Calvin on the Mind

Lately Calvin has been on my mind more than normal. I just miss that kid. It seems to come and go in waves. I've been on the top of the wave, thinking about him a lot and remembering the things he used to do when he was little. He talked quite early, early enough that I thought something was wrong with the other two because they didn't talk until much later. He came up with some creative names for things that he couldn't quite get straight.

Newbab was his Moab. It was cute. He adored his Uncle Copper who lived there and he loved visiting him. He said that one for so long that I remember Olaf saying we should start correcting him. I sure didn't want to change it and when he started saying Moab I was sad.

His favorite cereal was Charly Chams. Can you guess what it is? You're going to feel silly that you didn't when I tell you what it was for him. It is also my favorite cereal, hands down. It's full of different marshmallows including rainbows. His favorite cereal was Lucky Charms.

He loved the candy Save Livers. I know you can figure out what those are without even telling you.

Lately I have been pummeled by reminders of Calvin. I think it started last week when I was together with some old friends from church. One of them had moved out of the area. Her son is on the High School football team. I was asking her if she knew that the team had signed a football for Calvin. She proceeded to tell me how not only did they do that, but they dedicated a game in his honor. I had only known after the fact that the team had painted CH on their calves for the game. Turns out the game made local news and she has it on her DVR at home. She's going to try and get a copy for me.

I looked at the Obituary, the newspaper article about the accident, and the facebook page In Memory of Calvin where many comments were made and found even more comments. Some were quite recent. One was from a friend on the last day of school, "Yesterday was our last day of school and everyone wished that you were there to sign yearbooks. but you weren't your in a better place now. You got picked for the nicest boy, and you got a whole page about you. You would never believe how much we missed you at lunch work." And another friend wrote on April 15th, "wow. its only been 6 months to the day. and he has been missed enough to seem like its been 6 years." Some days it feels like forever to me too.

The Monument place called to get some more information for the headstone. We had recently seen a cute picture of a Basset Hound so this week I have been hunting down that picture to take to them so they can make a Basset Hound picture that looks similar.

Today Olaf sent me a youtube video from UtahScouts that you can find here. Calvin is between seconds 24-27. He's sitting on a chair writing on a piece of paper, getting his work done for all those merit badges he earned up at Maple Dell that year. He loved Scout Camp, every year he got to go. Hopefully he still gets to camp in Heaven.

And just the other day I found a completely new site I hadn't thought to look at before. They also have a R.i.p Calvin Hansen page. I had heard about Bebo because Calvin had a page there. I think it's similar to facebook but mostly kids use it and he had a lot of friends with whom he shared pictures . It was really sweet to read all the comments from his friends on a site that was much more teenager friendly and almost adult-free; it seemed to give them a little more freedom in what they wrote.

One day I may get the guts to make a blog with just stories about Calvin. I've been putting them down as I remember them, but that is a task that will take years. But I think it would be fun.