I'm working on a photo book for Liana titled, You Had Another Brother.
She is starting to notice Lev's photos and when she is playing with something of Lev's.
She loves these beads that were on a straw hat of his. She wears them as a necklace.
I think it's time for some tool to explain his absence to her. (Okay, it may be a little early, but it's time for us to have a tool and a personalized book I think is a pretty good idea.)
I was looking at photos for the book, which of course is one of the hardest things I can think of to do in this world.
And, after accidentally browsing the photos of Lev actually dead in the casket before the cremation, which I can't even begin to really express how hard those are to deal with on any level, I was looking at photos of Lev with Snowy, and thinking how odd it is that Snowy bridges the gap between our old life and our new one.
Yes, most everyone who reads this bridges that gap, but it's weird with animals. They don't live that long, and here are the photos of little Lev and big Lev having fun with Snowy. And then here is Liana, obsessed with Snowy.
I think it will be interesting for her to see Lev with a dog and realize it is the same dog.
The dog that she hugs is the same one that Lev hugged.
It's the little things. As Tony has said before, "Take any little piece of Lev's being gone, and it is the saddest thing ever. And there are thousands of these little pieces."
Today the piece I am thinking about is Snowy's role as doggie to both Lev and Liana.
