i'll see you again...

Mom,

It's been 4 days since you left this earth and went to be with the Lord. It seems so unreal and that I'll be chatting with you soon. Yesterday I found a letter that you had written Evan and it was so cute. You had drawn a stick figure of the two of you holding hands on the back and it made me smile. You always did cute things like that.

Dad, Lisa and I went down to the cemetery yesterday and picked out your plot. You'll be near grandma and grandpa just up the hill from them in this beautiful garden with a stone walkway. There's a giant oak tree surrounding it and it's just so peaceful. Dad will be placed there with you someday and he said you'd love it.

Evan asked where 'mama' was yesterday and I told him you were in heaven. I think he still thinks you're in the hospital. That's okay, we'll let him think that for now. When we were writing out your headstone, we included him in it. It reads:

Lauri Gay Inman

August 14, 1954 - October 20, 2011

Loving Wife, Mother and

Grandmother - "Mama"

I just love that he called you that. Dad is "Papa" and you're "Mama". I'm sure you loved it too.

Remember when you and dad got a new driveway and had those pretty stones stamped into it and the first thing I thought to ask was, "Has grandpa seen it yet?". Well we both knew grandpa was gone, but wasn't it so funny how I immediately thought about telling him about it and that he'd get such a kick out of looking at it? Well, I'm sure I'll have many instances of that with you. Just going places that we'd been to together brings back so many thoughts of, "Mom would really like that!" or "I should give her a call and tell her about that." While it's fun to think that, it hurts my heart knowing I'll never be able to do that again. This is just so hard.

I love you mom. I always will. I'm so sorry you won't be able to watch Evan grow up or that you won't be able to meet your grandbaby next year. But I know I'll see you again and I know that you're having a wonderful time reuniting with grandma and grandpa and getting to ask Jesus all the things you've always wanted to know. Like, "Why was Lisa always so messy?" and "Why did Veronnica worry so much?". Just kidding! But those would be good questions to ask!

We'll celebrate your life this Thursday or Friday and I look forward to looking at old pictures of you and our family and chatting away with others about how wonderful a person you were. 

I love you mom and I'm going to miss you for the rest of my life.