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There have been many celebrations and many sorrows during our time in quarantine.

Most recently, we lost our sweet pup Polly to a 2 year battle with cancer. Polly was 11.5 years old and if you follow us closely on Instagram you know that she put up a wonderful fight. I’ve been meaning to write a post about Polly. To be honest, I’m still at a loss and we are still grieving. While Grant and I are sadly familiar with this type of loss, I’m still not ready to write about it quite yet.

What I’d like to do instead of writing a long post about Polly and how much she meant to us, because that’s kind of a downer during an already sad time for everyone, is share a blog post about ways we can honor loved ones.

Whether it’s a birthday celebration or the loss of a furry friends, it’s more important now than ever before that we honor the important people in our lives. It can sometimes feel very challenging to hold some sort of service or throw a big birthday party {it’s flat out unrealistic for many of us}, but there are still a few ways to work around the system and make things feel special.

Hold Ceremony

The other day I was thinking about how we coped with the loss of William (Polly’s brother) many, many years ago. The most helpful thing Grant and I did when we lost William was to hold a ceremony in his honor. I think one of the harder aspects of losing a pet is that it almost seems silly to most people to have a funeral of sorts. Grant and I said a few nice words about William and then decided to both get “W” tattoos in his honor. It truly made us both feel so much better knowing we had celebrated his honor in this way.

Whether it’s planting a tree, visiting a beach to say a few words or even having a nice family dinner to walk down memory lane – holding some sort of ceremony really does the heart wonders. Because we aren’t able to get Polly tattoos quite yet {because of quarantine}, I’ve been wearing my Monica Rich Kosann locket. I received this locket as a gift after June was born and it has a picture of my two girls inside.

Throw a Party

Okay so you can’t have dozens of people over… but maybe you can have one or two friends over and keep a safe distance. What we did for Grant’s 40th birthday was spread out visitors over the course of one week. A few friends came on a Saturday and then a few different friends on a Monday. Honestly it was kind of like a nice week-long of celebrating and actually getting to connect with friends on a deeper level.

Make it Special

It’s very easy for all of us to say “it won’t count” and bury our heads in the quarantine sand.

Now is the time, more than ever, that we should be celebrating life!

Try your best to make the best of any birthday or special occasion. In fact, birthdays and anniversaries should feel extra extra special! For Grant’s 40th I emailed forty of his closest friends and family members to request 2-3 sentences of “why we love Grant.” I printed them all out and {funny enough} taped them up in the bathroom on the morning of his birthday. It started his day off on the right foot – with lots of laughter and warmth in his heart.

Home-Made Everything

I’ve taken a deep dive back into my arts and crafts side during quarantine and I’m secretly loving it. Hand-made cards, pictures that June scribbled and printing out photos for albums have been truly meaningful during this dark time. I’ve resorted back to snail mail for relatives too. The most meaningful gift I received over the past 4 months was a scribbly picture that June drew {with help from dad} for me for Mother’s Day.

Make it Tangible

So much of our lives are digital. When William passed away, I made an entire photo album on Artifact Uprising. I also did one for Polly most recently and it feels really nice when you get it in the mail. It’s almost like having this incredibly meaningful piece of them right there in your home with you. I have the Artifact Uprising app on my phone which makes it super easy to upload photos. I’ve also used their service to print out photos of June which I mail to my Meme in Texas.

Have you held a birthday during quarantine? What did you do to make it special? How have you coped with the loss of someone special and what are you doing to honor their name?

DMTBeautySpot

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jaceylenae, Khareem Sudlow