Her tiny grave marker finally came, and it’s beautiful.

I didn’t know these things took so long, but I knew I wanted to get it right. I designed it myself, and it was worth the wait.

My heart is especially heavy today, as last summer is still so vivid in my thoughts. I remember driving to cemeteries and flipping through the grave marker books thinking, this can’t be happening, not to the thriving baby girl inside of me. I remember being hesitant to pick out a design, because they aren’t us, my spirit said. Teddy bears and roses and angel illustrations just didn’t make  my heart sing.

I wanted to capture the beauty and grace with which my daughter quickly entered and left this world. I wanted to beautify the earth with her legacy. I wanted it to be perfectly imperfect in the most beautiful way, just like Amelia.

To capture the imperfections, I knew I wanted to hand letter her name and not use a font. Though I don’t do calligraphy (yet), as a designer I’m pretty good at hand lettering; it’s definitely one of my biggest strengths. But after what seemed like dozens of hours, hundreds of revisions, and many, many tears, I still couldn’t get it the way I wanted it. I was close to calling it quits when I stumbled upon Anne Robin and her beautiful calligraphy work.

I worked with Anne to get the initial lettering and cursive done, and she was so kind and patient with me! I am so grateful for the beauty she brings to this world through her hand lettering, and let me tell you, that woman has a big heart. :) I ended up having to tweak it quite a bit from her original, painfully letting go of all of those beautiful thick and thin lines a calligraphy pen creates. (The thin gaps would have been too small to sandblast.)

My sweet Amelia, I hope your cemetery neighbors are nice. I know your grave marker is just an earthly thing that doesn’t matter in the big picture, but right here and right now it matters to me. This is the sacred place where we’ll meet again someday.

I hope you love how excited Jack gets to touch the flowers and spin the pinwheel he brought you. I hope you’ll forgive me for the past months you spent alone, without a visitor in sight. I hope by now that you’ve stopped counting the tears I’ve shed driving away from your little place.

I hope we helped beautify the earth, even just a little bit. I hope that to you, your marker is perfect.