The day started at 4:30 am, the time of her birth. Eric and I got up, lit a candle, turned on our "Sydney" music, and looked at her pictures. We let the candle burn for just over two hours then blew it out. We went back to sleep for a little bit and when we woke up, there was a knock at the door. Eric answered it and it was a delivery driver from a local florist. Three wonderful friends from a message board that I post on sent us a HUGE bunch of purple balloons. I think I counted 21 balloons. When I logged into Facebook, I found that a bunch of my friends from that board had changed their profile picture to a picture of purple balloons and many of them released balloons from where they were. It meant so much to us that they were thinking of us and remembering Sydney with us on her day.
We went to the cemetery first. We took balloons, flowers, and decorations. We released some purple balloons for Sydney and left some birthday balloons at her gravesite. We brought cupcakes with us. We lit candles on them, sang Happy birthday to Sydney, and then the wind blew out the candles. It was very cold and there was 4-5 inches of snow on the ground, so we couldn't stay long.
After that, we went to the Butterfly House. None of us had ever been there before, but I knew that was where we needed to go. It was AMAZING. The butterflies just fly around in the open. Eric had several land on him. Right as we were about to leave, one landed on me. It was so peaceful (except for my children, who were scared of the butterflies).
The day was just what I needed. It was very healing for me.
Balloon bouquet
Getting ready to release balloons
Decorations
Some butterflies
(I swear, this same butterfly landed on Eric 2 or 3 times)
And, in other news:
