Dear Henry

This morning I went out to the car and the windows were frozen over for the first time. I instantly thought back to the day you went into intensive care. I was out scraping the ice off the windows of the rental car when Nana called my cell phone and told me I had to get back to the hospital right away.

Mom went to New York this past weekend with Helaine and Susan to do girl things. I had a nice time with Jack and Joe. On Saturday Jack went to the movies with Ari and Simon and Jake. It must have felt good for him to be with all of your best buddies. They went to a movie called "Elf." There is a Disney movie out now called "Brother Bear." Something I read about it made me think that Jack would get sad seeing it. A boy's older brother gets killed by a bear. A lot of times someone dies or comes close in Disney movies. Remember how Mufasa died, Bambi's Mom died, Tarzan's parents are killed and the Beast almost died. There is a movie that came out after you died called "Saving Nemo." Nemo's mother dies. The movie isn't too sad, though. We got it this week and I saw it for the first time. Mom saw it with Jack when it was in the theater. I must have babysat Joe. When I watched the movie I got really sad because I know you would have loved it, and it was the first Disney movie to come out after you died that you never got a chance to get excited about and see. The two parts that really got me were when Nemo's dad got upset because he said that he told Nemo that he would always protect him and not let anything ever happen to him, and at the end when Nemo swims back to his dad to give him a great big hug before going off to school. That crushed me.

When Jack and Ari and Simon and Jake went to the movies, Joe and I went out to the cemetery.





Your headstone was kinda muddy but I cleaned it off. There has still been a lot of rain. I was listening to this song the other day and thought of you. It is a boy girl song but the words made me think of us.

Rain
Patty Griffin
(1000 Kisses)

It's hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb
Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you're gonna drown
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down

Chorus: Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain

Its hard to know when to give up the fight
Two things you want will just never be right
Its never rained like it has to night before
Now I don't wanna beg you baby
For something maybe you could never give
I'm not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
When I'm still alive underneath this shroud
Rain Rain Rain

There are a lot of evergreen trees at the cemetery. I guess that is on purpose. I don't know if it is on purpose so they don't have to rake a lot of leaves or because they don't want to remind the people who visit of things that die or are dying. No, that doesn't make sense. It has to be the raking. It is too bad, though because the changing leaves are so beautiful.

When we were there a pickup truck pulled up not too far from us and 2 hunters with bows and arrows got out. I don't know how I feel about that. I wasn't too psyched that they were going out to kill something even though there are too many deer in Montgomery County. It was just so strange to see them park in the cemetery and head off into the woods. I wasn't expecting that.

Mom was pretty sad up in New York. We talked about how we are feeling when we think of you and Mom says her stomach hurts and I feel really weak.