June 29 1992 - February 16 2009

Welcome to the Journey of a Butterfly

Welcome to Ashleys Journey,

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...

Sunday, April 9, 2017

The F Word

The “F” Word
My favourite thing about summer in the Fraser Valley is berry picking , i didn’t grow up in these parts ,so when we moved to Abbotsford when the kids were small i made it a yearly tradition , call me nuts because berry picking with little ones is equivalent to trying to catch raindrops in your hand, not much accumulates. Blueberries are my favourite and exceptionally early this year so when we brought home a couple buckets this past weekend i washed them and laid them out to snack on , which in my mind was a great alternative to chocolate covered almonds. After a few handfuls i noticed that my mouth was itchy, after several more handfuls , i realized at the ripe old age of 50 ( in 2 weeks ) i have, at this stage of the game , developed an aversion or allergy to one of my sweet indulgences...are you fricken kidding me ...which brings me to my point...The “F” word....FIFTY.
Now i know i have a few 1966’ers in this audience so hopefully we are sharing an experience here , one i have never felt before...what the hell just happened , when did 50 sneak up on us. Please don’t write me back and say in your existentialist voice “50 is just a number “ duh! I know that , i passed grade one math , but you know that 13 is just a number, as is 666, say those numbers out loud and they hold some sort of significance in most people’s minds , no? Somewhere between 40 , (well even 49) and 50 there appears to be some invisible threshold that transports you to a new playing field and a magical silent bucket list inevitably begins to formulate in the depths of your sagging storehouse of cynicism and sarcasm
The difficult part of 50 is that i think most people can admit they are not likely to live until 100 ( yea yea bla bla bla we’re living longer, medical advancements , bla bla bla) but i watch Global news and during one of the segments on the news they publically acknowledge those turning 100 or more , what i notice is that there is typically only one or two a day , if any, that’s because living to 100 is a great feat i suppose ...50 is half of 100 if you didn’t already know ...49 is half of 98 but you don’t see 98 ers being acknowledged on Global News , so living to be 98 is no big deal i guess ,but living to 100 obviously is, however, the way the world is going , would i even want to. There is a secret little place inside each bereaved parent ( who believes that there is something beyond this life ) that each day we are a bit closer to seeing our child , so i’m not whinning about dying at this point , i’m just wondering ...now what? Anybody else wondering now what?
I don’t mean “now what” in this huge grand decision of “what to do with the rest of my life” I’m not going back to school to gain a PHd in English Lit or Art History , I’m not on an Eat Pray Love journey , I’ not running away to Saltspring Island to take up the flute and grow out all my body hair until i shine like sterling silver, my career is what it is , its’ not always an easy job ( compounded issues when you’ve lost a child but...) much of it is frustrating and heartbreaking but for now at best it’s a necessary job. I consider myself a fairly grounded person, cynical at times with a few quirks that keep me sane/insane ( fine line) I’ve seen the Good , Bad and Ugly of this city , my world , this global world so i know my place in it , kinda, know what i should be doing , kinda and definitely know where i’m falling short.
Since the buzz word of “bucket list “ became a thing ( thanks to some stupid movie) i have questioned a few people on what their bucket list looks like and i gotta say i’m looking a little lame ...stuck somewhere between philosophies of “live simply and appreciate the little joys and run out and grab the world by the ...”i don’t have any desire to jump out of a plane , i don’t think it has anything to do with fear , but in saying that i’ve faced enough fears in life that i don’t have any desire to chase fears that i don’t have to, period. Travel? mmm yeah , to a point , there’s a few places i’d like to see, mostly i’d love to experience the Northern lights from a very northern point. ( i love anything that luminates, i told you i was quirky) I’d like to learn to surf , I want to read a few very important books , yes the classics...Little Women , i stopped at page 157 the night i read to Ashley before she passed away and haven’t been able to pick it back up , I really should find out what happens at the end ...and the Bible , i have 100 pages left , Old Testament and it’s mind boggling and i’m a little worried i’ll be even more confused at the end ...my faith remains strong but my understanding is a work in progress and i don’t want it tampered with too much. I want to continue with running but don’t have that “marathon “ appetite at this point ( i prefer treadmills, i’m a glutton for constant digital feedback) i would like to write something other than observational reports at work and facebook blogs. Mostly I want to see my children grow to be loving caring capable yet gentle humans with a strong faith to carry them through all of life and yes i look forward to grandchildren ( okay not anytime soon , no rings yet lol)
So there it is in all it’s quirkiness, what about you , are you facing a similar age/ life milestone, what’s on your list , what wisdom can you impart on this old broad.
50 and feelin it ‘
Peace,
lori
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