Fulfilling Old Dreams...

Dustin and I have been struggling with how to balance the dreams we had, which included Payton and our life now. Do we follow through with our dreams despite Payton not being here? Do we do nothing until we are at a place where we have new dreams? How do we make sure we still give Tatum many different childhood experiences? After many tears and discussions…

We had dreams of planting a vegetable garden for "our girls". We envisioned, as a family, the four of us tending to the garden. Since Payton’s death I haven’t wanted anything to do with a garden. Dustin still wanted to share the garden with Tatum. He persisted until I finally gave in. The selling point was we would also plant a flower garden in remembrance of Payton. In the flower garden would be Forget-me-nots and an engraved bench. Last weekend we planted both gardens. Friday afternoon the gardens were destroyed by hail and flood water. I felt sad and discouraged.

Side note: Friday night Tatum was awakened by the sound of thunder. She was too terrified to sleep in her bedroom. Saturday morning she kept repeating, “last night big boom (with her fist up in the air--maybe because we used a few baby signs with her that she now makes up her own) my room scare me. I sleep my mommy my daddy room”. Poor girl!

Another thing we haven’t wanted anything to do with was decorating our house. To us the house used to represent a home for our growing family, for “our girls”. In the weeks before Payton died we unpacked, hung family pictures, and Dustin painted the girl's bedrooms; that was as far as we got. We haven’t done much to the inside since. It looks institutionalized, white and bare. Dustin avoided decorating because it reminded him of painting Payton’s room, the last thing he did.

This weekend we decided to finish Tatum’s room. Saturday afternoon we went to Michael’s to replace the glass from a frame that broke during the move. We walked around the store while the clerk was cutting the glass. In the scrapbook aisle Tatum stopped and picked up a scrapbook sticker. She said, “I like this” and handed it to me. The sticker read, ‘I [heart symbol] my sister’. Out of the hundreds of stickers to pick from she picked up that one. Ah! More sadness. More discouragement.