It All Seems Surreal...

What a strange week this has been.  Being snowed in all week was almost surreal.  It was almost as if the whole world had stopped.  In a way it did... at least the world I'm used to.  No work, no school, no schedule...  The children enjoyed it immensely, although by the end of it all, cabin fever was definitely beginning to rear its ugly head.  I did have to go to work on Friday, but I took all the kids with me for most of the day.  Not my favorite thing to do, but they behaved very well.  I also worked Saturday, and after work, I to rush home to get ready for Big A's slumber party--- I hadn't really planned it or bought a single thing before Friday night!  Needless to say, I was extremely stressed...  And having 8 kids spending the night in my house after a week of having the kids out from school, was not my idea of fun, but it wasn't so bad.  I can say that now because it is over! :)  I made it out alive, thanks to a great deal of help from Pixie and some other friends!  I may have tied a noose around my neck had I been home alone with these 8 children at one in the morning!  They would not go to sleep!  They talked and giggled until well past 1:30am...  I think I fell asleep ont he couch before some of them.  In fact I know I did.  Wow.  That is all I can say about it.  But Big A had a great time, and that is the important thing!  She has had a very Happy Birthday week! :)

Today is the 34th anniversary of my Brother Grayson's Death.  I still think about it and feel a little sad every year.  I suppose I always will.  I don't mind.  I loved him very much, and I still miss him.  We were very very close, and I was very young when he died.  I had just turned 6 yrs old, and he was 4 months shy of his 3rd birthday.  He was my beautiful baby brother...  He waited at the door when I came home on the school bus, and followed me around everywhere I went.   I always slept in his room-- in fact, I don't even remember my own room during this time in my life.  He was sick a lot during his short little life... in and out the hospital all the time.  He loved me so much, and called me "Cole".  He used to try to sing the song "Bennie and the Jets"... he LOVED that song!  I would sing it to him and he would laugh and laugh!  I still remember so many things about my first baby brother.  I even remember his smell.  After he died, I used to sleep with one of his stuffed animals because it still smelled like him.  Why his loss is still so fresh in my heart and mind I do not know.  But that is fine.  I will always love him and I will always miss him.

I found this poem by accident as a teenager, when I was thumbing through a book of my Mom's poems.  It reminds me of my Baby Brother.  Rest in peace Grayson... You still are loved.

AMONG THE BEAUTIFUL PICTURES         
by Alice Cary

Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all;
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe:
Not for the violets golden
That sprinkle the vale below;
Not for the milk-white lilies.
That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland,
Where the bright red berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip,
It seemeth to me the best,

I once had a little brother
With eyes that were dark and deep;
In the lap of that dim old forest
He lieth it in peace asleep;
Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,
We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;
But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.

Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face;
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.

Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,
The one of the dun old forest
Seemeth the best of all.