The Book of Me

To my sweet child in heaven,  I missed the 10 month anniversary of you being gone. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. My day on March 13 wasn’t extraordinary, just full of regular life. Work, family, house stuff ... So how was it that I failed to recognize the day as being 10 months without you. I thought of you. I thought of you lots like I always do and talked about you and looked at your picture and said goodnight like I always do. Perhaps I felt like you were so much a part of my day that it wasn’t worth pointing out you have been gone for 10 months. But on the other hand how could I not remember such an important milestone. Every day without you is important. Am I forgetting you... I think I have been so focused on it being almost one year since you died that these two months before are minor in comparison to this one-year anniversary I would rather not celebrate. Yay I made it a year so it must mean I can make it another and another and another... ...

No one likes to talk about these strong and ugly feelings. They get stuffed deep down into the shadows of our soul. Who in their right mind would want to admit to having such negative and self-loathing emotions? Me! I must be crazy, or maybe I am just human. When you go through something as traumatic as losing your child, you find out how many emotions we humans are actually capable of experiencing. For years our lives were a rollercoaster when it came to Xavier's medical condition...  the "scanxiety" before MRIs, the anticipation of a successful surgery, the waiting... and more waiting. But even since he's been gone, this rollercoaster of emotions does not stop. Now it's the grief we carry with us each and every day. My last post was on grief and gratitude. How quickly things change. Grieving is a forever process and I am finding I go in and out of different phases regularly. Lately, I have been wallowing in a rather ugly state of anger, resentment, and s...

It has been a while since my last post.  I don't know how many times I and other bloggers have likely used this opening. But as boring and cliche as those words are, there is hope within this opening line. Hope. I haven't written because I haven't needed to like I have in the past to release the overwhelming whirlpool of emotions splashing out of me with nowhere to go but into words on a page. Journaling has always been a wonderful tool for me when I am experiencing intense feelings or untamed stress. In fact my lack of posts is because I have been preoccupied with life. A life I want to live despite losing one of my greatest gifts in my life, my son Xavier. But in the last month, I have experienced joy and the gifts my precious son left here for me. I would give anything and everything to have him here with me, but having accepted the reality that is just not possible, I now choose to focus on the positives this experience has brought to my life. I have started...

New Years  A time of reflection. A time of celebration. A time of joy and a time of sorrow.  I approach 2018 with so many mixed emotions.  This year has been hell on Earth. The pain and heartache of losing Xavier will forever be how we remember 2017.  But leaving this year and starting anew fills me with an overwhelming sadness. To say goodbye to this awful year is to also say goodbye to the last year I will ever see Xavier alive. He lived in 2017. I have memories we made together in 2017.  Next year I will have none. He will not lived a day in 2018.  New Year’s is one more piercing stab of reality he is gone.  2017 was the worst year of my life, yet I want to hang onto it forever.  Hidden within the brokenness of 2017 was also a year of immeasurable growth: growth in my faith, my spirituality and my awareness of who I really am.  I lost my son and found insight. Things I had been searching for in my life and trying to m...

A deeper meaning in the Last Jedi As the hype grows hot for the new Star Wars movie The Last Jedi, my heart grows sad. The movie, which premiered in LA this weekend, comes to local theatres on Thursday.  Seeing the new Star Wars movies has kinda been a thing for our family. Before having kids, it was an automatic date night for Mark and I (and I really enjoyed the added romance between Anakin and Padme). Then when we had kids, especially a boy who grew to love the original Star Wars just as much as his dad, going to the movies to see the newest one became an "event". Mark and Xavier would brave the crowds to go during opening weekend, then about a week later Mackenzie and I would go with the boys (because they are that good to see them twice in one week!)  But months before the movie was even in theatres we talked about going. When the trailer for the trailer would come out we would all get excited and then watch the trailers over and over again online. It a...

A video blog: Poems from the Heart

The following poem was read at the Evening of Remembrance at McMaster Children's Hospital in September. It really stuck with me and so simply explains my life now... Shoes Author Unknown I am wearing a pair of shoes. They are ugly shoes. Uncomfortable shoes. I hate my shoes. Each day I wear them, and each day I wish I had another pair. Some days my shoes hurt so bad that I do not think I can take another step. Yet I continue to wear them. I get funny looks wearing these shoes. They are looks of sympathy. I can tell in others eyes that they are glad they are my shoes and not theirs. They never talk about my shoes. To learn how awful my shoes are might make them uncomfortable. To truly understand these shoes you must walk in them. But, once you put them on, you can never take them off. I now realize that I am not the only one who wears these shoes. There are many pairs in this world. Some people are like me and ache daily as they try to walk in them. Some ha...