Visiting Charlie in January

(Topic: visiting grave)

Hi Friends,

I'd like to share with you a little bit about visiting Charlie. At the moment, we live about 45 minutes away from where he's buried. Pretty soon we're going to be more like 2 hrs and 15 minutes away...

This means that we visit Charlie whenever it makes sense to go in that direction. I rarely drive there just to visit Charlie and nothing else (it feels a bit far for that) but if I am doing anything else in that direction, I'll make time if at all possible.

This means that I end up going in all sorts of weather! And that I keep certain things in the car for those visits, too.

Generally in the car I have:

• a plastic ground cloth (for under the picnic blanket if the ground is damp)
• a picnic blanket
• a camp chair, for when I'm going to sit and visit for a while
• a bucket, in which I keep:
• gardening gloves
• sometimes a hand cultivator (for stubborn weeds)
• any decorations or cards that I want to leave with Charlie next time I go

I also always have (for Pookie):

• a sling
• an Ergo carrier

This means that I just have to be dressed for the weather and have appropriate footwear, and it's easy to visit! Hubby comes along whenever he can, but so often I'm there on a weekday, so he's busy. That means that I pass along his love to Charlie, but also means I take a lot of pictures to send to Daddy at work! We take far fewer pictures when we're both there :)

In January, it had been a while since I'd visited, and weather had been iffy, so when I finally got a chance to visit, I jumped at it! I geared up, though, and knew I wouldn't be able to hang out long without freezing.

Pookie in a sling, so my hands are more free. I'm bundled up! That's the river behind us, that flows scenically along the low edge of the cemetery.

Goodness. We got a lot of snow! This visit was on January 11th.

Peek-a-Pook!

There's even a snow hat on Charlie's stone!!

You can just see the pine "grave pillow" peeking out from under the flag! Even the dragonfly has a little snow hat!

Butterfly has a snow burden... This is a "Charlie Butterfly" to us, since Charlie is our little Tigger/tiger, we now call monarchs and other orange-and-black butterflies "Charlie butterflies" since they make us think of him!

Yours,

Sarah

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