is a picture of the first draft that we looked at:

The poem on the back was from a decorative plaque that Kerrigan's Aunt Jill gave her a few years ago, and we thought it was very fitting to grace her monument. The vases have butterflies going up the front, and are also bronze with a purple patina. We chose not to go with this design because we had wanted to include a box in the memorial into which we could place stuffed animals or little trinkets for holidays or her birthday. Thus brought on the second design:

This picture shows the two stone options that we were considering: a red granite, and Barre Gray, which happens to be the same type of stone that the Joseph Smith memorial is made of. We went with the Barre Gray in order to have the butterflies as the focal point of the stone. For good measure, we had another option created: This is the option that we had chosen, with a few little tweaks to it. Unfortunately, the day that the order was being sent to the quarry, we happened to be re-reading the rules of the Cowley cemetary and found that memorials are not allowed to be taller than three feet. The memorial we had just approved was almost four and a half feet tall! So, with some scrambling around and frantic calls to Bott's, we decided on the second option with the offset heart.

Here's a look at what the butterflies look like:

When was had sent out color swatches, we had chosen a hot pink and a bright purple. When the butterflies arrived from Germany, the purple was PERFECT! The pink...was brick red!! Needless to say, something had to be done! Thankfully, Bott's works with a foundry in Utah that was able to re-patina the butterflies and apply a more acceptable color of pink. Whew!!

We also chose to have Kerrigan's picture mounted on her monument. Her wonderful Uncle DooDoo was able to take one of our favorite pictures of her and tweak it so that it had a more colorful background and better quality overall. Here's the final proof.
We were so thankful that the weather was able to hold out while her memorial was installed. We were all a little weary when it was still raining and overcast this morning, but the sun finally broke through, the temperature warmed up, and the rain stopped! It was a beautiful 65 degrees when we arrived in Cowley. While the men installed Kerrigan's stone, I did some cleaning on my grandpa's headstone and watched while one of the guys from Bott's engraved new dates on my great-grandma's stone.

When all is said and done, we have a beautiful memorial for a beautiful little girl. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us through the creation of this tribute to her memory!

6 Months Since...

It's exceptionally hard to believe that the 6 month anniversary of Kerrigan's loss is next week. It's an indescribable feeling: time flying by with Jasper, but crawling without Kerrigan. I look at Jasper and can't believe that he's already almost 5 and a half months old, but at the same time, it's a reminder that on the day he turned 5 months, the 6 month anniversary was 2-1/2 weeks away. And I hate thinking about his age like that...always adding how long Kerrigan's been gone after realizing how old Jasper is. I truthfully hope that one day I'll be able to say how old he is without the painful thought of how long it's been since we lost Kerrigan hanging in the air. I know it won't be for many years to come...it may never even happen...but I can wish for it every day!

While it hasn't been 6 months since we lost our little girl, it has been six months since the last pictures of her were taken. I realized this today as I was going through pictures, readying to print off monthly pictures of her first year of life for a matching frame with Jasper's. The last pictures we took of Kerrigan were on Marlin's birthday last November. I'm just thankful that it was under a happy setting and that she was able to play with her cousins, Ella and Lexi, on that last time they had together, and on the last day that the Richardson family was complete.

What They Don't Tell You...

I wish that grief came with an owner's manual and anytime I faced a difficult situation I could go to the index, find the particular thing I'm looking for, and be told just how to handle it. Unfortunately, there are so many things that nobody ever prepares you to handle. Everyone always tells you that things are going to be different, that holidays are never going to be the same, that you'll look at everything in a completely different light. That is all a complete understatement! What they fail to tell you is how your heart will be ripped out on Mother's Day, how you'll never get to watch your child's preschool graduation, how you will have to watch everyone else her age going to kindergarten when she will never get the chance. You go on family vacations with a stand-in. You watch your infant son put his hand on her picure and coo like he knows exactly who he's talking to. I suppose I should perhaps put some background to all of this...

Brandon, Jasper, and I took a road trip last week to South Dakota and Denver. It never felt right to be taking a family trip without Kerrigan with us. In her stead, we carried a Pillow Pet bumble bee (Background: That was the ONE thing she had asked for at Christmas...she so desperately wanted a bumble bee Pillow Pet. As soon as he felt up to is, Daddy went out and bought her one for her room. We soon found that they make miniature ones, so we bought one to place in her memorial when it's complete, and another to carry with us whenever we felt so inclined.) One of the reasons we went that week was to avoid being in church over Mother's Day; the primary children singing, seeing all the happy mothers with their complete families was just too much for me to even think about handling...needless to say, I did not want to celebrate Mother's Day at all without the child who made me a mother in the first place. We went to dinner at Olive Garden, and to top off an already stressful evening (cranky baby), the waitress slipped a small "Happy First Mother's Day" card into the billfold. That was it for me. I hated people thinking that it was only my first Mother's Day...it was my fifth! I would receive no handcrafted present from preschool, no pictures scribbled in crayon, no plaster cast of little hands, no "I love you, Mommy!"...instead I proudly wore my new pendant with her footprint and birthstone. Nobody ever tells you how to control the feelings that swell through you on a day celebrating mothers when the person who gave you that title is gone. It's so hard to look into Jasper's eyes and not see her...not see her staring up with me with big, bright blue eyes and knowing that I was her Mommy.

Nobody tells you how to sit on the sidelines and watch Facebook posts from your friends with children her age being so excited about registering their children for kindergarten and glowing with pride as their children hold their preschool diplomas. I will never see my baby girl in her cap and gown, with her hair all curled and her black Sunday shoes shining, singing the songs she learned in preschool and bursting with excitement at the prospect of going to the big kids' school next year. And she was SO excited about kindergarten. She couldn't have been prouder to be going to the school where Mommy went and possibly having the same teacher that taught her mommy. I couldn't have been more proud to have her attending the school where I went, learning from some of the best teachers I have ever known...I was practically bursting at the seams at the thought of walking her across the street to school. Listening to the school bell and hearing the kids screaming at recess will never sound the same to me again when I remember that she should be out there with them, screaming right along with the rest of her classmates.

There are so many, many things that you never think you have to be prepared for..but I truthfully hope that as each difficult day passes, we remember how to handle it for the next time it comes around. One day at a time...each day a little easier than the last...

Please Don't Ask Me If I'm Over It Yet

"Please Don’t Ask Me If I’m Over It Yet"

Please, don't ask me if I'm over it yet.

I'll never be over it.

Please, don't tell me she's in a better place.

She isn't with me.

Please, don't say at least she isn't suffering.

I haven't come to terms with why she had to suffer at all.

Please, don't tell me you know how I feel

Unless you have lost a child.

Please, don't ask me if I feel better.

Bereavement isn't a condition that clears up.

Please, don't tell me at least you had her for so many years.

What year would you choose for your child to die?

Please, don't tell me God never gives us more than we can bear.

Please, just tell me you are sorry.

Please, just say you remember my child, if you do.

Please, just let me talk about my child.

Please, mention my child's name.

Please, just let me cry.

--Rita Moran. Published in Compassionate Friends

On a lighter note, it's time to post a new video of Kerrigan. These videos are my testament to how horrible mothers can be sometimes when we use the torture of our children for our own cheap amusement.

Blessing Day

We blessed Jasper last Sunday (March 28th), and it was a wonderful day. Although Kerrigan wasn't there with us, during the blessing Brandon gave Jasper, I truly felt her presence in the chapel with us. It made things a little easier to get through without her there. I thought I'd share the pictures from Kerrigan's blessing (September 3, 2006).

4 generations of Strom girls!

4 generations of Harveys

The Richardsons

Mommy, Daddy, and Kerrigan

Kerrigan in her blessing dress, which is the one that was worn by me and my sisters, as well as the cap that my great-grandma made for my grandpa.