this is pretty amazing news...

[jessica31876]

With all the horrible things which happened to my family in the last six weeks we got some good news at my son's funeral on Wednesday. We were not sure if the school was going to do anything as a memorial for my son because the school is relatively new and so are the teachers and there is a brand new principal this year where he would have been for his final year of high school. (he went there for 10th and 11th grade though). So the S.A.F.E Coordinator came to the funeral on Wednesday to talk to us. I was really busy so she talked to my daughter and asked her if there was anything we wanted the school to do. My daughter had some ideas and some things I had expressed I would have liked to have done. The SAFE coordinator agreed to do them all. They are:

1.Going to have a memorial ceremony with the ROTC Honor Guard lowering the flag to half mast and giving me a flag for my son (my daughter was in ROTC but my son was not so that is pretty nice).

2.Plant a memorial tree with a small plaque under it.

3.Give me a full page in the yearbook to do a memorial layout for my son that I can design myself and give me the yearbook for free (which is around 100 dollars a piece. I had planned on paying for both myself but she said they want to give them to us)

4.Have my husband, me and my two other children come to the graduation ceremony and present us an honorary diploma for my son.

5.(this was actually my request) Come to the school around the time prom is and speak to the kids about safe driving and the consequences of things like texting, running red lights & stop signs, drinking and driving etc. Tell them about my husbands accident and how it has effected his daily living and how it effected our whole family to lose Matt and deal with my husband being so badly injured.

I was surprised she said ok to all of those things. It honestly made me cry when I found out how much the school wanted to do to just honor my son. I know it is going to be really hard for us to do some of those things but just to know people care enough to want to do it is so touching.

Anyhow just wanted to share some of the good things happening. It is still really hard everyday but the little stuff like this does help. It just gives me faith that there are really good people out there who make up for the bad ones or the people who choose to do bad things I guess I should say.

[origami]

There really ARE good people in the world.

[marnel]

Jessica that is all such wonderful news.
The memorial at my dd's graduation was so nice and it made the local paper, I had no idea another mom showed it to me.
The yearbook I did it also, picked the photos and layout.
My dd 2 yrs younger than her got to go to Charlies prom to document the day and take photos of her friends w/Charlies framed photo.

It's a great feeling knowing they are not forgotten...
big big hugs

[Sasha]

So nice for them to do all those things...

[jessica31876]

Mary it is very nice to know he is not forgotten. I think it is one of the things which hurts the most how life just goes on without him here yet for us it feels like nothing does. We still hurt everyday and miss him like crazy everyday. So for him to be recognized and in such a big way...especially the honorary diploma thing. I am so happy because he was really looking forward to graduating. So him being included still in the ceremony with his friends and classmates just feels so good.

[scrapweaver]

That is so great - I'm glad something good has happened. Thank goodness there are still some decent people in this world

[marlathrall]

I am so glad to hear this news... I pray that good things continue to come from these terrible circumstances. Your son will never be forgotten and his story could save some other student.