Capture your grief, day 10

10. SYMBOLS + SIGNS | Do you have a symbol that represents your child? Maybe it is a butterfly, tree or bird etc. Share how you came to find that symbol and what it means to you. Do you believe your children send you signs at all? Have you had any? How did they help you?



It's kind of a cliche, but the symbol that represents Kayla is a butterfly.  It is a commonly used symbol, especially for children because the butterfly represents the child's short life essentially ending on earth as the caterpillar, and then gaining their wings and going on to live a wonderful life in Heaven as a beautiful butterfly.

But that isn't actually how we came up with it.  Kayla's nursery theme was going to be butterflies and when we were looking through the catalog of the available symbols you can put on the grave stone, nothing was really standing out to us.  We didn't get to know her, we didn't know her personality, whether she would have been a girly girl like her sister, or maybe a tomboy or a little of both.  So it was hard to just pick something without having meaning.  But then I saw a butterfly and since it was what we had chosen for her room, it just felt right.

We originally chose two butterflies to be at the top of her stone, side by side, but when the proof came back, something about it just seemed off.  My husband suggested they be turned to an angle slightly, so it looked like they were flying.  When we got the second proof back, we were overwhelmed by how perfect it was.  Being the only thing we would get to buy for our little girl, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to make it just perfect, and we're both really happy with how it turned out.

I always smile when I see a butterfly.  They just look so peaceful and graceful which is how I hope Kayla is.  When I see them, I feel like she is with me.  I feel like she sends me a sign when we go to visit her grave and her pinwheel spins.  Often, it only spins after we have said something, like when we say hi to her and that we love her.  It's like the pinwheel spinning is her acknowledging that we're there.