Well i suppose that season is upon us, still a bittersweet one for us , one we are still stumbling through. Had this season not been so representative of the beginning of our journey mixed in with Christmas it may have been a little easier to separate, but for whatever reason we brace for the two extreme emotions as Christmas falls upon us. In a week from today we will so somberly remember the day we were given the first horrific news in this never ending journey, for now ,it is the lead up to the impending doom we experienced on December 16 2007. I cannot ignore the fact that the rituals of Christmas has brought us many tears , the simple sight of a Christmas tree to this day reminds me of our perfect little tree that sat undecorated in our living room the day we brought it home December 16 2007, a few hours before Ashley was diagnosed. How it begged to be decorated as we trudged back and forth from the hospital those cold days leading up to Christmas , too worn out , too broken and to separated from one another to adorn any Christmas hope upon it. It was finally decorated on Dec 24 when Ashley came home for a couple days,but somehow i knew our Christmasses would never be the same , our unthinking Chritmasses were gone for good.
The next year wasn't much brighter , we were facing hard news and unspoken fears , I remember Christy fussing over the perfection of the tree, how she became quite annoyed by anything that was out of place , how she struggled to get the lights on the tree refusing any assistance,perhaps she knew ,perhaps this was her way of controlling one last little piece of Christmas that would never be the same, i weep for that moment today , how we silently knew this was all in vain , the frivollous part of Christmas really didn't matter anymore, strip it all away and get back to what matters this very moment, not the tree , not the gifts , not the food...just hope and faith.
We have chosen not to decorate a tree this year, well that's not true ... we actually decorated our tree a few weeks ago, however, it did not sit in our living room, it showcased itself at the Tradex Christmas show in Abbotsford . The Ashley's journey team decided to decorate and enter an "Ashleys Comfort Bag" tree into the festival of trees contest, it was of course that day that it snowed ,so family and friends drudged out into the elements and adorned the tree with items we use in creating Ashleys Comfort Bags , toothpaste, toothbrushes , razors , shampoo etc etc, we placed Ashley bags under the tree and names of families we had faced cancer with ,we put an angel on the top and a butterfly decoration slightly below. It must have worked because we won first place($500.00 for our cause) what an honour. We were among good company The Gaby Davis foundation, (if you ever need a cause to give to this would be it....helping families financially through the devestaion of childhood cancer) Strangely enough the trees that surrounded Ashley's tree were The Salvation Army ,( our church) The SPCA (aslheys fave cause). The Agri-fair where she and Sophy would compete in 4-H demonstrations , and her school,what a representation of her life. So really, we did decorate the tree this year , not in our typical robotic way, but with purpose and fullfillment , so we are not sad about not decorating a home tree this year ,we will be gone anyways , off skiing for a few days, not to avoid or escape necassarily just to rebuild. Thank you for supporting us.
The Ashleys Comfort Bag idea is growing hugely, as we speak , the North Shore news is photographing and doing an editorial for the next edition, this comes on the heels of a recent campaign by the Lynn Valley merchants to collect donations for Ashleys bags, initiated by my friend Patty (a long time resident and business person in Lynn Valley, )we got a chance to go around and thank the store owners the other day, strangers are sometimes angels in disguise.
That being said, and although,I try not to attatch myself to anything that does not have or has never had a heartbeat or a soul,yesterday we had to say goodbye to an angel -type figure in our life , i know this may sound silly but it was my car , my van , my Sienna girl, don't want this to sound petty and materialistic but it was another representation of time and passing, things come and go , everything eventually turns to dust , so it is not neccasarily the "thing " we miss it is what it represents.
We bought Sienna a few short weeks before Ashley got sick, i remember us contimplating the van or an SUV, for some reason we went for the van and glad we did, if you recall gas prices back then we would have been in the poor house pretty quickly with the soon impending drive we would have to make regularly. Sienna put up with alot of crap, she put on alot of miles very quickly , she withstood bad weather drives and the slamming of brakes, she put up with people cutting her off because her handler wasn't always focussed , she put up with a master who subjected her to road rageous moments , she's seen plenty of tears , been puked on , bumped into , backed into , suffered the over use of her horn, had her gages pounded on in hissy fits of unfairness, been kicked , starved for fuel and still managed to get us safely and comfortably to and fro from some of our darkest places , she has made decisions on her own when my mind was not working, she has gotten me out of tickets and delivered me to places i didn't want to go alone, she sat in lonely parking lots for days warding off any potential thieves. She followed the sun on days that were ok and days i had forgotten my way, She brought us home on day the skies wept along with us , wiping away the rain like she wiping away our tears. We will miss you Sienna you were like an angel in disguise, may another family appreciate you as we have.
I would like to take this time to thank you for your extra attention , your acknowledgemnts of our feelings during this season, thank you for thinking of Ashley at this time , we would like to make light suggestions to those of you who have been asking about making donations in Ashleys name during this season and the upcoming anniversary of Ashley passing (Feb) We are so grateful to all the attention and thought you bring to our world. we thank you for the cheques and money in her honour , however, we find ourselves having to make difficult decisions on where it goes, many people suggest giving it to research etc or Canandain Cancer foundation but i feel sometimes it may be directionless and not sure if i should be inquiring any further into how specific it should be ...the charity is vast ...many say they want it to go to the kids cancer ward, again very vast. Our suggestions include but are not limited to BCCH in memory of Ashley Lowey , it is an ongoing legacy memorial which is self directed to specific research, or child life dept /oncology BCCH ,or Ashleys Comfort Bags .account Vancity... SPCA , Cops for Cancer, Childrun,Gaby Davis Foundation or BCCCPA, or into a Salavation Army kettle,please feel free to choose any of these, i am putting this out there only to give direction for those who have been asking , it is not a plea for donations. Many of the times we get notifications on donations made in Ahsleys name but in case they forget ,please let us know that you made the donation , we would love to be able to properly thank you. We never want anything to go un-thanked , we do appreciate everything, especially prayers, thank you for continuing to journey with us. Love to you all, may you find peace and purpose , may you find an angel if you need one , may you be angel if one is needed.
Peace,
Lori
The Journey of a butterfly...Ashleys life has become symbolic of a butterfly, peaceful beautiful and free to fly where the wind takes her. We have a white butterfly that flies around us in the garden in the springtime where the other girls play. Irish folklore tells us that a white butterfly is the rebirth of a deceased child's soul reborn into something even more beautiful than before...our butterfly
June 29 1992 - February 16 2009
Welcome to the Journey of a Butterfly
We invite you to follow along one family's journey through grief and loss, one brave young girl's journey through faith and inspiration, this is not a blog to convert anyone , nor is it a blog about fundraising , it is what i hope will reach another family on a similar journey, we are not experts , i could not give you a magic remedy for how one gets through disease and devestation but it is our story , sometimes gut wrenching other time heartwarming and all of the time, i guarantee, very real. We are not perfect, we struggle daily and i think that the more we connect to one another the more we understand what this journey through life is all about . Sometimes that path is bumpy and we fall down, sometimes we sit and stop a while,or take a step back and other times we pound our fists on the pavement like a lunatic , still other times we find ourselves picking eachother up dusting eachother off and walking alongside them even if only for short time. This blog is dedicated to Ashley , her sisters and every single angel that picked us up along this road.
This is an introduction to the beginning and middle part of our journey the specific blogs are more indepth , the end...well there will never be an end to this journey i've come to realize that , not on this earth, for now we just assimilate it into our life like a hole , a missing limb, a continous ache that you just learn to live with.
When Ashley was about 12 years old she asked if she could go to youth group at a local church , i didn't have any church upbringing but know i craved it throughout my life , this was a rare opportunity and i recognized that if i didn't embrace it now she may lose her interst in it very quickly and beocme a jaded, cynical, stubborn person like her mom. My husband grew up in a very religious (shove it down your throat) kinda religion( i wont mention any names)or maybe it was the way he was raised ? Anyways i encouraged her to go because the community we had moved to embraced this kinda thing so i thought why not? Naturally and shortly after she started attending she was soon encouraging us to go , she had made quite a leadership name for herself there , pionner leader , sunday school helper etc, i was comfortable for the first time in my life going to a church, maybe it was the first word that greeted you as you walked in..."belong" maybe it was because they embraced community and outreach service in our city , dont know, but soon found it very therapeutic, cheaper than a shrink, and our other 3 girls jumped on board pretty quickly, my husband well... a work in progress , he communes with God in a fishing boat he says , although makes many efforts to go even if just for good way to start the week, i was still cynical , felt i wasnt holy enough but went anyways.
Ashley was scheduled to sing a solo in the church choir Dec 16 2007 , i was scared for her, i was sure she got her singing skills from me which was nil at best. She sang beautifully and you couldnt tell she had been complaining of cramps , something i chalked up to girls stuff/growing pains for a couple weeks off and on, she was an active healthy girl. When the performnce was done we got our christmas tree and i took her to the clinic to have it checked out before Christmas , they sent us to our local hosptial for tests , i was worried it was appendix. Darcy, my husband left the hosptial to go pick up our other 3 girls from friends houses , i caught the doctor in the ahallways and asked if the ulstrasound pictures were back, i remember having eye contact with Ashley only feet away from me but far enough away for her not to hear the doctor to so impassionaltely say "its not appendix, it looks like cancer", i have to stop as i write this because it is still one of the 2 biggest shocks in my entire life, i think i ran down the hallways screaming with no sound coming from my throat and not knowing where i was running . I phoned Darcy and words didnt come out of my mouth. Before I knew it we were at out local Childrens Hospital(100km away) meeting oncologiosts , being give an "oncology team" which consisted of a primary nurse, a social worker, a main oncologist and a shrink....wait a minute ...what is an oncologist? yep, a cancer doctor, this was the real thing . we waited 4 days to find out what type we were dealing with ... it was curable 90 % even though she was stage 4 , how the hell can my kid have stage 4 cancer and only a few cramps , it was mind bending. We were thrown stright into a world so foriegn to us , everything stopped ..jobs ..PAC meetings ,carppoling and yes even some friends who"couldn't handle it" it was no longer our own beds , our own home, our own anything. Treatments and life became unbearable , the 90% cure rate was not looking good at any stage throughout our journey , it seemd to be always full of negative news to the point where i couldnt stand the face of her oncologist , it nearly made me want to vomit everytime i saw him...The words they briefed us on as we began this mind altering path was " one of you will grieve through this process and no matter the out come the other will grieve after " they couldn't have been more right.......Ashley insisted on going to church on Christmas eve, two nights before she was to start chemo at the end of the service our pastor came to pray with us , i didn't know many people in the church , but wow did they know Ashley, when we rose our heads from bowing in prayer the whole congregation was surrounding us , i knew at that moment who i was going to need to get me through this ...would he be willing to listen to me...
