Tonight was a VERY big night for Lydia.
Last Friday, we took the training wheels off her two wheeled bike. We were going to do it last August. But of course, life had other plans for our August last year and we never got around to working on teaching her how to ride a bike.
As soon as we were home from France, one of the first things she wanted to do was get her bike out of the storage shed. And on Friday, Henry took off her training wheels. We've been running up and down the side walk with her most nights since then, and have spent a few nights at the school yard as well, practising on the playground.
Well, tonight Lydia and I rode her bike to Aubery Park for some fresh air after dinner (and before the "Dancing with the Stars - Elimination Reveal"). We played for a while with a little girl from the neighbourhood. Then, before heading home, Lydia wanted to give riding all by herself on the grass a try.
Well, I lined her up with a good line of sight across the grass, got her going, and then let go ... and SHE DID IT! She rode all the way across the grass all by herself, peddling and steering all the way. And she didn't fall! I cannot tell you how it made my heart sing to watch her do it! It was just amazing. It really was one of those moments I'll never forget as her Mum.
Just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, we tried it two more times across the grass. And indeed, she rode along on the grass without falling two more times. Both of us feeling elated, we biked home, me just holding onto her seat, as she peddled and steered along the side walk.
I am sure within a few weeks we'll have her riding on her own on the sidewalk as well. But what a wonderful accomplishment for her after less than a week without training wheels!
Love,
Cynthia
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Forgiveness
I am a little bit less angry today.
I think I need to cry more. I think I have been, unknowingly, holding in too many tears. I thought I had been crying enough. But I have such a weight in my chest, a heaviness between my breasts, that I have been holding since Harry passed over. I think that might just be the weight of all of my yet un-shed tears. I have cried a river but I think I am holding in an ocean.
So, today I resolve to cry more. To let out my fear and anger and bitterness. To try, once and for all, to let it all go. I know it will take time, to drain this ocean. I cannot unleash it all at once. The rush would be overwhelming. So I have to let it slowly trickle out.
In a recent conversation with Kimberly, my energy field-work teacher and guide, she told me that when she was working with Harry a few weeks before he passed over, his main concern with dying was that we would not forgive him for doing what he had to do. That we would not forgive him for going, for dying. He had done all he had come to do but he wanted, needed, to be sure we would be able to forgive him before he could pass over.
In that conversation, Kimberly asked me if I had even been angry at Harry for getting cancer.
At the time, I had answered, "No." And I can honestly say that during the time Harry was sick, it never occurred to me to be mad at him for getting cancer. I was too focused on healing him to waste time being mad at him. I sure was mad at God at times and I was mad at myself, for whatever I may have unknowingly done to cause his cancer. For not exercising enough, maybe not eating healthfully enough when I was pregnant, for putting him through too much stress in the womb. If that is even possible. But I was never mad at Harry. Overwhelmingly, I have only felt love for Harry.
But, yesterday in the kitchen, I realized I do, on a deep, unconscious level, I do experience a kind of irrational anger at Harry for getting cancer and dying. And at my Dad for getting cancer and dying.
The only thing that makes sense to me, to explain suffering in our lives, is that in some way, our soul chooses with God before we are born, what major things we want to experience in our lives here on Earth. I don't mean this in a 'pre-destination', we-have-no-free-will kind of thing. I am not sure exactly how I mean it. It is just that suffering as a primary way we can experience and learn is the only way I can make sense of suffereing.
By this line of reasoning, it only makes sense to say that Harry choose to come and experience the life he had, to come for a short time for an intense love experience is how I like to think about it. To believe this helps me make sense of this experience.
But then, it does lead to an experience of anger.
"Dammit, Harry, why did you choose this? Why did you choose to come for such a short time? Why for this experience? Why couldn't you have chosen to come for a long, long time? To be with us for a full, 'normal' human lifetime?"
In the kitchen, yesterday, I yelled at Harry, "Today, Harry, Mummy is very angry at you for dying. Today I do not forgive you. Today I am just completely angry at you for leaving us".
I went to the U of M for the first time since getting back from France and tried to work, to clean up email, to jump-start my journal paper. And of course I wrote my blog posting.
When I was walking home from the bus through Wolseley yesterday afternoon. A quote posted on the side of St. Margaret's Anglican Church on Westminster caught my eye.
I am constantly amazed at the coincidences that have occurred in our life since Harry got sick. Both Henry and I have commented on many occasions, how we have been constantly amazed at how what ever we have needed has just seemed to materialize when it was needed. A saying, a hug, a friend, a message, a song. Maybe it is true what the sages say, there are no coincidences in life, only the Universe giving us exactly what we need whenever we need it, if only we are open and willing to receive.
Well the quote on the side of St. Margaret's stopped me mid-stride. It was from Dag Hammarskjold:
"Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again."
I am pretty sure I have a broken heart. I know that is generally just used figuratively and that it is not something that could be 'detected' by modern medicine. But my heart feels broken all the same.
I guess working on forgiveness is the first step in making whole my broken heart.
In light and love,
Cynthia
I think I need to cry more. I think I have been, unknowingly, holding in too many tears. I thought I had been crying enough. But I have such a weight in my chest, a heaviness between my breasts, that I have been holding since Harry passed over. I think that might just be the weight of all of my yet un-shed tears. I have cried a river but I think I am holding in an ocean.
So, today I resolve to cry more. To let out my fear and anger and bitterness. To try, once and for all, to let it all go. I know it will take time, to drain this ocean. I cannot unleash it all at once. The rush would be overwhelming. So I have to let it slowly trickle out.
In a recent conversation with Kimberly, my energy field-work teacher and guide, she told me that when she was working with Harry a few weeks before he passed over, his main concern with dying was that we would not forgive him for doing what he had to do. That we would not forgive him for going, for dying. He had done all he had come to do but he wanted, needed, to be sure we would be able to forgive him before he could pass over.
In that conversation, Kimberly asked me if I had even been angry at Harry for getting cancer.
At the time, I had answered, "No." And I can honestly say that during the time Harry was sick, it never occurred to me to be mad at him for getting cancer. I was too focused on healing him to waste time being mad at him. I sure was mad at God at times and I was mad at myself, for whatever I may have unknowingly done to cause his cancer. For not exercising enough, maybe not eating healthfully enough when I was pregnant, for putting him through too much stress in the womb. If that is even possible. But I was never mad at Harry. Overwhelmingly, I have only felt love for Harry.
But, yesterday in the kitchen, I realized I do, on a deep, unconscious level, I do experience a kind of irrational anger at Harry for getting cancer and dying. And at my Dad for getting cancer and dying.
The only thing that makes sense to me, to explain suffering in our lives, is that in some way, our soul chooses with God before we are born, what major things we want to experience in our lives here on Earth. I don't mean this in a 'pre-destination', we-have-no-free-will kind of thing. I am not sure exactly how I mean it. It is just that suffering as a primary way we can experience and learn is the only way I can make sense of suffereing.
By this line of reasoning, it only makes sense to say that Harry choose to come and experience the life he had, to come for a short time for an intense love experience is how I like to think about it. To believe this helps me make sense of this experience.
But then, it does lead to an experience of anger.
"Dammit, Harry, why did you choose this? Why did you choose to come for such a short time? Why for this experience? Why couldn't you have chosen to come for a long, long time? To be with us for a full, 'normal' human lifetime?"
In the kitchen, yesterday, I yelled at Harry, "Today, Harry, Mummy is very angry at you for dying. Today I do not forgive you. Today I am just completely angry at you for leaving us".
I went to the U of M for the first time since getting back from France and tried to work, to clean up email, to jump-start my journal paper. And of course I wrote my blog posting.
When I was walking home from the bus through Wolseley yesterday afternoon. A quote posted on the side of St. Margaret's Anglican Church on Westminster caught my eye.
I am constantly amazed at the coincidences that have occurred in our life since Harry got sick. Both Henry and I have commented on many occasions, how we have been constantly amazed at how what ever we have needed has just seemed to materialize when it was needed. A saying, a hug, a friend, a message, a song. Maybe it is true what the sages say, there are no coincidences in life, only the Universe giving us exactly what we need whenever we need it, if only we are open and willing to receive.
Well the quote on the side of St. Margaret's stopped me mid-stride. It was from Dag Hammarskjold:
"Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again."
I am pretty sure I have a broken heart. I know that is generally just used figuratively and that it is not something that could be 'detected' by modern medicine. But my heart feels broken all the same.
I guess working on forgiveness is the first step in making whole my broken heart.
In light and love,
Cynthia
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Angry
Today I am so angry.
I haven't felt a lot of anger throughout this whole experience with Harry, which may be surprising. Maybe because I know anger won't get me very far, it doesn't do much good to feel angry. I am not sure why I finally feel so angry now.
We got back from our trip to Paris late Monday night.
I suppose coming home has triggered my anger. Lydia was thrilled to be back home, to see her room, to get to see her friends at school again. I dreaded coming home. Walking back into our empty house just places in such stark and clear relief everything we have lost. That Harry is not here. That he is missing, screams from every room, every empty room.
On the upside, I know for certain that in order to stay in our house, I need to have it renovated. I can't stay in our house and have it stay exactly as it was when Harry was sick. I can't keep coming home to the exact same place where he died. At the same time, I clearly know that I don't want to move. That would only be running away. We could leave here. But then Harry would just be dead and we would be in a different house - he'd still be dead. Nothing is going to change that. I love our crazy old house. For better or worse it is home. It is not my dream home, in fact it has almost none of the 'must haves' that were on my list when we were looking for a home, but it is somehow the home we are meant to be in. I just knew the minute we walked in that somehow this was our house. I could immediately envision us living there. But I need it to be a different space. A space that still holds my memories of Harry, but that does not freeze us and hold us captive in the past.
We're still somewhat on Paris time. We all woke up with the sun at 6:30 this morning. Henry and Lydia went downstairs and I stayed in bed an extra half an hour. I didn't really sleep. I lay and thought about how differently the morning would start if Harry were here.
Harry should be 2 now. Since he was born, Lydia always wanted to share a room with him. When we bought her big girl bed, almost three years ago now, we bought a bunk bed, with a trundle underneath. The bunkbeds were supposed to be for Lydia and Harry. I remember when Harry got sick thinking, "Harry can't die. I've already bought his big boy bed. He has to turn two and sleep in his big boy bed with Lydia".
But Harry did die and he'll never sleep in his big boy bed.
If Harry were alive, we'd have celebrated his second birthday by setting up the bunkbeds. He'd get the bottom bunk and Lydia would get the top bunk. Harry's room would become their playroom and they would share Lydia's bigger room. That was the plan, anyways.
I lie in bed and I dream I can hear them giggle as they both wake up. I dream I can hear Lydia say, "Good morning Hares-y-bears-y" and I dream I hear Harry laughing in response and say, "Morning Lydee". I dream I hear two set of feet scamper across their bedroom floor, to the door, and down the hall to our room. I dream there are two blond heads coming into our room, Lydia holding Harry's hand, clinging to their respective lovies in their other hands, with two round faces peering over the edge of the bed at me, two sweet voices saying, "Mummy time to wake up".
I lie in bed and dream of what will never be and I listen to the hollow sounds of Henry and Lydia, just the two of them, starting the day together downstairs.
It was after I took Lydia to school today and was doing up last night's dishes in the kitchen that I really got mad at Harry for dying. One of his pictures sits on the windowsill that I look at from the kitchen sink and I yelled, really yelled, at his picture this morning.
"Mummy is so fucking angry at you, Harry."
"I am so angry at you for dying. Why did you choose to die? Why did you not choose to say here with us? Daddy and Lydie and I, we need you here. Why did you die?"
"I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you for dying." I yelled over and over and over at his picture.
The tears were floing fast and furious as I yelled over and over at him.
The thing I am most angry about is having to feel what I feel. I don't want to feel this loss over my son. I'm so angry that I have to experience this feeling. That I have to carry this fucking feeling of loss and emptyness with me forever.
"I am so angry at you for making me feel this way, Harry. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way." I collapsed in a crying heap on the kitchen floor.
Not the most productive way to start my first day back at work.
That was the thing that scared me the most when Harry was first diagnosed. Actually, even before we knew his actual diagnosis. The very first Friday and Saturday nights in the hospital, I pleaded with God, "Don't make me do this. You can't make me do this. I cannot go through my son having cancer. You cannot make me live through my son having cancer. I can't do it."
And when we got Harry's grim diagnosis, that was the thing I dreaded the most. It wasn't him dying, exactly, that I feared the most. It was the having to live after he died that I feared, and still fear.
The day we got his diagnosis. I knew exactly how it was going to feel if he died. I had lived with grief and loss and longing and anger over the death of my father for so much of my early life. My earliest memories, my earliest consciousness, is of loss. Of knowing that someone was missing. Of questioning, "why did my Daddy die?" Of anger, "why did Daddy have to die?" Of deep sorrow, "why did I never get to know my Dad? Why did he have to die before I even had formed any memories of him" I have missed and longed for and grieved a whisp, a shadow, something I don't even remember, my whole conscious life.
Ah, not this. Not having to feel this, now, too, about my son. My son who I barely got to know, over his 16 all-too-brief months. Not having to carry this, this second hole in my heart. How can a heart keep beating with such a big hole?
This is what I am angry about. Not so much that Harry died. But that I have to feel and experience this suffereing. It sounds childish and selfish really, when I put it into writing. But there it is.
I know I have to figure out how to live without fear. To not be scared to live. I am so scared of forgetting Harry. It is the reason I am so compelled to write down my memories of Harry. To write it all down so that I won't forget. Part of me wants to freeze everything. Make no new memories. Keep everything exactly the same. If in some way doing that might capture Harry and keep him here. In fact, I find my memory is so much worse since Harry died. I forget little things I always would so easily remember. As if my mind can't make room to store more memories, it's full, you see, just keeping the memories of Harry. I fear moving on, if moving on means forgetting Harry. I fear moving forward, because what if I do and then I find out that DOES mean forgetting Harry. How could I ever forget my beautiful, beautiful, sweetest blue-eyed Angel?
I'm angry that Harry is no more than a collection of 40 minutes of video clips. A picture that his sister holds as a place-holder of sorts in a family photo. Another whisp, another shadow.
My heart needs for me to figure out how to move forward and to live, holding my memories alive, but not in fear. I am not sure how to do this. I suppose this is one of my next challenges.
Peace,
Cynthia
I haven't felt a lot of anger throughout this whole experience with Harry, which may be surprising. Maybe because I know anger won't get me very far, it doesn't do much good to feel angry. I am not sure why I finally feel so angry now.
We got back from our trip to Paris late Monday night.
I suppose coming home has triggered my anger. Lydia was thrilled to be back home, to see her room, to get to see her friends at school again. I dreaded coming home. Walking back into our empty house just places in such stark and clear relief everything we have lost. That Harry is not here. That he is missing, screams from every room, every empty room.
On the upside, I know for certain that in order to stay in our house, I need to have it renovated. I can't stay in our house and have it stay exactly as it was when Harry was sick. I can't keep coming home to the exact same place where he died. At the same time, I clearly know that I don't want to move. That would only be running away. We could leave here. But then Harry would just be dead and we would be in a different house - he'd still be dead. Nothing is going to change that. I love our crazy old house. For better or worse it is home. It is not my dream home, in fact it has almost none of the 'must haves' that were on my list when we were looking for a home, but it is somehow the home we are meant to be in. I just knew the minute we walked in that somehow this was our house. I could immediately envision us living there. But I need it to be a different space. A space that still holds my memories of Harry, but that does not freeze us and hold us captive in the past.
We're still somewhat on Paris time. We all woke up with the sun at 6:30 this morning. Henry and Lydia went downstairs and I stayed in bed an extra half an hour. I didn't really sleep. I lay and thought about how differently the morning would start if Harry were here.
Harry should be 2 now. Since he was born, Lydia always wanted to share a room with him. When we bought her big girl bed, almost three years ago now, we bought a bunk bed, with a trundle underneath. The bunkbeds were supposed to be for Lydia and Harry. I remember when Harry got sick thinking, "Harry can't die. I've already bought his big boy bed. He has to turn two and sleep in his big boy bed with Lydia".
But Harry did die and he'll never sleep in his big boy bed.
If Harry were alive, we'd have celebrated his second birthday by setting up the bunkbeds. He'd get the bottom bunk and Lydia would get the top bunk. Harry's room would become their playroom and they would share Lydia's bigger room. That was the plan, anyways.
I lie in bed and I dream I can hear them giggle as they both wake up. I dream I can hear Lydia say, "Good morning Hares-y-bears-y" and I dream I hear Harry laughing in response and say, "Morning Lydee". I dream I hear two set of feet scamper across their bedroom floor, to the door, and down the hall to our room. I dream there are two blond heads coming into our room, Lydia holding Harry's hand, clinging to their respective lovies in their other hands, with two round faces peering over the edge of the bed at me, two sweet voices saying, "Mummy time to wake up".
I lie in bed and dream of what will never be and I listen to the hollow sounds of Henry and Lydia, just the two of them, starting the day together downstairs.
It was after I took Lydia to school today and was doing up last night's dishes in the kitchen that I really got mad at Harry for dying. One of his pictures sits on the windowsill that I look at from the kitchen sink and I yelled, really yelled, at his picture this morning.
"Mummy is so fucking angry at you, Harry."
"I am so angry at you for dying. Why did you choose to die? Why did you not choose to say here with us? Daddy and Lydie and I, we need you here. Why did you die?"
"I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you for dying." I yelled over and over and over at his picture.
The tears were floing fast and furious as I yelled over and over at him.
The thing I am most angry about is having to feel what I feel. I don't want to feel this loss over my son. I'm so angry that I have to experience this feeling. That I have to carry this fucking feeling of loss and emptyness with me forever.
"I am so angry at you for making me feel this way, Harry. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way." I collapsed in a crying heap on the kitchen floor.
Not the most productive way to start my first day back at work.
That was the thing that scared me the most when Harry was first diagnosed. Actually, even before we knew his actual diagnosis. The very first Friday and Saturday nights in the hospital, I pleaded with God, "Don't make me do this. You can't make me do this. I cannot go through my son having cancer. You cannot make me live through my son having cancer. I can't do it."
And when we got Harry's grim diagnosis, that was the thing I dreaded the most. It wasn't him dying, exactly, that I feared the most. It was the having to live after he died that I feared, and still fear.
The day we got his diagnosis. I knew exactly how it was going to feel if he died. I had lived with grief and loss and longing and anger over the death of my father for so much of my early life. My earliest memories, my earliest consciousness, is of loss. Of knowing that someone was missing. Of questioning, "why did my Daddy die?" Of anger, "why did Daddy have to die?" Of deep sorrow, "why did I never get to know my Dad? Why did he have to die before I even had formed any memories of him" I have missed and longed for and grieved a whisp, a shadow, something I don't even remember, my whole conscious life.
Ah, not this. Not having to feel this, now, too, about my son. My son who I barely got to know, over his 16 all-too-brief months. Not having to carry this, this second hole in my heart. How can a heart keep beating with such a big hole?
This is what I am angry about. Not so much that Harry died. But that I have to feel and experience this suffereing. It sounds childish and selfish really, when I put it into writing. But there it is.
I know I have to figure out how to live without fear. To not be scared to live. I am so scared of forgetting Harry. It is the reason I am so compelled to write down my memories of Harry. To write it all down so that I won't forget. Part of me wants to freeze everything. Make no new memories. Keep everything exactly the same. If in some way doing that might capture Harry and keep him here. In fact, I find my memory is so much worse since Harry died. I forget little things I always would so easily remember. As if my mind can't make room to store more memories, it's full, you see, just keeping the memories of Harry. I fear moving on, if moving on means forgetting Harry. I fear moving forward, because what if I do and then I find out that DOES mean forgetting Harry. How could I ever forget my beautiful, beautiful, sweetest blue-eyed Angel?
I'm angry that Harry is no more than a collection of 40 minutes of video clips. A picture that his sister holds as a place-holder of sorts in a family photo. Another whisp, another shadow.
My heart needs for me to figure out how to move forward and to live, holding my memories alive, but not in fear. I am not sure how to do this. I suppose this is one of my next challenges.
Peace,
Cynthia
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Happy Birthday Harry
Today, Saturday April 4th, is Harry's 2nd Birthday.
We are in Paris, France. Visiting my sister Sarah and her family, husband Christophe and 2 children, Luisa who just turned 3 in March and Roland, who will be one in May.
The weather is beautiful here - it is sunny this morning and the high for today is 16 C. The magnolia tree in the neighbour's yard across the street is in full bloom and smells glorious. Flower gardens are blooming all around us. It will feel very good on this day to be surrounded by so many wonderful signs of spring, of re-birth and renewal.
But I have to be honest. Today is going to be a hard day. It is just hard, there is no way around it, to celebrate but not celebrate this day.
Last year, Harry's first and only birthday, was so joyful, especially because we didn't even know if he would live long enough to have a first birthday, let alone be able to celebrate it at home. A year ago, it was Harry's first visit to the Cancer Care Manitoba children's clinic. He and I stayed there all day. He had his blood work done and counts checked and he needed a blood transfusion. So we stayed until I think around 6:30 or 7:00 pm, as blood transfusions generally took 4-5 hours - 2 hours to order the blood and about 3 hours for the blood to slowly pump into his system. It was also his nurse Wanda's birthday. She shared her chocolate cake with Harry and I have a wonderful picture of him in the play area at the clinic with a nice chocolate face:
Today, we are going into Paris (Sarah lives in Neuilly sur Marne, a suburb directly to the east of central Paris), we will bring a picnic lunch and we are going to climb the Eiffel Tower to celebrate Harry.
My teacher, Kimberly, says it is a rare parent who is given the gift of birthing their child twice - once into this world and once into the next. And so I suppose, in this way, we jointly celebrate, two years since birthing Harry in so much love into our world, and eight months (April 3) since we birthed him, also with so much love, into the next place on his journey.
Happy Birthday dear wee Prince Happy Harry.
Love,
Mummy, Daddy and Lyddie.
We are in Paris, France. Visiting my sister Sarah and her family, husband Christophe and 2 children, Luisa who just turned 3 in March and Roland, who will be one in May.
The weather is beautiful here - it is sunny this morning and the high for today is 16 C. The magnolia tree in the neighbour's yard across the street is in full bloom and smells glorious. Flower gardens are blooming all around us. It will feel very good on this day to be surrounded by so many wonderful signs of spring, of re-birth and renewal.
But I have to be honest. Today is going to be a hard day. It is just hard, there is no way around it, to celebrate but not celebrate this day.
Last year, Harry's first and only birthday, was so joyful, especially because we didn't even know if he would live long enough to have a first birthday, let alone be able to celebrate it at home. A year ago, it was Harry's first visit to the Cancer Care Manitoba children's clinic. He and I stayed there all day. He had his blood work done and counts checked and he needed a blood transfusion. So we stayed until I think around 6:30 or 7:00 pm, as blood transfusions generally took 4-5 hours - 2 hours to order the blood and about 3 hours for the blood to slowly pump into his system. It was also his nurse Wanda's birthday. She shared her chocolate cake with Harry and I have a wonderful picture of him in the play area at the clinic with a nice chocolate face:
Today, we are going into Paris (Sarah lives in Neuilly sur Marne, a suburb directly to the east of central Paris), we will bring a picnic lunch and we are going to climb the Eiffel Tower to celebrate Harry.
My teacher, Kimberly, says it is a rare parent who is given the gift of birthing their child twice - once into this world and once into the next. And so I suppose, in this way, we jointly celebrate, two years since birthing Harry in so much love into our world, and eight months (April 3) since we birthed him, also with so much love, into the next place on his journey.
Happy Birthday dear wee Prince Happy Harry.
Love,
Mummy, Daddy and Lyddie.
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