Putting Samantha to rest

I've been waiting anxiously for Wednesday to arrive, this is the day that Samantha's remains will be taken to Spencerville, MD. We will be entrusting her cremains to a Chinese temple to watch over her and pray for her daily. Why so long? A special urn was ordered specifically for Samantha and the Reverend picked out May 2nd as the ideal date to transfer her cremains. I hope that by finally putting her to rest, Lilly and I will have some sense of closure. We still haven't stopped crying for her loss and I doubt that the crying will ever end. I still get that empty feeling whenever I start to think about Samantha, the realization that she's no longer going to do the things that she used to do hits like a freight train.

The kindness of friends and family never ceases to amaze me. Samantha's school continues to receive donations in her memory, Mrs. Dowse the school principal told Lilly that more than $5000.00 has been received so far. We are also trying to win a contest from Pfizer for a school library makeover. Grand prize is $45,000.00 in cash and books. All the moms in kindergarten and 1st grade are getting together to prepare postcards and index cards on May 7th. Yantacaw is currently in 4th place. I figured out that we would need about 5000 entries to even come close to the 1st place school. The discouraging thing is that the 1st place school is probably half the size of our school and the points system is based on average points per student. Although we may have more total points than that school, we would have to have double the amount of points in order to be tied with them. A library makeover in Samantha's memory would be such an amazing thing to have for the children of this school and it would be a great way to keep her alive for Lilly and me.