We just got back from our annual 2 week vacation on the OR coast! What a wonderful trip!! Every year we go down and stay in a house we rent on the beach in Newport. Usually we take all the kids and grandkids with us for the first week. Last year they all made it except 2 of the grandkids~ there were 18 of us including friends and I am SO thankful that they all made it as it was our last vacation with Mason. This year, none of the adult kids and none of the grandkids were there. It was kind of quiet! We missed them so much!!
Bret and I have been looking forward to and dreading this vacation for months. We knew it would be a hard one, full of memories and empty spaces where Mason used to be. The drive down was actually the hardest, it was midnight and dark out so there was a lot of time to think and remember. We cried part of the way and found comfort from each other knowing that we were both missing him and there was really nothing we could do but feel it and try to be there for one other. His hand holding mine was like a lifeline for me.
Once we got there, we could talk and remember the funny things Mason did the year before. He loved sitting out on the deck looking at the BIG water- big smiles came from that! Sitting on my lap playing poker with the whole family-we won by the way! Always smiling big and laughing. We talked about him and remembered but we also created new memories and more happy times. I was AMAZED! We had happy times! He wasn't there with us but even so, sometimes I would forget to be sad and we had some fun experiences. Had anyone asked me if that would happen this year would have told them they were crazy!
We had family there, the twins (ours), my sister and her family, my brother and his wife, my dad and step-mom, a wonderful friend I hadn't seen for over 10 years and a wonderful friend I get to see more often :-). We played in the ocean, went crabbing an hunted for agates, saw a whale-FOR REAL!!!! It was fun and busy and we loved it!
The second week it was Bret and I. We took a day and went to the beach. I drew a heart in the sand with Mason's name in the middle and we watched as the waves came and washed it away. It seemed very symbolic to us. Our precious little boy, riding the waves to heaven from the most beautiful place in the world, a place where I feel so small and insignificant, a place that I feel I couldn't get any closer to God if I tried.
So, this year it was a combination of laughter and tears, joy and sadness, reunions and goodbyes. I wouldn't change anything~except maybe the addition of one 3 year old smile and the sound of his laugh~ just one more time.