Our Day at the Beach-Pieces of Christa

We were blessed with lovely weather on Sunday, and so we decided to take the opportunity to enjoy the sun a bit and headed out to Fish Hoek beach with the family after church and Sunday lunch. I had grabbed the packet with the children's 'sandcastle stuff' which we haven't used for a while and packed it in the car earlier in the morning.

Chloe and her friend Sinead wanted to build sandcastles. So I opened up the packet and started emptying all the buckets and spades, and to my surprise I found a pair of pink pants in the packet. It must have been left in there from the time we last went to the beach. And suddenly I remembered the last time we were at the exact same beach when Christa had worn that exact pink pants with hearts on it and she had gotten it wet and sandy which was how this pants ended up in the packet with the sandcastle stuff! I couldn't believe it! It probably sounds really silly, but it meant soooo much to me just to hold it. I felt like God in some way had 'left' the pants for me to find on that day. To just have that visual reminder of her made her feel that much closer and sort of 'with' us as we spent that day on the beach. Then I remembered that I had taken a picture of us at the beach that day with Christa on my phone. And so I looked it up, and there it was....21st of March 2007 (5 1/2 months before she was diagnosed, almost a year before she went to be with Jesus, 1. 5 years when I found it!) Anyway, I have been thinking about her and missing her so much these past few days. But I said to Carl that day, I'm not going to wash these pants! I'm keeping them in Christa's box of memories.