Happy 12th Birthday Gabrielle

Gabrielle, hard to believe you'd be 12 years old today. 

We still think about you every day, all day... and sometimes we talk about what you'd be like had you never been given I-Cell Disease. I can just picture you walking to the junior high bus with your big brother Michael and a group of friends in Gr.7.

Thanks for choosing us my dear angel. And happy birthday from the other side.

Love your Mom, Dad, and your 3 brothers.

A new life - 10 years later

 Gabrielle,

There have been a few small events that have happened in the last 24 hours and I am able to see you through new eyes. Today, Canuck Place celebrated 25 years of service and I was reminded of the first time I ever truly experienced hope, and that was upon arriving at Cancuk Place in the back of the ambulance with you. Today is the first day of December. The boys are excited about Christmas and I am excited to celebrate this month with them. A month of light leading up to the celebration of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. I think of you. I think of your light amidst the darkest, darkest days. You continued to shine and Christmas reminds me to slow down and to focus on the wonderment of you and life. I am also nearing the end of my year-long coursework on my journey to becoming a counsellor. Today in class we had class time to work on our final thesis project and my topic is surrounding your loss. My colleague suggested I do a study where I study myself and my experiences in losing you. It brought me to our blog where we so naively documented some of our time with you. I went through some of it tonight with a slightly different set of eyes and seeing you again broke me all over. You, my daughter, I saw you. I saw us. I saw the deep deep pain and the deep deep joy. I saw the suffering we endured together as I watched you slowly deteriorate before my eyes. The pain we put you through in the hospital and the love your brothers had for you. How I was chosen for this journey with you is something I will never understand. You were too good to be true. I love you so much my daughter and you are my reason for so much in this life. 

Yours forever,

mom

My friend, Grief.

Hello, my dear friend Grief.  What brings you today?  Was it when your 5 year old niece mentioned how she wishes Gabrielle was at home for her to play with?  Or was it when your 10 year old son woke up talking about a dream he had with his sister where they were at the water slides and Gabrielle was walking and her and James held hands as they walked around the pool.

Upon Gabrielle's diagnosis, I have been grieving.  At every stage of her life, I grieved so many things.  I grieved the boys not having a sister, a little girl to raise who would grow up, have babies and a family of her own, I grieved not being able to watch my only girl get married, go to high school, have friends, play sports and dance or play music.  Would she look like me?  Or would she look more like her Dad? I grieved her entire life.  I also grieved her devastating diagnosis that slowly wrapped it's ugly hands around my daughter and took her life from her.  It caused her such struggle, so much suffering and pain.  I hated every second of I-cell disease and I hated what it did to my daughter's body.  Grief became my constant companion as I grieved alongside my daughter but the greatest grief came when she died.

In the last 7 years, I have become a student of grief.  I live it everyday, I read about it and I understand the in's and out's of it, what it looks like and how very complex and mis-understood it is. Grief from child loss is exhausting, scary, confusing, debilitating and impossible to imagine unless you've lived it.  Grief comes when you don't want it to, like when your in the middle of a conversation with your child's teacher and you break down, or when your exercising at the gym and you burst into tears, or when your standing in a line up at the grocery store and a little blond girl walks by and all of a sudden you can't move.  Grief is always there.  It's my constant companion.

Grief is incredibly misunderstood and because people are unfamiliar with it, we have been judged many times over the past 4 years about the way in which we live our lives, and the decisions we make.  It's interesting though, because all decisions and choices we've made in the past 4 years have been purely survival choices as grief steers us in directions that we just cannot help.  You make plans and then the day of the event, you just can't move and need to cancel.  You don't make all of your sons soccer and hockey practices, because your just so exhausted from grief that you physically can't do it.  It's so frustrating, it sucks and it's so not fair.  There are days when I want to take my grief and tell it to ^$&%& off and leave me alone.  There are days where you just want to feel 'normal'.  I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

The interesting thing about grief is that as time moves on your 'grief muscle' gets a bit stronger.  It's not that you stop grieving, it's that the muscle that carries the grief gets stronger and stronger. It bends and molds and gets shaped over time and there are times when grief visits and with this muscle you give it the biggest boot in the ass and tell it to take off.  No, not here, not now.  The show must go and on and sometimes there is no place for grief.  It's amazing really and I am fascinated by the human spirit's ability to survive.

I have learned many lessons but one of my favourites is that unless you walk a mile in someone's shoes, you have absolutely no place to judge how they choose to live their lives.  Be kind to people, spread love, help each other out as you have no idea what battle they're fighting.  Life is so hard, let's love each other, let's share out stories and listen to one another's struggles.  We're human and we'd be naive to think that we're not getting out of this life without deep scars and wounds and scratches.

To my daughter on her 3rd Angel Anniversary.

To my beautiful, beautiful daughter,

3 years today we said goodbye to you and I have been trying to make sense of it since the day we released you back to your heavenly home.  How you are missed Gabrielle Mae.

When you died, I wanted to run.  Run and run and run, somewhere with my house full of boys, somewhere where I can slow time down, and soak every second of it in. Somewhere, where I could sit in nature and be a part of your brother's beautiful childhood. A childhood that was stolen from you, a childhood that you did not get to experience in it's entirety. I want to soak it all in Gabrielle, I want to sit witness with tears streaming down my face, my spirit lit up with love and wonder as I watch the miracle of your brothers growing and living and running and playing. Childhood is such a  magical and innocent time in life and I want to see it all.  I want to deeply inhale every second of it, and I want to slow it all down. Away from the rat race, away from any expectations and away from the noise.

Oh Gabrielle, how you woke something inside of me.  Something so deep and a life force I've never felt before, powerful and real and able to have survived the un-imaginable.  I remember after receiving your devastating diagnosis, wondering how would I ever be able to live again once you died.  And every morning I wake up, and here I am.  My heart still beating, my lungs still taking in air.  I can't believe it.

Every parent's worse nightmare.

You continue to be the most darling daughter.  Saving me from my half-asleep existence and teaching me to live in the moment and to savour as much as you can in life.

You showed me strength in being broken.  Completely and utterly broken.  And you also showed me the strength of the human spirit.  You see, when you died, I died too.  Our souls tethered together, I wanted to go with you.  And these last 3 years I have learned real sorrow, real brokenness and deep sadness.  Amidst the pain and suffering, I have also seen light and I have witnessed my own strength and courage.  Some moments I don't think I can possibly move and other moments I feel more alive then I'd ever dreamed of.  I gasp for air and fall to my knees and embrace the pain and I release the guttural sobs and tears.  And then however long I need, I get up.  For you, your brothers, your dad and for me.  Because that is what you would do, and always did.

You lived your life with such grace and strength until the day you died.  I will always choose to honour you and this life I've been given.  Even on days when all I want to do is curl up into a ball and scream at the unfairness of it all, for not being able to save you and to kiss your 'owies' away.  I will continue to move through the discomfort and confusion and disorientation that accompanies child loss.  I am weak and I am strong.

I will continue to reach towards light in the darkness and continue to carefully mend the pieces back into my new, very different reality.

I will continue to search for you.  I am irrevocably changed baby girl and I would re-live all the pain and trauma all over again if it meant one more second with you.

Thank you for being the most amazing daughter Gabrielle.

Your mamma, forever and ever.  And ever and ever.

The month of 'Mae'

My daughter.  My girl, my dream.  If it were possible for a mother and daughter to be soul mates, Gabrielle is mine and I am hers.

Her playful, gentle, fun-loving nature melted your heart.  She oozed with the most delightful energy that made you want to laugh and talk and be with her and her eyes drew you in.  She was so wise, wise beyond her years.

My story of Gabrielle is a love story.  It is an enduring love journey that not even death can steal from me.  It is my biggest fear that my daughter will be forgotten, will become a distant memory in the hearts and minds of friends and family as time carries on.  But in me, she is alive.  She is strong and healthy and she is draped over my entire body and spirit, invisible to the eye but present to me every second.

In the birds, in the flowers, in the ladybugs and butterflies and light. She owns them, they are hers and ours. Messages from her world right to my heart.  Our hearts. Reminding us that she is still with us.  Her love continuing to make our hearts beat strong.  Protecting us and guiding us as we carry forward with Gabrielle slightly ahead of us.

My little girl will never celebrate any more birthdays, go to school, graduate, or get married.  My heart has accepted that but I continually try to find ways to keep her spirit alive everywhere.

I'm beginning to think that all these beautiful pieces in nature: daisies, lavender, and songbirds were put on this earth to help me connect with Gabrielle.  They were put here as reminders and to help me to continue unfolding her story and her connection from her world to mine.

The month of May is a beautiful and painful month for us. May was Gabrielle Mae's last month on earth, and as time moves forward and her story continues, it comes to no surprise that her middle name is "Mae".  May is a time of beauty, hope, joy and love.   May is a month to celebrate, to celebrate life and the love of a mother for her dear child.

It's as if this May I've noticed an explosion of life, of spirit in nature.  Gabrielle is alive everywhere, the songbirds outside, the butterflies and the beautiful flowers in bloom.  Singing her song, showing her beauty and making her mamma feel connected and her heart beat.  This story is a journey of deep love.

As her 3rd Angel anniversary approaches on the 7th of June, her 6th birthday on the 13th of October and as I quietly and loudly continue to love and miss her through her death, the month of May becomes even more meaningful.

I want to spend the whole month of May in a garden where our spirits can be so strongly connected and I can whisper to the wind "I love you Gabrielle Mae.  I love you, I love you. I love you."