Seasonal Tree

Mandy loved Christmas very much and for Christmas 2009 she had her third brain surgery and was home in time for her birthday which is a couple weeks before. When Christmas was over and clear to the end of January Mandy did not want me to take the tree down. We did not know at that time that it would be four short months before she would no longer be with us. I had wanted to take the tree down so that we did not become use to it and not enjoy it on the Christmas next but when I told Mandy that she appeared to be saddened by that so I left it up. Then it hit me one day that we could change the decorations around for each month and so when February came I purchased a lot of Valentines decorations and decorated this tree. In March we did a St Patrick's day tree and in April we did a tree filled with flowers. The month of May was Hawaiian. When we lost Mandy we could no longer change the seasons and did not want to take the tree down. So we took some of the Cards that had been sent to her before she passed and put them on small card stock then put them on the tree. That gave me an idea and I took from the past five months a small amount of each tree's decorations and put them all on the tree. For the Memorial services we told everyone in lieu of flowers they could give an ornament of their choice in memory of Mandy and we provided small card stock for a personal note of a memory that they had of Mandy. This is the tree that we ended up with and under the tree were a couple of statues and all the sympathy cards that were sent to us. We kept this tree up for a year and a half in memory of my baby girl. The tree was taken down not to long ago and we are in the process of making a shadow box for all the ornaments sent for this tree and I have a book for the cards and her Caring bridge journal. Taking the tree down was extremely hard because it felt like I was putting her away. Now as I sit in the front room I gaze toward the tree that is no longer there and feel a pang in my heart but it was time.