Update, it's been almost two years, and the grief is the same as the first day he died…Never in a million years would I have ever thought that I would add my only child's memorial on here, my beloved Son…This can't be true, I'm supposed to pass away first, not you! I catch myself thinking about his body being destroyed with fire. I think about his beautiful white teeth and his skin looking so healthy. Everyone in my life, even Dr's counselors, my Parents told me to use tough love with him or I would spoil him and make him gay. My precious Granddaughter Sarah found my Son's body struggling to stay alive. The pain of that knowledge hurts me just as much as losing my Son. It was the first thing I asked Sarah when she called me screaming, Dad Shot himself!!! I screamed and asked, did you see him? Yeeesss she screamed. It was the worst moment of my life the pain of losing my Son and the painful realization that my Granddaughters will grieve too. I have no grave to go visit, which is heartbreaking for a Mom. Sometimes I still call out his name, and realize I'm repeatedly saying, my baby, my baby, my baby. On the day he died I was saying out loud, Larry, how could you, why, why Larry? Then I said, If you're ok give me a sign. The power went out and the entire house was dark, just as suddenly the power popped back on. It truly felt like my Son gave me the sign I asked for, he was communicating with me, and he let me know he's ok. Thank Goodness his last words to me were, I love you too Mom. He hadn't talked to me for two years because I would always tell him to stop drinking, so I went to his house and when he opened the door I said, I love you Larry, and he said I love you too Mom.

I wrote the following many years ago…

How awesome that my precious Granddaughter Sarah has my 3% Norwegian/Viking dna! After I learned about the Vikings in fourth grade I started drawing Viking ships and scenes for years after that. I never would've guessed that I actually have a little Viking dna in me, and that I passed it down to my Granddaughter Sarah.

One night in 2014 my phone rang, it was my Mom calling, I was so happy to hear from her! Then she started crying and telling me "Johnny died". Her baby boy was killed back in 1962, he was only three years old. I was nine years old and standing right next to him. He had followed me out to the street, and I didn't know until I saw a black car with a man driving. The man waved to me, I turned to wave back, that's when I saw the man's car hit my little Brother, the sun was setting behind us...( I was about forty years old when I finally realized why sunsets always made me feel so horribly sad and devastated. The sun was setting as I saw my little brother killed.)... I started crying with my Mom and tried to comfort her. But I woke up before I could get her to stop crying. I had been dreaming.

The next morning I kept thinking about the fact that Mom died on Johnny's birthday, March 26th 2013 and now she's calling me about Johnny a year after she died. So I went on the internet and typed John Clayton Sparrow into Google. To my shock, up popped his memorial on Find A Grave! My dear, long lost Sparrow cousin Norman Mayfield had created it. Then I found my Mom's memorial, her name was spelled in a way that was incorrect from her headstone, and not the way she spelled her name. I thought, this would really make my Mom angry and she really would be rolling in her grave. So I got her name corrected and the lady gave my Mom's Memorial to me. Then I found my sweet long lost Inman cousin Samantha A. she had made a memorial for my beloved Grandma Carrie. All this because I got a call from my Mom about a year after she had passed, awesome!

Another unforgettable, beautiful dream I had.... I was sitting cross legged on an ironing board, with my little Pomeranian dog in my lap, and we were flying around the Santa Rosa area, as if we were on a magic carpet. We were hovering over a graveyard area when I saw someone waving at me. I was overjoyed to see that it was my first and best Mother in law, Irma Pickering. She yelled, hi Rita! I yelled back, Hi Irma! I went down closer to her and she says, I just had to tell you, that's the cutest little dog I've ever seen! I was so happy to see her again and then I realized she had been dead since 1988, and this was around 2002 so I woke up right away and felt like I had just had an out of body experience. It was such a wonderful dream and reminded me that Irma was a dog lover and sweetheart of a woman. Thank you Melinda R. for letting me have Irma, Floyd and Larry Sr.'s Memorials. It was so nice to hear from you!