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...

Monday, May 17, 2010


On our 19th anniversery
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 12:32am | Edit Note | Delete
Yes, today was Lowey family's birthday..in other words it was our 19th anniversary the first day of the beginning of our family but to tell you the truth our journey began 27 years ago. We met in high school when we were 15 years old , we lived across the street from one another. If you are saying to yourself oh is that ever sweeet , thats is so cute,or maybe some are saying OMG they must be crazy...Youre all right! it has been quite a ride.
We have had some pretty amazing times together and some down right ...welllll you get the drift. Mostly i think we've learned to ignore, that probably sounds horrible but what i mean is to not take things too seriosly,not let them irritate you or at least don't let it show because sometimes thats exactly what its for just to piss the other one off, so just ignore...ignore there nasty grooming habits, they're snoring , there wrong choice of words, there this that and the other thing it really doesn't matter. What matters is are they there for you in the middle of the hard stuff are they the one you want to celbrate with in the good stuff. Are they the first shoulder you turn to when its you against the world are they the person you dream of travelling with in the Golden years (even if they want to go to Alsaka and you want to go to Europe)Sometimes i think being with someone that long you start to confuse them as the male version of yourself.(or female for the husbands)Knowing someone that long means you know them inside and out and means you can't get much past the other one. So much for his exaggerated high school football stories , i don't think so... i was there remember. Same goes for me too, he knows what move im going to make before ive even made it . FRIGHTENING!I know that we are very different people and it has become even more obvious during this past year however this is a good thing, the balnce has got us through this storm , (I think the dr's are probably thankful were very different people, imsure you know what im talking about) I always thought i was the strong one , the one to handle all the emergencies the one to keep it all together, nothing could be further form the truth this year I have seen Darcy be the rock, the strenghth and the multi tasker. I've seen his true nurturance shine through in some pretty raw moments , ones i could not bear, moments ithought men were not capable of (sorry men) Darcy is an old soul (the kids would call it old fashioned soul) believes in honour and justice and righteousness sometimes drives me nuts ithink he should be glammed out in armour with a team of horsemen riding into defend a village , i guess thats what makes me smile too.Im sure i have quirks that he could write a book about , he reminds people that i am french and irish as if it is to expalin away a behaiour...whatever! I could write a book about some of the trials and tribulations and those of you who have seen it all (my siters, close friends) could tell a few for party laughs too, its ok i know that one day we will be sitting on a porch in our rocking chairs as the sun goes down on us remainiccising about these younger years as our beautiful 4 children and grandchlidren sit around listening to stories of the olden days when grama and grampa were young.
P.S Yes we had a nice anniversary we actually celebrted it last week when the kids were gone...just listened to the silence. we told eachother "no gifts " unless its for the trailer , he got me a hot pink retracting beach lounge chair because iwas uncomfortable sittin in chair while we were camping,and a nice hallmark card. I got him a spatula for cooking when we go camping becuase we didn't have one in the trailer when we went camping made his ability to cook very difficult...i got the spatula at the dollar store along wit his card.
Happy anniversry hun.
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