white butterfly
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 12:18am | Edit Note | Delete
I can feel the change in the air , Fall is upon us, I suppose some see Autumn as a death others see it as a rebirth i just see it as a change reminiiscent of our lives, always transforming from one form to another.
Summer is over and by looking at our pictures you'd probably think it was a pretty normal looking summer ,we had BBQ's and went camping and spent time living outdoors in the pool basking in the sun, and despite the great losses lately we had an ok summer. I suppose from an onlookers point of view one would think its the big milestones and significant dates we have hard times with , this is true, but strangely it is the season changes that give us the biggest difficulties , the concept of what the season "should" or "would " have brought internally and intuitively. I guess before we just did everything on autopilot now its kinda like not having a gps to rely on, not sure which direction we should be going, strange people in a strange land. Thanks though to family and friends the girls saw a pretty good summer, they did alot , played alot and thanks to Camp Good times they healed alot . I remember discussing with some people a while ago our summer plans i told them about my kids going to camp, someone piped up and said "oh i dont think i could ever send my kids to camp" i thought for a second( in my snide lori mind) " yeah well have you ever lost a child before and been left with three grieving siblings that need a place to go to heal to grieve and have fun again" ( the new and improved lori actually didnt open her mouth and allow those words to escape), i just smiled and said "isn't that nice for you.." .( not snide at all hey). Darcy and i transformed the backyard after a couple years of neglect into our place of peace... we constructed, gardened , built and bickered over silly decisons like deck stain and plant hangers . and as we toiled along I could not help but notice a moth fly frequently amongst us as we built, constructed, played, laughed, cried and bickered...someitimes i would even say to myself "watch the moth" as it would fly close to the kids as they played in the pool,( how silly is that) One time this creature actually brushed the side of britts's face as we stood in Ashleys garden...weird. I wondered why we never saw the colorful butterflies considering we had gone to such great lengths to purchase " butterfly attracting plants" anyways this little moth kept appearing at the strangest of times , birthdays , anniversaries , hard tearful days,happy days, and just plain playful days, there it would be landing close to the food or sometimes flying with a friend., You can probably imagine what i started thinking about this little moth , one day i stopped calling it a moth and referred to it as a white butterfly.. and i reminded those around me that it was now a white butterfly . it was no longer a moth , it transformed in my mind.The story doesnt end here..stay with me...
Recenlty we had been asked to join forces with the Cops for Cancer by fundraising and sharing our story( see the note at end of this) so last night when i was trying to add butterflies to the webpage (as you know this was the symbol of Ashleys journey) i went online to check out the symbolism of the butterfly , as i was looking i noticed a page for white butterflies i clicked on it and when i did i nearly fell off my flippin chair... the Irish(which we are) symbolism and folklore behind the white butterfly is that it represents the transformation of a dead childs soul ressurection into something greater than before ...i gasped i couldn't believe what i was reading... i don't usually buy into that airy faisry stuff and not sure i f i believe that people turn into animals, bugs, leprochauns or other beings after they die( although maybe some should) but what i do believe is that maybe this white butterfly is flying about to tell us that she is right here in everything we do she is present playing , watching, building,communicating, celebrating, she is not gone she is a reminder that she is doing something really great something beyond this world. I will miss this butterfly in the coming months as i will miss what Ashley should be doing ...graduating...getting her drivers licesnce...planning her future ...driving me crazy... sometimes i feel rippped off...alithough, i know these things are transient "they to shall pass" but i think about what she has taught me and what she already knew in her young life about serving others and how fulll her life was , i am reminded of this when i see the white butterfly, she continues to do wonderful things and lead us to beautiful places.
Yesterday we had to make a choice ...do we walk in the SPCA Paws for a Cause or do we run in the Terry Fox run?,,,hmm considering we don't have Sophy anymore it was a hard decision ...we chose to walk for the SPCA my sister and her family biked in the Terry Fox run decorating their bikes with pictures of Ashley( she was actually recognized by some people my sister said...cool) ...we chose to remember that Ashley was about loving animals and she had such a heart for sad animals she would have loved to walk for the SPCA so this was for her (considering my dog loving skills) i think she and Sophy would have been proud of us, we borrowed our neighbour kids and their dog and had a pretty good time. Our friends the "Lays" ran the Terry Fox run and Logan was given the Rick Hansen award , and so she should, i do believe that she will see the benefit of a cure...
We work on healing now and we have to remember that Ashley was more than just cancer she was about serving ,whether vounteering or caring for animals or fasting for a famine, for her faith(also bilically symoboslized by a butterfly) or for so many other causes she knew the importance of helping others, and strangley enough she still serves .. greatness.
So as summer transforms to fall and our lives change from one form to another i wait til next year for my little white butterfly to return . perspective.
Peace Love and butterflies all around
lori
Cops For Cancer
We have joined forces with the Cops for Cancer team to help raise funds for not only a cure for kids cancer but to help families dealing with the devestaion emotionally and financially. Cops for Cancer also raises money for the amazing camp Goodtimes my kids took part in this year. We are not setting a huge goal so please know that any amount helps 2... 5...10 dollars it all helps ..if you'd like to help.just follow the link on my facebook we totally appreciate it .. or if you'd like to drop off bottles/ cans at our garage door for our bottle drive that would be great too. Thanks everyone. The Lowey family
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...
No comments:
Post a Comment