surrounded by love...

these days i find myself having many more questions than answers. but one thing i know for sure is that D and i are surrounded by a very large, very strong "love bubble." we have an incredibly supportive group of family and friends. i could not imagine what this journey would be like had we not had them by our sides. it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about how good everyone has been to D and i. we are truly blessed {and it's hard for me to type that out given how i feel these days}. in the last couple of weeks we have received a couple of very special gifts from some of these very loving, caring friends...

my friends, michelle and rebecca, both got together and got us this memorial heirloom candle.

it is made from flowers from the arrangements at J's memorial service that they gave us. michelle brought it over to us on his 1 month 'angel-versary'. it's absolutely gorgeous {the pic from my camera phone doesn't do it justice}. and such a unique gift and way to remember my baby. i have never seen anything like it, but i'm so glad and thankful that they did this for us.

and speaking of unique gifts...a very talented friend brought us by this portrait that he did of Juju with the poem {in the top left hand corner} "God's Little Angel" that he got from here.

doesn't it look *just* like the pic in the corner? now what makes this portrait so unique is the fact that the picture is formed by using words.

if you look closer you will notice that the word "Julius" makes up most of the picture, except for the hair. the hair is made by using the word "frohawk," which is what D and i used to call his hair. his hair would poof up at the top of his head very much like a curly {afro} mohawk, hence "frohawk".

anyway, not many are blessed with this wonderful talent, which i believe is called "textual pointillism," but our dear friend, matt, is most definitely gifted {if anyone is interested, you can check out his facebook page "Wordtraits" here}. once again, we are lucky 1) that we know someone who does this {which we didn't know until he brought this to our house}, and 2) that he so generously gave up his time and talent so that he could give us another way to remember our son.

they say that God puts certain people in your life for a reason. when i sit and think about all the memorable gifts we have received, all the prayers that have been said for us, all the food that has been made/brought to our house this past month, all of the cards/phone calls/texts/fb messages/emails/etc., all of the hugs that have been given to us in this past month, i *know* that God had a hand in this. i don't believe that it was "God's will" that Julius had to leave us and this world so quickly. but i do think that God put these people in our lives to "soften the blow," and that they have...