More Pictures of Joel's Garden.

As I wrote in an earlier post, there was a really bad frost a few nights after I planted Joel's grave.  It killed or damaged about 75% of the plants.  Some of them are still alive, I think, but just a few little green shoots.  So it might take them awhile to recover.

So I went out a couple days ago and replanted it.  I left some of the old "hopefuls" in, in case they decided they could make it after all.  And I took a bunch of pictures.  You might notice a few very sad and sick looking little plants amongst the newbies.  It looks different now, but still nice, I think.

There is a bunny living very close to Joel's grave.  It's hard to know how to feel about him.  I know that if Joel had been well, he would have loved Mr. Bunny.  Mr. Bunny is very cute, and in terms of nature, well, he's a lot nicer than bugs, or rats or something.  The thing I'm not crazy about with him, is that he, apparently, LOVES to eat rose bushes.  He has already eaten down the lovely rose I planted on Joel's grave.  Seriously, about half of it is gone. 

Seeing the grave again with him around did clear up some questions.  About ten days ago when I went out, I was surprised.  I was SURE I had planted the rose smack in the middle of the grave.  Now I could clearly see that it was off to one side.  How had I done something so sloppy when I was trying to be so careful?  But upon returning, the rose bush was once more centred.  And mystified I examined it closer to realize that Mr. Bunny had been by to "even out" his previous work.  he had eaten one side of Joel's rose and that had made it look like it was planted off centre.  He kindly came back to fix that by eating the other side.

So I might have to bring some animal repellent out with me next time.  I wasn't too sad about the frozen flowers.   As I said, frost happens.  Not nice.  But oh well.  And easy enough to fix.  But I REALLY LOVE the rose bush, and I'm not sure how much more chomping it can take.  Even if it survives, the buds are being eaten as well as the leaves.  Bad, bad Mr. Bunny!  I hope that the animal repellent will work enough to let it all grow and be beautiful.

Joel's Garden isn't the only one out there, though.  I would have to say, modestly, that it is the biggest with the most plants.  But there are other graves there with flowers growing.  Some with a rose bush.  Some with just a few pansies growing.  Or some with the whole grave with flowers.  I gotta say, despite Mr. Bunny, I love the cemetary we chose.  It is so nice.  In fact, being able to plant flowers on top was one of the deciding factors for us in choosing this place for his body.

I would NEVER have guessed it, five years ago, that I would be sitting here, five years from then, typing a blog describing my son's grave...  Life's path has many twists and turns. 

Another child from the support group seems to be about to die.  It's hard to say how this feels for me... I did meet this little boy, just over two years ago at the conference.  Hearing about the trouble with breathing he's having really brought me back to Joel's last days, in particular his last day.  The time is approaching for me to write about that...  But back to this.  Please pray for Nickolaus, and most especially for his family. 

This is the rose.  Just one flower, thanks to Mr. Bunny, but it looks so lovely.