September 6th, 2013

The day started out so well. Peaceful. My friend gave me flowers and we thought about Andrew and the life he lived. 

Jacob took this picture of me.

My dad sent flowers that we enjoyed together. 

 Then it all went wrong. Jacob was playing in the backseat of the van in the Target parking lot. He was standing on the back bench, holding himself with his hands planted on the two captains chairs, swinging back and forth. Then his hand slipped and he crashed down, forehead first onto one of the metal anchors that are in the floor of the van. His forehead had a large gash. Jacob didn't really cry a lot, but I did. Being the 1 year anniversary of Andrew's death, I was on very thin emotional ice. I looked at his head, saw the gash and tried to call 911 but my phone didn't work. So I started screaming to anyone in the parking lot to come over and dial 911 for me. Jacob wasn't acting normal, he was staying very still on my lap and keeping his head down. The firetruck came, the first responders checked him out and gave me the choice to drive him to the ER myself or call the ambulance. I coudn't imagine driving him by myself with that gash and him acting all limp. So they put him in the ambulance and I followed them there. This is a picture of Jacob coming out of the ambulance at the ER. He was so happy to see me.

 He got his stitches and thouroughly enjoyed his ice cream. 

 Alex and Aaron were so proud of Jacob they gave him candy and lots of hugs.

 To remember Andrew we went to his grave and released white balloons with led lights in them into the sky. We said a message that we wanted to give to Andrew before we released them. Then we watched them float up forever. We could still see the lights, as small as the stars for 5 minutes or so.