It's too cold outside for angels to fly

     It finally came today, Brittany's headstone has been put into place. The base has been here since the first part of April, and we knew that the owner of the memorial place wanted very much to get it up by Memorial Day. 

     I was expecting this moment to be painstakingly awful. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy! But in a way, it's a relief also. It's nice to be able to have something permanent, showing where my beautiful girl sleeps for now. A place I can go to that won't blow away in this Cedar wind. To have something that will last longer than I will, that holds so many feelings and emotions in such simple words as her birthday and her death day. 

     John and I spent quite a long time over the months discussing how we wanted her headstone to look. It's the very last thing I can do for Brittany. At least on a lasting level. I wanted it to be perfect, and I feel like it is. The front has a picture of an angel sitting on a cloud. This was a picture that Brittany had drawn for a friend before she died. We felt it was perfect, and had been wanting to have something unique to her on it. Something that portrays who she was.

It isn't an exact, but it's as close as I think anyone could get to the original. On the back is a poem I stumbled across just days before we had to submit our plans. It reads: 

Those we love don't go away.

They walk beside us everyday.

Unseen, unheard, but always near.

Still loved, still missed and very dear.

It's still hard to see Brittany's name engraved the way it is, into hard cold stone. But there is an element of closure to it also. I now have a place that, in it's own way, shouts Brittany's name, and her life to all who will only look.