Bentley~River Kai.

Our 6th early loss. Our 6th miscarriage.

The last of all our little boys. Our love.

~ Chy

Beau~Harper Levi.

Our 4th early loss. Our 4th miscarriage.

Perfectly perfect but way too tiny. Our love.

~ Chy

Birkley~Finn Kensington.

Our 1st early loss. Our 1st miscarriage. In

between all our healthy babies. Our love.

~ Chy

Bretton~Elijah Lucas.

Our 3rd son. Our 5th child.

Our 1st stillbirth. Our love.

~ Chy

Finally .... Married!

I have tons of catching up to do. Since

the beginning of September, we've been

on the coast, celebrating our eldest son's

wedding. I'm so very behind on posts

but promise to catch up asap. There are

so many things I can't wait to share ....

~ Chy

September Wedding.

Our oldest son and our sweet, almost

daughter~in~law were planning to get

married on September 4, 2020 (their

10th year together) but Covid changed

all their plans. They have now chosen

a new date: September 4, 2021. And

a new location. We are so excited to

all be travelling out to the island and

hope by then, things will be much more

open so we can all enjoy our time together.

Wish us luck that September 4, 2021 will
be there wedding date and that we can all
celebrate together as a family. Truly, we

can't wait and have high hopes we can.

Namaste my blogging buddies.

~ Chy

Remembering Bretton~Elijah.

Tiny toes.

Mommy holding space.

Christmas candles.

Garden angels.

Birthday cake and his teddies.

Mommy and daddy at our Walk to Remember.

Twenty five years ago yesterday, on March 25th, 1996, we said hello and then goodbye to our sweet, precious baby Bretton~Elijah Lucas. He was and is our 5th child, our 3rd son and we miss him to the moon and back. Bretton was to be born at home but when I went in to labor in the middle of the night, far too early, we headed to the hospital at our midwife's urging. We were lovingly cared for but he was too tiny and that began our baby loss journey. Many will say that "time heals" but we know from our own experience that "time helps" but does not heal. We are proud to be Bretton's family and know that our legacy projects to help other baby loss families with our Centre and our programs is worth the time and effort. But every day, more than ever now, we do wish for him to be back in our arms, a grown up young man with a world of possibilities ahead of him, like his siblings. Bretton~Elijah Lucas. Remembered with love and tears, cupcakes and gifts, candles and memories. Gone too soon, loved and held in our hearts forever, never forgotten. 

With love and memory,

Mommy

Birthday Boy.

 

Our eldest son is celebrating his birthday

today. Sad to not be with him on the coast.

He's an amazing young man, a traveller,

a wrestler, a model, an actor, a writer and

a producer. In the Fall, he will become a

loving husband to his girl. Wishing we all

could be with him today but for now, we'll

have to Skype. Happy Birthday Brady!

~ Chy

Remembering Bretton.

Our sweet son, Bretton~Elijah Lucas would have been

23 years old on March 25th. We celebrate him each year.

Over time, we've received many gifts from family and

friends to add to his memory box. I put a few out this year.

Not every family will remember their lost child with a cake

on the birthday but we do for Bretton. It just feels right.

I'm so comforted with knowing that in our family, in

our grief, this is our normal, with tears and memories, 

love and hugs, laughter and community. This is how

we get through each day and how we hold Bretton now.

How do you remember a loved one, gone too soon?

I'd love to hear your stories and your special rituals.

~ Chy

"It's Daddy!"

 

L found the little scrapbook we have

all about her daddy. She said "it looks

just like him!" He is a bit taller, sports

a thick beard and his hair is darker now.

But yes, it does still look like him and

it was fun to see her look through it.

Our Big Boy.

Home for a short visit in October, this was

our last day with him. He couldn't come for

Thanksgiving at the beginning of the month,

so we celebrated a couple of weeks later. A

film he was in was being shot in the big city

south of us, but he was able to sneak away

for one weekend out of the three weeks he

was in our province. Wish our visit could

have been a lot longer but so very thankful

for the time we were able to have together.

Sleeping Buddies.

Our eldest son arrived on Tuesday night

from the West Coast to visit with all of us

for a full week. We're so excited to have 

him here but our grandson is ecstatic. So

much so that they even had to have a true

"sleepover" as directed by our little guy.

Next week, the big guy heads home by plane.

And the tears will be real from all of us.

A Letter to My Son, Twenty Years In.

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 25^th, 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.

Grief Workshop.

Our community is getting ready tonight for the opening of a Grief Workshop tomorrow night and all day on Thursday. Each of us who provide grief support for families have been invited to have a table display about our programs. Mine is almost finished. Just waiting for my administrator to send me the final posters so I can print then laminate them. I have to be at the hotel at 4 p.m. tomorrow so lots of time but I like to get it done now so I won't be running around tomorrow. Rest is more important than gathering items. I love the opportunity to talk about what our centre has to offer to the grief journey that so many try to navigate on their own. Finding support can be so helpful for many and we are grateful for this chance to showcase who we are and what we do. Help for the present and hope for the future. 

A soft bear, gifted in love,

in memory of our youngest son B.

The matching sweet girl teddy,

to remember our youngest daughter C.