Battle: Cyncism and Serving
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 11:31am | Edit Note | Delete
A man came to the door the other night it was raining out dark ,cold and windy , he had a rake in his hand and cans of food spilling out of his jacket, he asked stefanny for a bag , when i could here the voice was not familiar i took over command at the front door. He again politely asked for a bag to put his groceries in , i looked beyond him and could see a bike lying on my front lawn, his clothes were scruffy and he had not bathed in days . An immediate thought of hmmm came to my mind . I asked him what for (as if it werent obvious, i wanted a little more info) He told me that he had just finished raking someones yard and they paid him in canned food which he seemed perfectly fine with. So there went my thought of "just lookin for a handout" this man had actually worked for his food .... heard a saying the other day "a man should not eat if he has not worked",although i try not to necasarily believe that , my mind still curious, or, i think cynical, summed up the bike, no helmet,a garbage bag etc and made a judgement most living in Abbotsford might make... What did i do? I gave him a bag ...and that was it ....nothing extra . let the opportunity disappear as i watched him tie his groceries to his bike and flee off into the darkness ...where to, i do not know, its not the point ,the point was i still had alot to learn about grace and mercy and serving. I suppose my job has made me a little jaded , little suspicious a little guarded but i would have hoped that my recent journey would have smoothed those rough edges over just a bit, ok maybe it did enough that i keep a bag of convenient -type groceries in my car now just in case i run into him again ,and if i do i will first ask him if he'd like to rake the leaves in my yard , then apologize for not asking him prior, and offer the bag regardless of his answer. I had a choice to make in that very moment he was standing at the door, i think i made the wrong one, i had no basis for not helping, he had not done anything worng that i knew of . The afterthought of the bag of groceries etc was exactly that ....an after thought,that doesnt always cut it.
We have attended many funerals since Feb of this year , i think the last count was 6 ,wearing out my funeral clothes i think. People ask... do you really think youre ready to go to a funeral? do you have to go? well...lets see , I ask you,do you have a list of favourite people in your life? You know those people in your life for whatever reason came into it at just the right time or taught you such a valuable lesson in life that you crave spending time with them , well 3 of the people on my list this year were just such people. The other 3 also amazing people that i feel priveleged to have met and there stories of perseverance are absoutley nothing less than inspiring. Whatever each service looked like a common thread could be seen in all 6 lives. These people were all givers, all had lead not perfect lives but lives that made you want a little piece of who they were and reminded you why they were so admired,from the youngest of 5 to the oldest of 88 . I suppose that it is a time to focus on ones good qualities ,not a time to get up there and tell the world what a grump they were on Saturday mornings, but, nevertheless, there was an underlying quality in all of them. They all gave of themself , some of the funeral services were religious, some not , but each person had a gift , each packaged a little differently, whether it was teaching others about their faith , being a multi-talented young musician who stopped people in their tracks or being the fastest 5 year-old bike Ryder ever, or leading an adventurous successful life while giving much of his time money and knowlege to others, or having been a published poet, a pioneer of her time(so proud to be able to read her poem at her service) , or immigrating to a country with a hundred bucks in your pocket and making a success of your life in home and business. Oh and i can't forget a soul mate of the animal -kind who loved and suffered right along with her master.
I guess we only get one shot at living well , i dont mean spending well , or saving well , or anything like that , i think we get opportunities once in a while to show our true colours , i know youve heard me say it before but i have seen some pretty brilliant colours during the last 2 years and we continue to see more and more , some from people weve had to say goodbye to and some only a phonecall away some ive never met or met briefly. I had teh opportunity to sit in with some awesome kids last week in Mr Gripps lunch time bible study at Yale secondary , a group Ashley used to be a part of , pretty cool that this is even allowed in todays schools, anyways just a reminder that there are great kids out there making a difference ,living and serving on purpose, No ... you dont need a bible class or church to do that but for me , maybe them too?, its a way to keep it forefront in our minds, to remind us not to be so cynical,to serve and not always be served.
Last night was awesome, talk about angles out there, the girls and i drove into NVan to attend Ashleys comfort Bags stuffing party at my friend Pattys house, if you saw my status then you would know that Patty started this initiative to create bags for parents at BCCH who have found themselves there overnight unexpectadly, she got this idea from seeing me , darcy , others , (before we got smart and started packing a bag) stuck with no provisions for overnight. Sometimes when you're in the midst of it ,shell shocked and broken and the only thought on your mind is what kinda deal you'll have to make with God to save your baby, the last thing you're thinking about is brushing your hair and thats why you have angles with ideas and angels willing to give. The scene last night was breath-taking, the table heaping with supplies from all YOU angles, over 20 women there stuffing bags for BCCH, if extra then possibly Lions Gate (nvan, which is where most of the women are from) and Abbotsford Regional Hospital,. the ironic part is Ashley was born at Lions Gate , fought at BCCH and passed away at Abbotsford Hospital talk about full circle stuff. Thank you everyone, once again we are blessed and yet think of another mother who lost a child this week at Canuck Place and our friends the Lays (logans family) who have lost everything recently in a house fire (on their anniversay!) like Logans brain cancer wasn't enough, they will spend Christmas this year in a hotel which i'm not sure yet is a step up from their Chritstmas stays at BCCH? Begs the question hey ?Not sure what Christmas will look like for many people this year? Hopefully, find that man with the rake before then
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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