A little peace…

Family,

We wanted to post some pictures to help you all feel a part of what is happening in our lives right now. When we lost Jake last week, I had asked my friend, Shane, to try and find a carpenter that could make a cedar box for us to put Jakes keepsakes and some other little items in. Shane took the task very seriously and immediately went out to find someone who could make something that would do justice for the situation. Turns out, the husband of one of our civilian employees at work is a carpenter, and he would not hear of ANYONE else making the box. In less than a week, he had the box below made out of cedar. When he dropped it off to us, he told us that he didn’t feel that he had the time to do the project perfectly, so he took it to a cabinet shop here in Alamogordo, explained the situation, and that they shut down their shop and worked on only this project for the next 2 days. The owner of the shop actually drove to El Paso (about an hour and  half away) to get the hardware for it. They refused to allow Frank to pay for the box or labor; they only allowed him to pay for the wood. Frank in turn refused to allow us to pay for anything, but wanted it to be a special gift to us from their family.

 

We were so touched by their thoughtfulness and generosity. Frank’s wife, JoAnne, made a beautiful blanket for Jake and allowed us to use it inside of the box as a sort of lining. We then put some different items in the box including a set of clothes, some stuffed animals the kids picked out (the Backyardigans), a football from Daddy, a keepsake box from the hospital and all of the cards and verses that people had given to us at the memorial service. We also put in the special 586 Flight Test Squadron diaper that the ladies from the Squadron made. His urn is the little blue heart close to the middle.

This is the program that the ladies made for the service. Those are actually Jake’s hand and footprints on the front page. We had the words to the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” put inside. His weight and length are on the front also.

Finally, while we were at the hospital, my Colonel’s wife, Jennifer, had made a “plaster-of-paris” imprint of Jacob’s feet and one of our Lieutenants (Bernadette)  painted it for" us. This is the result.

We feel so blessed to be part of such an amazing squadron, and to be surrounded by so many people that love us and have cared for us. We know it has been difficult for most of our family because they could not be here with us during this time, but we wanted to show and share these things with you to help you understand how  well we have been taken care of by those in our military and church family here. We love all of you and would have loved to have hugged each of your necks and cried with you, but we take great comfort in the fact that one day we will be together as a family, for all time. Love you.