We started going to Church on Sunday mornings. It made the boys happier to be able to pray and talk to their father, as if he was still around, or they were writing a letter to him. The were still sad, missing him, but they had Richard along with them, clearing up the loneliness that grief has given them.

Summer was nearly ending , and their birthdays were becoming closer by the second, which had also given them excitement. We were outside in the sun, me with a plot of flowers, and the boys with Richard at the house walls. They decided to paint the dirty old wood a bright yellow, making the house look new. They all smiled, covered from head to toe in paint.

"Hey boys," I called from across the lawn, "Smile!" They hadn't expect to turn around into the flash of my old camera, laughs and looks of pure joy on their faces. Carlisle ran over and pulled me back to the house with them, covering me in paint as well. We were all laughing.

"Let's do something," Richard suggested, bringing around a smaller container of orange paint, Carl's favorite color. "Give me your hands. You too Sara."

We all offered our hands to him, and he dumped paint all over them and stuck them in a line on the wall of freshly dried yellow. The boys laughed.

I took their hands and used their fingers to paint words above the hand prints. 

Daddy Loves You.