11-11-11

Friday was a very special day. It was veterans day, historic 11-11-11 and my Papa's birthday. Papa would have been 76 years old. In honor of his birthday on such a historic day we did a few special things together.


We launched balloons at the cemetery after saying a few words. All the kids, even though the girls never actually knew him, said how much they loved Papa and how they missed him.

Hailey blowing kisses to follow the balloons to heaven.

Kenna blowing kisses

Despite the emotion of the day I had yet to cry until I saw Anthony like this. He stood, rooted to the spot, staring off into space like this for about 10 min's. Lost in his own memories and sadness. Papa was his best friend, he was Papa's namesake. They rarely went more than 3 days with out seeing each other. Fortunately, Anthony doesn’t remember much of Papa's battle with cancer; he only remembers his time with him. When Anthony finally looked up from his long pause, I asked him what he was thinking about. He just smiled at me. No answer, just a kind, happy smile that I know was brought from happy memories.

Later Friday night, we were celebrating my birthday at my parents house and took a break to launch Chinese Lanterns in honor of Papa. They are truly beautiful to watch.

No one was paying attention to how many we launched, we were just handing them out to everyone and lighting them. If you look at the pictures, there are 10, but watch the video, there was an 11th one that was just late rising. It was pure magic that we launched 11 balloons on 11-11-11.

It was an amazing tribute that I hope Papa was, in some way, able to witness.