I awoke Thursday, December 4, 2009 to a cold, rainy and damp day. You know the kind of dampness that makes your bones ache? I awoke that morning with my heart hurting for what the day meant to our family and prayed to my beautiful Maker to give me a focus for my hurt. A focus other than my pain & the painful, scary memories of the place I was returning to that morning. You see I was going back to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and even though my reason for returning was such an amazing one I was suddenly scared. I was flooded as I showered and got dressed with vivid details of my time spent at Vanderbilt in August. Oh, how your brain with the wonderful help and egging on of Satan can just stir up so much pain. I grabbed the sink and told myself in the mirror "That is enough.......God get rid of this junk and talk to me."
Let's back up to the reason I was preparing to return to Vandy. A dear, beautiful and fairly new friend had passed on a service project idea that her sweet family did yearly. Heather, you know who you are and I thank God everyday for sharing your passion for children, especially special needs orphans to me. This is a time in my life when God knows I need to see the "passion" side of this earthly life up close & personal. He gave me you......thank you! Heather shared with me the idea and without ever getting the opportunity to meet or touch my sweet Anna knew it was a perfect way I could honor her birthday "the right way". You see I had voiced over & over to all my friends who are walking this journey with me here in TN that I did not want to celebrate Anna's birthday the way that I would if she was still earthbound. That being said there was such an urgency for my Grace to be able to 
visualize Anna's celebration and feel that her sister was seeing it in heaven. You see, the one thing Grace still was finding hard to understand was why Jesus would take her baby sister to heaven without being allowed to blow out birthday candles first. Birthday candles as most of you know are very important to a 5 year old. So we started the First Annual Anna Marie "Just For Me" Packets. This was to initially be just a small service project where we would fill manila envelopes with a coloring book, crayons(3-5), a sheet of stickers and a small container of play-doh. I thought that it would be the quiet part of our celebration and Grace & I would deliver lets say....50 packets to Vandy from our family, Grace's kindergarten class & a few close friends. Then Heather suggested I email this idea out and let my email address book know what I was doing......I was very hesitant about this because I just did not want people to be burned out on the "G----- family" and what we were going through. After a good bit of coaxing and a ton of brow beating Heather & another beautiful friend Cindy talked me into doing just that. I emailed out a quick heads up and a picture of the flyer I had made up for Grace's class. Well, you could have knocked me over with the response I got. Within an hour my wonderful friend and co-worker Cathy from Notre Dame Academy in VA called me to say the student council for the school had decided to adopt Anna' s birthday project as a school community service project. Krista the faculty advisor to student council was my dear friends daughter and a long time sweet child that had and continues to hold a special place in my heart. Tony & I used to look at Cathy's girls and say over & over "we pray one day we will be blessed with good girls like Cathy's". Now the young lady I had watched grow into a strong, beautiful faith filled woman was honoring my Anna. To say I was moved is an understatement. Along with NDA, the Franklin Special School District Girl Scout Troops led by a dear neighbor and her daughter called to say they were on board. This with so many friends and family members donations we made just shy of 500 "Just For Me Packets" for Vandy to honor Anna's birthday. It was a beautiful, simple project but one I knew would bring so many smiles. Like I quoted in my heads up email, " If my Anna would have opened her eyes last August, I know a packet like this would have received the warmest of smiles & the sweetest of giggles".
visualize Anna's celebration and feel that her sister was seeing it in heaven. You see, the one thing Grace still was finding hard to understand was why Jesus would take her baby sister to heaven without being allowed to blow out birthday candles first. Birthday candles as most of you know are very important to a 5 year old. So we started the First Annual Anna Marie "Just For Me" Packets. This was to initially be just a small service project where we would fill manila envelopes with a coloring book, crayons(3-5), a sheet of stickers and a small container of play-doh. I thought that it would be the quiet part of our celebration and Grace & I would deliver lets say....50 packets to Vandy from our family, Grace's kindergarten class & a few close friends. Then Heather suggested I email this idea out and let my email address book know what I was doing......I was very hesitant about this because I just did not want people to be burned out on the "G----- family" and what we were going through. After a good bit of coaxing and a ton of brow beating Heather & another beautiful friend Cindy talked me into doing just that. I emailed out a quick heads up and a picture of the flyer I had made up for Grace's class. Well, you could have knocked me over with the response I got. Within an hour my wonderful friend and co-worker Cathy from Notre Dame Academy in VA called me to say the student council for the school had decided to adopt Anna' s birthday project as a school community service project. Krista the faculty advisor to student council was my dear friends daughter and a long time sweet child that had and continues to hold a special place in my heart. Tony & I used to look at Cathy's girls and say over & over "we pray one day we will be blessed with good girls like Cathy's". Now the young lady I had watched grow into a strong, beautiful faith filled woman was honoring my Anna. To say I was moved is an understatement. Along with NDA, the Franklin Special School District Girl Scout Troops led by a dear neighbor and her daughter called to say they were on board. This with so many friends and family members donations we made just shy of 500 "Just For Me Packets" for Vandy to honor Anna's birthday. It was a beautiful, simple project but one I knew would bring so many smiles. Like I quoted in my heads up email, " If my Anna would have opened her eyes last August, I know a packet like this would have received the warmest of smiles & the sweetest of giggles".Now, fast forward.......
I am driving to pick up Heather who in her usual "grab the bull by the horns" fashion has already contacted Vandy ahead of time to say we are coming & be prepared. She had contacted the head of volunteer services and had it all lined up. It is starting to sleet & snow mix as I am driving and I am praying silently and out loud for God to strengthen me and not make me have to enter the hospital unless it is really necessary. I voiced this weakness to Heather as she got in and as only a true, good friend would say, "No big deal, they are meeting us at the valet parking entrance and you do not have to go in." Oh, one prayer answered and without knowing it so many left ahead of me on this special day. To say the people at Vandy were surprised would be an understatement. I think they would not have been more surprised if we had hit them in the head with a board. They greeted us with one little red wagon. In classic Heather fashion she said, "Oh, that is not going to work." Tony's truck was full of these wonderful packets to the point that there was only room for Heather & I(Grace had school that day & her part in the celebration was yet to come). So quickly as possible we unloaded the packets. Boy, was it cold. I informed the director we woul
d see her next year on Dec. 4th but she better be ready because next year I would be driving a U-Haul to get the project delivered. Each of YOU are the reason for that......Thank you so much! Believe it or not we have already received monetary donations for next years project and so many more volunteers to sponsor our sweet celebration. Amazing! So amazing! The pictures speak for themselves and I have Heather, yet again to thank for those. You can see how the packets were decorated by all the students, scouts & children. Each packet had a sticker with Anna's picture telling that even though she was in heaven celebrating this year her gift was for that recipient. A little footnote: Heather and her church group did another 100+ packets the following weekend and delivered them the following week.....so grand total we gave around 700 children smiles from Anna. Oh, what a blessing, what a gift, what a birthday morning! Hope you enjoy the pictures!
d see her next year on Dec. 4th but she better be ready because next year I would be driving a U-Haul to get the project delivered. Each of YOU are the reason for that......Thank you so much! Believe it or not we have already received monetary donations for next years project and so many more volunteers to sponsor our sweet celebration. Amazing! So amazing! The pictures speak for themselves and I have Heather, yet again to thank for those. You can see how the packets were decorated by all the students, scouts & children. Each packet had a sticker with Anna's picture telling that even though she was in heaven celebrating this year her gift was for that recipient. A little footnote: Heather and her church group did another 100+ packets the following weekend and delivered them the following week.....so grand total we gave around 700 children smiles from Anna. Oh, what a blessing, what a gift, what a birthday morning! Hope you enjoy the pictures!
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