The Pumpkin PatchShare
Thursday, October 9, 2008 at 10:03am | Edit Note | Delete
Today was my 20th field trip to the pumpkin patch. Yes , each kid has gone at least 5 times in their early preschool/elemetary years to one of the local pumplin patches. For some reason i have always felt compelled to attend theis specific field trip i am not quite sure why, maybe it is because it is early in the school year or maybe it is because it is such a festive time of the year , or it reminds me of those old charlie brown cartoon halloween specials,or perhaps you get to sample apple cider and i always think that maybe just maybe they'll pull out the good stuff one of these times the "adult cider", just for fun. Its never happened though.
If i ever loose my job permanently i know for a fact that i could easily step into farmer Ben's shoes and guide that pumpkin/apple tour with my eyes closed, which im sure is exactly what that hay ride driver does....drive with his eyes closed.
I remember when we first moved to Abbotsford what a thrill this was, we didn't have pumpkin patches in North Van... unless you consider the diplay stand outside save on foods featuring city slicker richy rich pumpkins "a patch" So needless to say when the girls were little and my social life consisted of a calendar full of field trips and childrens events (i had no friends yet) I recall scrambling to get the kids bundled up warm so we would be 'on time' at the pumpkin patch...how absurd that sounds now"stressing to be on time for the pumpkin patch"I would always tote around the other two for the field trips so they would not miss out on the "big event." sometimes i wondered if that was an act in futility, there were times we would be bumping along on the hay wagon Ashley (4) hanging off the sides of the wagon christy(2) crying cause she was scared and Stefanny nursing away and bitng down every time we hit a bump in the path..(I think that man driver did that on purpose)i'd have video cameras and still cameras to capture every emotional moment
By the time we made it back to the car after much pondering over the perfect pumpkin ( you'd think they were picking out a new sibling replacement) we'd be knee deep in mud,someone missing a boot, dripping wet (cause it always rained) shiverring , crying, nursing and toting oversized orange heads , one of the kids would inevitably say "ah mine has a bruise on it i wanna go back its yucky and it smells funny" This would prompt me right into a conversation about "would you want someone to put you back because you smelled funny and had a bruise" I won only about half the time!!!
When stefanny( #3)was 4 i was able to finally go on these field trips arms free. I remember as we rode on that wagon in October 2000 i thought to myself" these field trips are going to be coming to an end pretty soon, that will be a sad day"
Well someone up there must have been listening because it was on that same wagon ride that i started getting a naucious icky feeling and it was the back corner of that pumpkin patch where i found a place to relieve my mysterious illness. On the wagon ride back the mystery began to unravel in my mind and i came to the realization that maybe these field trips were not quite over.
There was no break in between Stefanny's final field trips to the patch and the beginning of Brittanny's . Wednesday marked the 20th field trip and yes Darcy has made it to several of them but i always joined them at the last minute so as not to miss anything.
Today as we rode the wagon all the memories of the various trips kinda all mushed together like a big collage and to decipher one from the other would have been impossible, each trip signified a different time in our lives, financially, spritually, emotionally.
This field trip was different , i didn't sliently roll my eyes as i heard the same woman give the same speech on the "evolution of the apple", i tried not to rush the pumpkin choice(there was no need to) i didn't wish for adult cider , i was pretty sure ( i never want to say for sure) that this time was going to be one of the last pumpkin patch field trips and for that a i savoured the moment , i was worried back in the summer that we would be in the hospital in October and i would have to tell Brittanny i couldn't go. I was happy to be there , i didn't have to go back to work, i had no where else i needed to be ,nobody else rushing me from the expereince, all the trips have been some kinda fun , but this was special , the sun was shining, there were new baby goats in the petting zoo, and the perfect pumpkin was found this year. I didn't bring any cameras this time i wanted to see everything with my eyes, through Brittannys eyes As she and i bumped along on the hay ride (ididn't glare at the driver , i wasn't nursing) Brittanny said to me "isn't this the best pumpkin patch time ever ?' All i could do was just laugh inside and tell her "you bet kiddo"
Thanks for reading
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...
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