Dear Bretton~Elijah Lucas,
Twenty
years in, you are still transforming our lives.
Weighing
a tiny one pound, two ounces & just ten inches long, you could have never
realized the enormous impact you had on our lives. You rushed into our arms and
our hearts, two hours and twenty minutes after the first contraction, too early
and without warning.
You
were to be our fifth child, our third son. We know you would have had the same
unruly, curly locks that your siblings all possessed as little ones and the
same tiny button nose that graces each of their faces. We wonder if your
dimples would have been present on the cheeks of your face or hidden away above
the cheeks on your bottom. We ponder the
question often: would your eyes have been blue or brown, a fifty/fifty chance
in our house.
Your
four older siblings had all arrived three days past their due dates.
Fashionably late but naturally born. You came early and while your birth was
also natural, we would have given anything for an intervention-filled birth, if
it meant your journey could have had had a different outcome. You were to also be
born at home but with the first contraction, we knew something wasn’t quite
right and we made the choice to head into the city to the big hospital, with
the thought and belief that modern medicine would find a way to stop labor and
give you a fighting chance. Instead, you arrived too quickly and nothing could
be done. The care we received was compassionate and hands on. Everyone cried
with us and despite your incredibly sad ending, our hearts were filled with
love and gratitude for your brief moment in our lives.
Bretton~Elijah
Lucas, you have transformed our lives by the lessons you have taught us. Before
you were born, we were living an intentional, well thought out life that
included taking the time to cherish the moments. But when you arrived, those
moments had more meaning and we from that moment on, truly embraced all that
the universe has offered to share with us. We know you would have found your
own creative outlet in our family, a family that includes filmmakers, artists, photographers,
musicians, writers and actors. Your birth was the catalyst that created the
freedom for the artistic energy that flows through our house on a daily basis.
We know that without this experience, we would have probably been more subdued
about our creative endeavours but you taught us that we have only one chance at
this life and making the best of the opportunities we are given has fulfilled
our bucket lists with much more meaning than we could have ever dreamed.
Our
journey has been long and at times, painful beyond belief. We wondered if we
would survive another day, another moment and would this experience ever end.
Exploration of our grief, which each of us has done together and on our own,
brought light to the dark and healing to our hearts. But it did not mean that
we have ever forgotten you, Bretton.
Healing does not mean forgetting.
As
a couple, we were aware early on that many relationships do not survive the
pain of baby loss. Love hurts, love heals. Keeping you alive in our hearts has
helped us remain focused on who we are as individuals, who we are as partners
and who we are as parents.
As
parents, we are reminded on a daily basis that you are not present in a
physical sense, Bretton, even though we feel you all around us. We parent you
from afar and love you just as much as your siblings who walk with us. Like all
parents in the community, we are often asked about our family and how many
children we have. Proudly, without hesitation, we share who you are and where
you fit in our family. For a time, I did struggle with how to answer this
innocent, sometimes daily question. My hesitation was centred on the idea that
if I shared our story, I would make the person who asked uncomfortable or even
sad. What I discovered many times over was that the individual asking sometimes
had their own story to share and a healing conversation would open the door. Other
times, the shock I expected did not happen but instead a moment of compassion
and sometimes a “please tell me about your son”.
Just
when we thought we had settled in to the new life that was created after your
birth, just when we thought we had made peace with our experience by moving
forward to help others, just when we thought it was safe to venture into a new
pregnancy and continue with the creation of our family, just when we were
hopeful and healthy again, the death of your baby sister, Ciara-Rose Kennedi,
shook our world upside down again. With disbelief, we tiptoed forward. But this
time, we knew who had our backs and what we needed to do to realign our life once
again. It wasn’t harder this second time around but it wasn’t any easier
either. We are thankful that we have wise people among us and one of the wisest
during this second birthing loss experience was our midwife, who answered our
daughter’s Chynna’s innocent question about why this happened to us again. She
held Chynna in her arms and said “Bretton is not alone now; he has his baby
sister to watch over and to keep him company”. We are often comforted by the
image in our head of our babies together forever.
Grief
is painful and harsh, messy and exhausting but in the end, worth the heartache,
for the moments we had with you and your baby sister. A series of six early
losses, treasured and precious babies just the same, have added more dimensions
to our baby loss journey. We have not been fortunate enough to have a healthy
Rainbow Baby, a baby born after the storm of baby loss, so all our parenting
energy has gone into raising the incredible children we were gifted with and
now our grandchildren we love so much.
Where
are we now, twenty years in? We don’t take anything for granted. Every breath is
cherished, every milestone and every moment celebrated. Even the things that
don’t go well are honoured. We had hoped to live a life that would not hold
regret but until you came along, we couldn’t quite envision what that looked
like. You taught us that there are reasons for things to happen, that bad
things do happen to good people and sometimes we are chosen for the task. But
regrets are absent. There is no time for regrets, only time to celebrate what you
have brought to our lives. A peacefulness, a calm and an understanding that
what is meant to be, is meant to be. That doesn’t mean it’s never been messy or
hurtful. We have lost friendships, had strained family moments and wondered at
times what path we were supposed to take. Our spirituality was splintered and
today continues to be a place of exploration that we believe will continually
evolve as we journey.
In
the end, Bretton, our grief energy turned into a community project, a legacy
for other’s to access as they too mourn the loss of their precious babies. If
we couldn’t have you, we knew we could at least share our story with others who
truly understand. And create and spread the awareness that the impact of baby
loss on family’s lives does affect the community at large. We started small
with our H.E.A.R.T.S. Baby Loss Support Program in Sherwood Park. This quickly
turned into what is now the BriarPatch Family Life Education Centre. The legacy
piece of this project is injected in the name: Briar is a combination of your
name and Ciara’s, and Patch represents the small patched heart we have used from
the beginning for the H.E.A.R.T.S. logo. A gift to our community that we will
leave here, in good hands, when we one day move back to the West Coast. Another
dream but one that we’re not quite ready to take on just yet, as our work is
growing and far from complete.
Bretton~Elijah
Lucas, thank you gracing our lives and for the path you placed us on that warm
spring evening. It has opened a whole new world for us, not the one we planned
but now the one we imagine we would have missed if you hadn’t slipped gently
into our arms on March 25th, 1996. We miss you daily, we speak of
you constantly, we remember every little thing about you and our love for you continues
to grow.
Love, mom, twenty years in.
