Simplicity
Well it's that time of year again and my message is the same , perhaps it goes out to those who are unsure what to do with themselves as this month sweeps most people up in merry sense of busy-ness.
There aren't too many gifts i consider valuable this time of year but one i guess i try to remember and keep close to my heart is that Christmas CAN be something different than what the world dictates to me, it can be simple , un-grand , basic, it can be for-going of the unnecessary , this isn't being scroogy it's time spent with loved ones , a fine meal and if finances happen to treat you to a bonus then sure, ....gift giving. Religiously speaking, the bible does not really dictate the exact birth of Christ but can be a time to be grateful for the birth of a Savior . I think i now happen to know more people , through similar journeys and the clients i see at work that Christmas has become a struggle for many people to get through, this is unfortunate because the bar has been set so high in western culture to provide some idealistic , magical , super hero Christmas, seems to me by watching people who serve others, somehow it takes the focus off the unnecessary... if you struggle at Christmas it's ok to set the bar lower, be gentle with yourself and don't get caught up on the things you just can't do and feel pressured to do.
Having said that , i am grateful if i can just get through this holiday, this month, in peace, i thought i was nearly half way through until i got a phone call on Friday night, i happen to be bell ringing for Christmas kettles with Brittanny's Youth Group on Friday night when i got the dreaded phonecall ... "the girls have been in a car accident", after several explatives that i tried to hush ( as i mentioned i was with the church youth group ...yikes) my body went into that all familiar frozen mode, numb from the brain down. "Really God ? you see where i am right now, right? not that i ring bells to ensure my kids safety and health forever and ever but cmon , now? Once i was able to hustle my terrorized butt out of there i still had a 20 min drive home to grab Darcy and go....oh there's a treat , waking my husband and relaying this info...have you ever tried waking a bear out of hibernation to tell him winter's not really over...this poor man sleeps in startle mode most of non waking hours(battlescars) ...needless to say we were out the door and into that strange familiar December soul-cold air that i hadn't felt in several years, headed for E. Hastings and Kennsington in seconds... but what do you know there's an accident 3 cars ahead of us on the freeway. Mom of the passenger (Jen ) happen to make it to accident scene before us and decided to take the girls to the hospital and meet us there ...Once we met them at the hospital i was able to see them , bruised and battered from the airbags deploying, but alive , walking and besides a very swollen botox-looking lip on Logan, recognizable ...oh did you notice i said Logan , yes Logan the child with umpteen brain tumors ( friends from our time at BCCH) of course i was worried about Christy , her pain she would feel in the next couple days , her ego , her emotions but i just needed to hear that Logan suffered no trauma to anything above her plump lip. Triggers were misfiring in all departments of my body. Once again i found myself sitting next to a familiar friend who i really hoped that i would never have to encounter in a hospital again ...but she was cool as a cucumber , maybe all those years in oncology, this is nothing, this isn't Children's, this is some weird kind of everyday normal kid thing , not to say she wasn't concerned , just a different perspective i guess... i could use a dose of that, and no we had no oncology parent Ativan drug dealing ..(oops i meant sharing ) going on either ... Anyways we all got to leave the hospital at the same time, the cold air blasting me in the face again, this time it seemed slightly warmer... these besties sporting matching hospital bracelets ... some kinda cute memory for them ...some kinda weird torment for us. Oh and Stef poor Stef in all this . her car , Christy borrowed it and well lets just say i think we're car shopping again , minor damage but air bags went off so its probably a done deal.
Well yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of diagnosis day and today the day i first encountered her oncologist at BCCH...K.S. not the easiest relationship i've ever had but it's not one that should even exist if we were in a perfect world, so ...i'll leave it at that.... bid you all a very peaceful time , may you all experience the possibility of simplicity and peace and giving and gratitude and a year of God's strength and grace for whatever lies a ahead
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...
