My very talented MIL made all the baby announcements for Jonas while we were awaiting his arrival. I chose birds as the theme because I love the way they look as decor. Little did I know that birds, specifically doves, would come to represent Jonas after he passed away. It was mentioned in the song we had played during the funeral--didn't even know until it was being played at the funeral. The line was "like a dove caught in a storm". It took my breath away as I sat there listening to it. I had found a Bible verse that I printed out and attached to seed packets to pass out. I again was curious, so I looked at the verse (which I found on a random website). It mentioned "the turtledove"...Amazing! The thing that put me over the edge was when I became curious about the meaning of the name Jonas. I looked it up and couldn't believe my eyes. Jonas means "dove". Not sure why I never looked it up before. So many other doves have crossed our paths. The military moved us to Denver on a humanitarian reassignment, which was such a blessing. The Colorado state flower is the Columbine, which just so happens to mean "dove" in Latin. When we were house-hunting in Denver, we were looking at a house and were in the backyard when the owner said, "Look on the roof--there's a dove who lives there!" Sure enough, there was a dove sitting in its nest staring at us...so of course we had to get that one! :) On the day of my job interview, there were doves flying around the parking lot before I went in. Yes, it may just be a coincidence, but I prefer to believe that God gives us signs of our loved ones as a peaceful reminder that He does exist. So obviously, I'm partial to doves. And yes, we did mail out the announcements anyway. We edited the inside to say..."into God's embrace" along with a poem my MIL wrote. I remember one of the first things I thought of, silly enough, was how hard she had worked on these announcements and how we wouldn't be able to use them. I'm so glad we did, though.
