Heaven

One of the best aspects of the Harris Teeter grocery store is the balloon corral, where kids are welcomed to take a balloon on the way out of the store. Brody and Logan know the balloon corral well. At the grocery on Friday, Logan chose a red balloon and picked a yellow balloon for Brody. We were visiting with the Weavers following Uncle Rick's death and hanging out in Rick's log cabin. Within a few minutes, Brody's balloon caught a rough spot on the wood and popped, startling everyone. Logan's balloon was more resilient and made it until nighttime when we were loading up the car to go back to the hotel. Logan let it slip from his hand and up it went, through the tree branches and into the darkness of the sky. I told the boys that it was going up to heaven to see Uncle Rick. Logan pondered that while Brody said "and it's going to see the guy who's birthday is on Christmas!" Yes, the balloon is going up to see Jesus *and* Uncle Rick.

I was taking the boys back to the hotel myself that night so Jacob could visit with his cousins a little longer. Brody noticed that with Dada gone, he was the oldest boy and took the role of Mama's protector very seriously. As we were going into the hotel and walking up the stairs to the 3rd floor, Brody said "I'm going to go first to make sure it's safe." And he ran up ahead to check around each corner. When we made it back to the room, he used the key to open the door and held it open for Logan and me. He's going to make some little girl very happy one day.