"Who knew you were so artsy?"

Lately I've been working toward finishing a project that was suggested to me by my mother. It is a shadow box that displays some of Amelia's funeral flowers, a hat that was knitted especially for her by my sister-in-law, and a pair of shoes that were gifts for her funeral. My mother got the shadow box for me and had the great idea of displaying these items in it. (They were sitting on my couch for months and she knew that I would still want to see them after I decided to clean up my couch.)

The items themselves are great memories of Amelia and especially of the kindness that people showed us during this time. My sister-in-law was asked by my mother to knit a hat and booties as an option for me to dress Amelia in on her funeral day. She did such a wonderful job. When she went to the yarn store to get some specialty yarn for this project, she arrived 2 minutes after they had closed. She told me that she asked the ladies inside the store if she could come in and get this yarn. She said she would pay with cash as they might have closed their debit machine. After hearing why she was in such desperate need of this yarn right away, the ladies in the store not only helped her pick out the perfect yarn, but they also gave it to her for free. This was an example of the kindness of the people who love us and also of the complete strangers who have heard our story and wanted to help.

We were given two sets of clothing for Amelia's funeral. My church congregation arranged for a dress and a hat and booties for Amelia. My sister (who also helped me gather the materials to finish this shadow box project) made Amelia a beautiful blessing dress and embroidered her name on the petticoat. We had so many beautiful clothes to choose from. We chose to dress her in her funeral dress (the one from the ladies of my church) and keep the blessing dress to have with us as memorabilia. We dressed her in a crochet hat with a small flower on it that matches the shoes we kept. We kept my sister-in-law's knitted hat for a keepsake and dressed Amelia in the ballet slipper-like booties that reminded me she would be able to dance in heaven and in the resurrection.

My sister gave me the flowers that she had saved from Amelia's casket and had dried. I had pressed my flowers to preserve them, but the dried flowers looked so lovely in the 3D shadow box.

I'm glad that the project turned out so beautiful. When I showed the finished product to my husband, he said, "who knew you were so artsy?"

Besides this project, I also tried my hand at arranging flowers. When Amelia passed away, for weeks we had beautiful flowers arriving from friends, family, and co-workers. When the flowers started to die, I wanted to have some flowers stay to remind me of how beautiful life can be. So I went to my local craft shop and chose some silk flowers. I was trying to recreate one of the bouquets that we were given, but I just wanted so many different kinds of flowers. So this project is done also. It is not an exact replica of the original bouquet, but it is beautiful and does what it is supposed to do...reminds me to be happy.