Froggies Galore

The world is a funny, funny place.

And Friday was no exception.

Friday afternoon was spent at Children's, thankfully, thankfully, without Samantha.

I had a parent board meeting....

which is always good...because I get to connect with other parents and I get to see one of my favorite people; Miss Tracy.

And then Miss Tracy and I went to go see one of our favorite families who sadly are on week eight in the hospital. And we all talked...

We talked about things that seem forbidden to other families;

We talked about life

We talked about death

We talked of these things with an odd sense of normalacy because all of us have been a family in crisis. That is one reason why we all bonded so quickly.

I talked about Jack. How I think of him everyday but not in a bad sense, just in a sense that he is with me, everyday. I feel this with such certainty. It's normal to me and amazingly comforting. It's like the air I breathe, the water I drink. He is just there.

I left the hospital with a solid foundation of peace.

That night I went to an ornament exchange party hosting by another of my favorite people...Sweet Sue. The ornament exchange has rules...you pick a number and as your number is called, you can steal an ornament from a fellow party goer that has already been unwrapped or select a new, unknown, wrapped ornament from under the tree.

I had number 13 of 18...not a bad number. The higher your number the more choices to steal! I watched as people unwrapped and decided I would only 'steal' an ornament if someone had a frog or an angel...

Frogs for Jack, angels for Samantha (see November 30th post).

As lovely as the ornaments were, no one had a frog or an angel. So I picked a completely random package from under the tree and unwrapped it.

And I unwrapped a frog,

and another frog,

and another frog....

Three frogs for our tree. And I started to cry in the middle of Sue's ornament exchange! I cried because the day had been so special to me; emotional but so very heartfelt. I cried because I had been talking and thinking of Jack throughout the day and here he was in this random Christmas ornament; giving me more frogs to hang on the tree. I cried because out of all 18 packages under the tree, I picked the frogs.....

Because I was supposed to.

I cried because life sends you little packages when you need them the most.

The ornament exchange party-goers all cried with me and then decided it would be poor form to steal my colony of frogs :)

They're good ladies.