All in all, it wasn't a bad day.

It seemed appropriate that the house was quiet Friday morning.  If you know me, then you know I don't like the quiet; I'm a noise person.  Even if I'm not watching it, the TV is one, or the radio - just for the noise.  But this morning was different.  It felt right to have the house quiet this morning, much like it was the morning two years ago when Ian left this earth.  Eric & I took the day off, as we will probably do for the foreseeable future (warning to our employers - the Hassetts will not be at work on June 13 or October 24 of any given year, until we decide otherwise).  We still had stuff to do; I went to the gym at 7am as scheduled.  I debated whether to do this, but thought Ian would want me to continue to do things that make me better, so I went.  Eric did some work on the Artist Exchange trailer, which is his own tribute to our son and the legacy he left us.

I had gotten a card from a high school friend of mine with a note that she was praying for red robins for us today......Kelly, your prayers were answered.  Eric saw one while I was at the gym and not wanting to miss out, I took my tea to the front porch and waited to see if the red robins would come on this day, when we so desperately needed them.  I was not disappointed!  I love our little cul-de-sac with all the birds and chirping they do.  This morning I was treated to three red robins doing their morning routine; defending their territory from other birds, singing......I was very thankful.
But as the time was getting closer to the exact time Ian left us (do other people remember those kind of things, or is it just us?), I decided getting ready to go to the cemetery could wait and went into the family room. I wanted to be where Ian was when he died.  I wasn't completely surprised when I saw Eric sitting on the couch; we were in synch.  We do that a lot, without even talking about it; we both feel the need to observe Ian's life & death in similar ways.  This year, it was sitting together in the silence as we remembered Ian's last minutes with us.

Then it was time to go to the cemetery.  Hahn from The Back Porch created another beautiful arrangement for Ian's headstone.  This time she added something special, little pink flowers called "Bleeding Hearts" - how appropriate.  Between us and my parents, so many beautiful flowers for my boy.  There will be no doubt to anyone passing by his headstone, that he is loved and not forgotten.

We've completed the third (and final, I promise) move of Ian's art.  I think if I move it again, Ian may come back just to tell me to stop!  The office just wasn't big enough to hold it all and since we don't use the living room much anymore, it seemed like the perfect space.  We now have our own little gallery when you enter our home.  It still doesn't hold all of Ian's work, but we've devised a way to rotate the art easily. Here's a chintzy video of it, taken with my iphone.  The music came from a recording we found a couple of months ago on Ian's keyboard.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day.