I Suck At Searching For A Bracelet

if there is one thing that my son (braden) has taught me, it's that nothing ever seems to go according to plan. that definitely is the case because i suck at searching for a bracelet.

when braden passed, i had been wearing the medical bracelet that was put on my wrist when karen gave birth to braden. unfortunately, that medical bracelet snapped the other day. thus, began my search to replace the bracelet and continue honoring my son.

my original plan was to have a bracelet with braden's name and hand print on it. that way, it would be like i was holding my son's hand forever... something that i currently will never be able to do. i had figured that i could use the scanned image of braden's hand because when we met with the funeral service, the funeral service had mentioned that they would scan the hands and feet of braden.

as it turns out, the funeral service could not scan braden's hand. braden's hand was just too small like the rest of him. luckily, his feet were able to be scanned.

anyway, i obviously had to come up with another option. so i began my quest to find something to honor my son... before i seriously think about getting a tattoo as suggested by my friends (jen and kerry).

karen and i began by searching the store "things remembered". unfortunately, the store didn't have anything that caught my eye. plus, they would only engrave text and a select number of items... nothing like a scanned image of braden.

from there, we decided to check out the jewelry stores. as it turned out, we were directed by one of sales associates to the jewelry store next door because they knew that there was a sales associate there who had recently had a picture of her son engraved on a necklace. they thought she would be more than happy to help us. the only problem... this sales associate with the engraved picture of her son did not start work until later.

so karen and i killed some time and returned to speak with the sales associate. it was a very touching encounter. the sales associate (donna) lost her son of 23 years. to honor him, she had a necklace created with his image on it. she also has a tattoo of him on her back. i think what was most touching was that she told us that "it will get better"... to which i started to tear. donna even gave us both hugs. that must have looked odd... karen and i in tears, being hugged by a sales associate in a jewelry store.

needless to say, whether i use the store that donna recommended to get a picture engraved of braden or not, i am thankful that i got to meet donna. it is situations like these that make me think about how we are all amazingly connected. it's a nice feeling.