Oakley Trying to Figure it Out...

We had a sad occurrence in our family recently. Jeremy and Emily lost their baby, which Emily had been carrying for about four months. Unfortunately, this is not the first time they've lost a baby this last into a pregnancy. Since the death of Grandpa Moore (which I'm still not at a place where I'm ready to write about yet. I have added over 10 pounds in my grieving process. Powdered donuts [which I never really cared much for before] and watching seasons two and three of The Office have been my coping method. It doesn't take long for the scale to move up when donuts are being consumed!), Oakley has been quite focused on and often talks about death. He wants to look at the obituaries in the paper regularly. When asked why, he says, "Because Grandpa Moore was in there once." He reads each obituary and shares facts he finds interesting and will ask questions about how they died.

The topic of death and what happens in the next life are often a topic of conversation around here. So when I told Oakley about the baby dying, Oakley knew just what we needed to do. He asked when the funeral was and where the baby was going to be buried. When we explained to him the baby was too small and wouldn't be buried, he seemed quite perplexed. He then asked if we could go to the cemetery and have a picnic for the baby. I said that it sounded like a good idea and we'd get it all planned. He then suggested we could have it at the cemetery where Grandpa Moore is buried, "so he can be there, too." He seemed satisfied once we figured out a way to pay tribute to what for him was a very real life, a cousin he looked forward to growing up with. He knew that we needed to, in some way, acknowledge this baby as having passed on to the next life.