A Christmas letter from the Loweys
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 10:56am | Edit Note | Delete
Do you ever get those Christmas letters? You know the ones ..designed to make you feel like your life is crappy while the author goes on and on about how their 2 year old johnny is now singing tenor in the philharmonic choir and teenage suzy has been inducted into some hall of something ,somewhere and how she and her husband are now teaching "perfect marriage " courses at the college in Stepford or Pleasantville or some other make believe fairy tale land... blah blah blah..I apologize upfront to those who write honest accounts of their life over the past year , it is probably a good way to catch everyone up and certainly nothing wrong with proud moments.I just think it would be kinda cool if we all heard about the "not so good stuff" too, the kids bad marks, the bratty teenager stuff, the terrible 2's the, the irritating inlaws , the last stupid fight you had with your spouse , the extra 10 lbs, , wouldn't this be more entertaining more real . I think people believe that those letters are a way for them to bring themselves closer to others ...do they really?
I suppose this is my idea of a Christmas card this year , as i have told many we are forgoing much of the Christmas traditions this year for obvious reasons.
As you read this please do not have pity on us , don't think to yourself " oh what can we do to make their Christmas better" Sometimes Christmas just is what it is..sometimes its festive and plentiful and fruitful and joyous and other times its not , well ....not in the western culture sense , it will always be significant to me because of where my spiritual journey has taken me lately, so in a way this Christmas is like a cleanse . I loved our Christmasses past ,however i found myself doing things that i didnt really want to do and attatched many unneccessary rituals to it . I am not Christmas bashing , i am not bitter , and believe me if my kids wanted a traditonal Christmas then i probably would have pants'd up and done it . After much discussion about what it will look like for any of us , somehow drudging the decorations from the basement and mind numbingly setting up lights or baking(which just frustrates me) was so overwhelming and when we thought deep about it , realized we couldn't do it , not just because Ashley is not here but because it was a perfect time to rethink everything. Without sounding too cliche it is too much , we put so much emphasis on the rituals of it , that we feel compelled and conditioned to carry out . This year we are not doing anything that is not making sense to us , i dont have any plastic blow up nativity scenes in the front yard , i am not buying Christmas crackers that the kids fight over to get a paper hat from i am not burning sugar cookies this year and i will not darken the doorstep of any mall or God forbid ...Walmart. As a matter of fact we have decided for the first year ever to just escape , i know we can't run form our problems but i think we are running to a new idea. We have decided to go to Sunpeaks and just have a (insert adjective) time.Darcy has made all the arrangements (a gift in itself , i dont have to think) We are not buying gifts we have not bought a tree ( however we do have a memorial tree given to us in our living room) this is not a sad thing.If we were to write a form letter this year it would probably not look to appealing to most of you and today is a very sad reminder of words that changed our lives 2 years ago, but tomorrow will be the first time i have had a grade 10'r, healthy, past the dec 16 date ,tomorrow is a gift ,we have had many gifts this year , we don't need anymore,i cannot speak for everyone in my family we all experience waves of grief but i know for myself i have received the gift of peace and comfort and i know who sent it and i know that is what and who i will think about and thank on Christmas day.i am not kidding myself , i know there will be some sad memories no matter where we are , we will shed tears as we do almost daily , we will speak of Ashley and remember her as we do daily, and yes i will take the kids shopping when we get back , this isnt a financial thing it is a spiritual thing , we are not out to deprive our kids , we will just celebrate or remember what is truly necessary for us that day.
Our last 2 Christmasses have been heart wrenching , this time last year we were facing hard hard news and spending some cold dreary days drudging back and forth and staring out hosptial windows full of fear and anxiety ...we knew we were facing our last Christmas together on earth....however, through many angels Christmas became something very different for us and so it shall remain and thats ok, it is for many , others struggle with poverty and true hardship , it is everywhere in one form or another and its ok to learn from it , its ok for kids to learn from it . I remember as a kid we would always wait to hear my dad announce whether it was going to be a "tighten your belt christmas" , we loved it when he didnt say anything because he would never say "this is going to be a stellar christmas" we just heard it when things were leaner and i look back and dont remember a difference. There were times after my parents split that we were "helped out" and you know what, thats ok , its what it is about especaiily for children stuck in a cylce of poverty , defintiley give, defintly help out , but if you are a family having a tough year , dont miss out on a teaching opportunity for your kids , its ok that some christmasses are less than stellar (financially) its ok to go a year without everything. Builds character.
I was watching Dr phil the other day ,(which i rarely watch for the reason you are about to hear) a woman in the audience was crying because her husband lost his job and they could not afford to give the children the Christmas they were ACCUSTOMED too. I loved dr phils advice when he suggested that it was ok for kids to understand and buck up and realize that there are hard times it was a good learning opportunity for them . BUT then what does he do.... ,he fold, he caves , he gets the "good people from JC penny" ( lets call them pimps) to push and prostitute the "American product of the minute' so we can have more of their free advertising shoved down our throat and everyone can go away feeling"happy ever after" ..everybody sold their souls for what appeared to be a generous moment when so much value was lost in a teachable moment , those poor kids ,now all they have is a wii station and a new understanding of family , let's not fool ourselves there was no giving going on here. Everoyne was out to satisfy themselves . Like i mentioned DO give to the truly needy to the food banks and Salvation Armys of the world they depend on giving hearts this time of year to sustain them not only through Christmas but throughout the year which is what its really all about.
Anyways,please know that i am not a scrooge , there are some beautiful decorating and tradtions and generosity and yummy baking (obvioulsy not mine) out there i thank you for your Christmas cards and even those form letters. I will let you know how our Christmas "worked for us " this year , hey we may go back to our old traditions next year , but for whatever its worth i hope Christmas brings you what your soul craves. Remembering God's true gift to the world and wishing you Peace and Joy and comfort wherever and whatever Christmas means to you.
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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