Today Is My Sons Birthday

He would have been 32. It's been 5 years since his body was found only a 1/4 mile from here, and it's so hard to drive past that place. I usually squeeze my eyes shut or turn my head but I can feel it. I know exactly when I'm passing by. In 5 years it hasn't gotten any easier. His daughter is now 8 years old, and his son is now 5 years old, and looking more and more like their Daddy every day. My little grandson is so cute. He never got to know his Daddy, he was just a tiny little baby-man. He would look up at the sky and say "my Daddy was an astronaut". Or while we play outside he'd tell his older sister to watch out for snakes, and he'd tell us " my Daddy was a rattlesnake wrangler", lol. I have a framed photo of my son playing the drums, and he'll say "my Daddy was a rock star!". We'll hear the familiar sound of a Harley Davidson coming down the road and he'll say " that's my Daddy". They found the motorcycle just parked in the middle of the street.


This is one of my favorite photos of him. This is how he looked all the time, smiling that smile.


Donivan had planted this willow tree not long before he died. I saw this memorial ring in the Collections,Etc. catalog and just knew it was created to go around his tree. It's grown so much in 5 years. In the back of my mind I always thought when I move, I'd dig this up and take it with me. I wonder if that's even possible? I need to go clean up around his tree. My sister lives in my son's old home now, so I can go visit the tree anytime I want to. HossFly bought some white marble chips and those curved cement pieces to go around the tree, to set the memorial ring on. I'll need to scrub the ring up a little, and repaint it I think.


Do you believe in ghosts or spirits? I do. This old house is HAUNTED!! I don't care what other people say, it has to be true. There are more than a few people who refuse to spend another night here. We bought some solar lights to place around his headstone one year on his birthday. We went back one night after dark to check to see if they were working properly. They were :D I brought my camera, I usually take it every where we go. I wandered around all the graves in the dark, checking on my Granny and Grandpa, my uncles, aunts, my mother and father, and the too many tiny graves of all the babies in the family who died too young. I was snapping photographs one right after the other because it would hold something like 500 photos. It was time to leave and I turned to my son's grave and said "wave bye, Donivan" and this showed up. What does it look like? Well, of course I see what I want to see, that's obvious :D That's my son's grave on the left, my father in the middle, my mother on the right. Look at the mist at the top left of the photo.