If you would like to pledge to support our Relay for Life team, Prince Harry's Court just click this link below (you may need to copy and paste the link into your web browser):
http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFL_MB_Winnipeg_?team_id=143850&pg=team&fr_id=3720
If that doesn't work, go to the "Pledge a Participant" page on the Relay for Life, Winnipeg web page:
http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR?fr_id=3720&pg=pfind
and search for the team "Prince Harry's Court" - you should find us and get a link to our team page. You can either pledge the team or an individual participant.
If you would like to buy a Luminary in memory of Harry or someone else you know who has battled cancer you can do so at this link:
https://secure2.convio.net/cco/site/Ecommerce?PROXY_ID=3720&PROXY_TYPE=21&FR_ID=3720&VIEW_PRODUCT=true&product_id=1385&store_id=9642
if this doesn't work then go again to the Relay for Life page and look for "Buy a Luminary" in the Get Involved section on the left hand menus.
Here is the link for the general Relay for Life - Winnipeg web page:
http://convio.cancer.ca/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFL_MB_Winnipeg_?pg=entry&fr_id=3720&JServSessionIda010=mjvjb634h1.app33d
Thank you so much for your support!
Peace, love and walk on,
Cynthia, Hank, Lydia, Angel Harry and all of Prince Harry's Court
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Rhabdoid Cancer
I have not posted a lot of details about Harry's particular type of cancer. But I thought I would today.
When we first got the diagnosis of a 'primary rhabdoid tumor of the liver' on March 6th, 2008, we had no idea what were were up against. Initially, Harry's doctors thought he had an hepatoblastoma - one of the more common types of paediatric liver cancers. Complete testing of his biopsy sample proved otherwise, and resulted in the diagnosis of rhabdoid cancer instead.
In truth, during Harry's whole journey with cancer, I don't think I really knew what we were up against. If he had been diagnosed with a Stage 4 Hepatoblastoma he would have had about a 20% chance of survival. When we were given the Rhabdoid diagnosis, I recall asking his doctor, "Okay, so what are his chances now?" I guess the doctor's couldn't face telling us, "Somewhere between 0-1%" so instead they said, "No better than his odds were with Hepatoblastoma".
One of my first nights home from the hospital I recall doing a google search on 'rhabdoid cancer'. All that came up were links to obscure journal papers and the Rhabdoid Kids site. You would think, having just finished a PhD, I would have been all about digging into the research side of this disease. But my instincts told me otherwise. I read one journal paper and just couldn't digest any of the information. I switched to the Rhabdoid Kids site, read about a few Rhabdoid kids, but could not bring myself to even open the Rhabdoid Angels page. I just didn't have the energy to read about other kids, I could only muster the energy to focus on Harry.
My intuition where Harry is concerned has been uncanny, every since he was first conceived. And I so clearly recall every ounce of my body saying, "Stop, stop looking at web sites. Don't focus on the science of this disease. That is not your job this time. You need to focus on healing Harry, taking care of Harry, loving Harry. You are not meant to focus on the technical side of this disease".
I listened to that internal voice and I didn't do any research or reading about Rhabdoid cancer again till after Harry had passed over in August.
Once Harry had died and I had hours and hours of empty days to fill I started to obsess over reading everything I could about Rhabdoid Cancer.
I think I am glad I didn't know just how cruel this disease is while Harry was alive. I don't think I could have had the courage to fight and maintain my hope and optimism had I know just how poor his chances really were.
Rhabdoid cancer is known as the rarest and most aggressive of all childhood cancers.
It was first discovered in the kidneys in 1978. In 1991, doctors realized that a class of brain tumors was actually the same cancer and so classified the brain tumor version, AT/RT or Atypical Teratoid / Rhabdoid Tumor. Basically, now the cancer is classified as either AT/RT or non-CNS MRT (Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor). Renal (kidney) and AT/RT are the most common variants of this cancer. 'Officially' Harry's cancer was an extra-Renal, non-CNS MRT of the liver.
A presentation I found on the web, put together by a doctor in St. Louis in 2007, listed a table of all of the published cases of primary Rhabdoid liver cancer that the doctor could find.
There were 25 cases listed.
Yes, that is it. 25 cases documented by 2007 in the entire english language academic literature. Of those 25 cases, three had survived, 2 girls and one boy. For some reason, girls have a slightly higher survival rate. So, since not all kids who have rhabdoid liver cancer will have a paper written about them, Harry choose a very exclusive club - there have been maybe 50 kids ever in the world with this type of cancer.
Go figure. My baby doesn't just get cancer, no, he has to get the rarest and most aggressive variant of the rarest and most aggressive childhood cancer of all.
The only path to long term survival is to remove all of the cancer and that means surgery. Chemotherapy alone is not enough, the primary tumor HAS to be surgically removed for survival. Rhabdoid cancer is treated with the strongest chemotherapy they can give a person. Most adults given the chemo Harry had are unable to move out of bed for days, they are so sick. For those kids who live long enough to start chemotherapy, the usual pattern is that the cancer responds well at first, but it is so damn smart, that it pretty soon figures out the chemo and relapses. Most children die with weeks of their first relapse.
Because the cancer grows so quickly, almost all kids exhibit very few symptoms until a few weeks before diagnosis and then, like Harry, present only with mild flu-like symptoms. Most kids are diagnosed at Stage 3 or 4. Many kids don't even survive long enough to start chemotherapy.
Given how extensive Harry's tumors were when he was diagnosed, by all rights, he should have died that first week in hospital.
So if you ever wonder whether we managed a miracle with Harry, the answer is an unqualified YES. That Harry survived to actually start chemotherapy, that he responded so well, that he smiled and laughed and bounced through each brutal round, that he got to come home, that he got to celebrate a first birthday, that he got to experience one summer as a little boy was all a miracle.
Strangely, I take some comfort in Harry having Rhabdoid cancer. In a strange way, it would been more difficult, I think, had he died of a more common cancer, one that most kids survive. Then we would have been left asking, "what did we miss, what did we do wrong". With Rhabdoid cancer, I know we really did everything we possibly could do for Harry. We gave him the very, very best shot we could.
But I sense that Harry choose Rhabdoid cancer, if it is possible to say such a thing, because he knew he had to come and give us all this love, but then go back to God. He had to choose a cancer we couldn't possibly have beaten.
I always said that whatever child followed Lydia was going to have to do something 'big' to not be caught in her shadow. Well, this wasn't quite what I had in mind. But Harry sure did do something big with his short life, of that there is no question.
Peace,
Cynthia
When we first got the diagnosis of a 'primary rhabdoid tumor of the liver' on March 6th, 2008, we had no idea what were were up against. Initially, Harry's doctors thought he had an hepatoblastoma - one of the more common types of paediatric liver cancers. Complete testing of his biopsy sample proved otherwise, and resulted in the diagnosis of rhabdoid cancer instead.
In truth, during Harry's whole journey with cancer, I don't think I really knew what we were up against. If he had been diagnosed with a Stage 4 Hepatoblastoma he would have had about a 20% chance of survival. When we were given the Rhabdoid diagnosis, I recall asking his doctor, "Okay, so what are his chances now?" I guess the doctor's couldn't face telling us, "Somewhere between 0-1%" so instead they said, "No better than his odds were with Hepatoblastoma".
One of my first nights home from the hospital I recall doing a google search on 'rhabdoid cancer'. All that came up were links to obscure journal papers and the Rhabdoid Kids site. You would think, having just finished a PhD, I would have been all about digging into the research side of this disease. But my instincts told me otherwise. I read one journal paper and just couldn't digest any of the information. I switched to the Rhabdoid Kids site, read about a few Rhabdoid kids, but could not bring myself to even open the Rhabdoid Angels page. I just didn't have the energy to read about other kids, I could only muster the energy to focus on Harry.
My intuition where Harry is concerned has been uncanny, every since he was first conceived. And I so clearly recall every ounce of my body saying, "Stop, stop looking at web sites. Don't focus on the science of this disease. That is not your job this time. You need to focus on healing Harry, taking care of Harry, loving Harry. You are not meant to focus on the technical side of this disease".
I listened to that internal voice and I didn't do any research or reading about Rhabdoid cancer again till after Harry had passed over in August.
Once Harry had died and I had hours and hours of empty days to fill I started to obsess over reading everything I could about Rhabdoid Cancer.
I think I am glad I didn't know just how cruel this disease is while Harry was alive. I don't think I could have had the courage to fight and maintain my hope and optimism had I know just how poor his chances really were.
Rhabdoid cancer is known as the rarest and most aggressive of all childhood cancers.
It was first discovered in the kidneys in 1978. In 1991, doctors realized that a class of brain tumors was actually the same cancer and so classified the brain tumor version, AT/RT or Atypical Teratoid / Rhabdoid Tumor. Basically, now the cancer is classified as either AT/RT or non-CNS MRT (Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor). Renal (kidney) and AT/RT are the most common variants of this cancer. 'Officially' Harry's cancer was an extra-Renal, non-CNS MRT of the liver.
A presentation I found on the web, put together by a doctor in St. Louis in 2007, listed a table of all of the published cases of primary Rhabdoid liver cancer that the doctor could find.
There were 25 cases listed.
Yes, that is it. 25 cases documented by 2007 in the entire english language academic literature. Of those 25 cases, three had survived, 2 girls and one boy. For some reason, girls have a slightly higher survival rate. So, since not all kids who have rhabdoid liver cancer will have a paper written about them, Harry choose a very exclusive club - there have been maybe 50 kids ever in the world with this type of cancer.
Go figure. My baby doesn't just get cancer, no, he has to get the rarest and most aggressive variant of the rarest and most aggressive childhood cancer of all.
The only path to long term survival is to remove all of the cancer and that means surgery. Chemotherapy alone is not enough, the primary tumor HAS to be surgically removed for survival. Rhabdoid cancer is treated with the strongest chemotherapy they can give a person. Most adults given the chemo Harry had are unable to move out of bed for days, they are so sick. For those kids who live long enough to start chemotherapy, the usual pattern is that the cancer responds well at first, but it is so damn smart, that it pretty soon figures out the chemo and relapses. Most children die with weeks of their first relapse.
Because the cancer grows so quickly, almost all kids exhibit very few symptoms until a few weeks before diagnosis and then, like Harry, present only with mild flu-like symptoms. Most kids are diagnosed at Stage 3 or 4. Many kids don't even survive long enough to start chemotherapy.
Given how extensive Harry's tumors were when he was diagnosed, by all rights, he should have died that first week in hospital.
So if you ever wonder whether we managed a miracle with Harry, the answer is an unqualified YES. That Harry survived to actually start chemotherapy, that he responded so well, that he smiled and laughed and bounced through each brutal round, that he got to come home, that he got to celebrate a first birthday, that he got to experience one summer as a little boy was all a miracle.
Strangely, I take some comfort in Harry having Rhabdoid cancer. In a strange way, it would been more difficult, I think, had he died of a more common cancer, one that most kids survive. Then we would have been left asking, "what did we miss, what did we do wrong". With Rhabdoid cancer, I know we really did everything we possibly could do for Harry. We gave him the very, very best shot we could.
But I sense that Harry choose Rhabdoid cancer, if it is possible to say such a thing, because he knew he had to come and give us all this love, but then go back to God. He had to choose a cancer we couldn't possibly have beaten.
I always said that whatever child followed Lydia was going to have to do something 'big' to not be caught in her shadow. Well, this wasn't quite what I had in mind. But Harry sure did do something big with his short life, of that there is no question.
Peace,
Cynthia
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Relay for Life 2009
Henry, Lydia and I will be leading the team "Prince Harry's Court" at this year's 2009 Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life, on Friday May 29th.
This year's event is being hosted by the Winnipeg Goldeyes Baseball Team, at their stadium at the Forks, in downtown Winnipeg. The husband of a friend, Andrew Collier, is the GM of the team. Back in March he asked us if he could talk about Harry's story on his GM blog and as a way of promoting the Goldeyes support of the Relay for Life. Of course we said yes. At the time, that nagging little voice in the back of my head was saying, "You know you should be doing the Relay this year in honour of Harry, don't you?"
I just didn't feel I could do it this year, after being at the Relay last year with Harry. But I kept on having this sinking feeling, which I am getting used to now, that we should be doing it this year.
Then a week ago, the organizing committee co-chairs for the Winnipeg event emailed us and asked if we would like to cut the ribbon to inaugerate the event this year at the opening ceremonies, in honour and memory of Harry.
Of course we said yes. And, of course, I decided to listen to that little voice, (damn, why is she always right?) and participate in the event in honour of Harry.
So, though we only have a week to get organized. I know our amazing 'community of love' will be right here with us.
I will post more tonight on how to either join our team and particpate along with us in the Relay for Life as part of "Prince Harry's Court" or how to donate to support our team.
Love,
Cynthia
This year's event is being hosted by the Winnipeg Goldeyes Baseball Team, at their stadium at the Forks, in downtown Winnipeg. The husband of a friend, Andrew Collier, is the GM of the team. Back in March he asked us if he could talk about Harry's story on his GM blog and as a way of promoting the Goldeyes support of the Relay for Life. Of course we said yes. At the time, that nagging little voice in the back of my head was saying, "You know you should be doing the Relay this year in honour of Harry, don't you?"
I just didn't feel I could do it this year, after being at the Relay last year with Harry. But I kept on having this sinking feeling, which I am getting used to now, that we should be doing it this year.
Then a week ago, the organizing committee co-chairs for the Winnipeg event emailed us and asked if we would like to cut the ribbon to inaugerate the event this year at the opening ceremonies, in honour and memory of Harry.
Of course we said yes. And, of course, I decided to listen to that little voice, (damn, why is she always right?) and participate in the event in honour of Harry.
So, though we only have a week to get organized. I know our amazing 'community of love' will be right here with us.
I will post more tonight on how to either join our team and particpate along with us in the Relay for Life as part of "Prince Harry's Court" or how to donate to support our team.
Love,
Cynthia
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Mice and Angels
We've had mice in our house since November 2007.
It started with three mice who moved in and decided to set up house in the bottom of our linen closet in the upstairs hallway. They must have thought they had found Nirvana for the winter season. They'd begun making a nice nest in an old swim towel and had found the mother-lode of food to sustain them for the winter - two of those fabric tube, grain-filled heating pad things, that you dampen and heat up in the microwave to wrap around your neck to soothe sore muscles.
Scared the living daylights out of me one evening when I went to get a towel from the linen closet and one of them jumped out at me.
I immediately bought a couple packages of wooden mouse traps, set them with peanut butter and put them in the linen closet. In quick succession I killed two of the mice, but the third one proved to be more crafty. I took everything out of the linen closet and washed the lot and cleaned out the closet with bleach. The third mouse wisely decided to abandon that winter home, but I couldn't figure out where it had gone. I set traps around the house, but never saw it again, and didn't see evidence of mouse droppings anywhere either.
I naively hoped she had just decided to seek winter refuge elsewhere. Ah, not so, likely not so crafty as cautious due to her 'delicate condition'. Yep, I'm pretty sure mouse number 3 was preggers. She must have gone into hiding somewhere in the walls, but we didn't see her or her offspring again for several months.
Many months later, after Harry had passed over, I was telling a friend of mine about the mice. Mariah practices Reiki and has many wonderful reference books in her studio on different aspects of Spirit. One book we decided to check out together after discussing the mice, on the symbolic meaning in our lives of the appearance of different animals.
Well, according to Mariah's book, the appearance of mice in our homes can mean, among other things, that we need to pay better attention to seemingly insignificant details in our lives.
I figure Harry's cancer may have started growing sometime around November 2007 ... little details that need better attention.
I can't recall exactly when we started to see the mice again. Or not so much see the mice, but rather see their telltale droppings around the house. But I am pretty sure it was sometime in January, just before first taking Harry to the hospital. This time the droppings were always on the main floor, in the kitchen, behind the bench in the front hall, behind furniture in the living room.
The only place we ever again found mouse droppings upstairs was in Harry's room. Really. Poor wee thing. I remember in January of 2008, when I would get up to nurse him in the night. After he was done and we were having a snuggle in the rocking chair before I put him back in his crib, he would sometimes point to the end of his crib.
Silly me, I thought, "Oh how clever my little boy is, pointing to his crib to tell me he is ready to go back to sleep".
He might have been, he was a very clever little boy!
But he also very well might have been saying, "Mummy, look, did you see the little mouse in the end of my crib?"
I'm really glad he was always safely ensconced in a sleepy sack in his crib!
Now, I know for certain that we never found any mouse droppings in his room BEFORE we took him to the hospital. So really, it is conjecture on my part that he saw mice in his crib at all, then. He really might have just been asking me to stop snuggling him and let him get back to sleep. I'll admit, I sometimes held him long after he had finished nursing. There is nothing more peaceful and beautiful than listening to the night sounds of your home, with your family safely tucked into their beds, with your precious little one asleep in your arms. I would sit and drink in Harry's smell, always telling myself to treasure these nights he and I had together.
I didn't have much time to worry about the mice when Harry was diagnosed. I had a number of traps set around the main floor of the house, but didn't have much luck catching anything.
But they were visiting Harry's room, evidence of which I found in April, after he was home from the hospital. He had been given a number of lovely stuffed animals in the hospital - a large number of different 'big cats' in particular. Until this time I hadn't had many stuffed animals in his crib, but given that he was over a year and well able to move all around his crib, I had set up a line of his 'big cats' at the end of his crib, to watch over him.
Again, back in his room and up to nurse in the night, Harry again pointed to the end of his crib one night. Too tired and unfocused in the night, I had tucked him back into bed and he had fallen right back to sleep, as he always did. But the next morning, when organizing his bed, I found a mouse turd in amongst the stuffed animals. Yuck. As if dealing with cancer weren't enough, my poor dear, having to deal with mice in his room as well, to top it all off. What an indignity!
Well, those stuffed animals came out of his bed right away and into the wash. Bleached Harry's floor and set several traps in his room, notably by the heat register and under his crib. Don't think I caught anything, but didn't see any more mice droppings in his room, either.
Over the next year, from last April till this March, I have set upwards of 20 different traps in the house. We bought an electronic mouse trap and set that in the basement, managed to kill one mouse I think. We bought those useless 'white noise' things that you plug into your wall sockets, which are supposed to emit a high frequency noise to keep mice away, and put them all over the house. They don't do a damn thing, by the way.
I have refreshed the peanut butter numerous times - the mice just licked the traps clean, left some poop to say thanks for dinner, and went on their merry way.
I tried setting the traps with bacon. The mice carefully removed every last trace of bacon without setting off the traps.
I have, over the past year, killed maybe five, six, or seven mice. Obviously the slow or less dexterous ones. In late February or early March this year, I noticed the mouse activity was getting really crazy. We were now starting to see them running about the house, damn buggers were getting bold as anything, coming to clean up the crumbs under the dinner table about fifteen minutes after we finished dinner.
I was reaching the end of my rope. I was so sick and tired of those damn mice!
On Sunday March 22, I was up working on email after putting Lydia to bed. Henry had just left the day before for Amsterdam. Within a five minute period I saw two different mice run across the dining room floor. I had really had it.
At my wits end, I cried out, "Okay, Harry. Mummy needs your help." "I get it, mice mean pay attention to details. I got the message, I paid attention to the details. We're done, right? We don't need the message any longer. Please Harry, Mummy is so sick and tired of these mice. Can you help me? Can you make these damn mice run into the traps, whatever? Can you help me finally get rid of them? I promise, I'll pay attention to the little details from now on!"
Around Christmas or New Years I had killed a mouse in his room. It was one of the things that finally prompted me to seriously tackle cleaning up his room.
Attention to details.
In the month after he passed over last year, I had washed up a number of loads of his stuff, clothing and bedding, and it was stacked on his chair and all in his crib. I hadn't had the energy to do anything more with it. Well, the mice had been having a field day in his room / crib and there were lots of droppings there. So I had re-washed everything in his room, pulled out all the furniture and bleached the floor. But this time, I as well scrubbed his crib, scrubbed off dirty finger prints, ours and Harry's, scrubbed off long-dried up spit-up from the cracks and crevices. I finally put all the clean things away, put all of Harry's clean clothes back into his clothing cupboard. Cleaned up most everything in his room, there is just a pile of mementos on top of his clothes cupboard that I have to figure out how to save and bottles of left over medicine, that I am not sure what to do with.
I had left two traps set in his room, thought neither of them had any bait set in them.
And once his room was cleaned up I hadn't seen any more droppings upstairs. Until late February, or early March, when I had also seen them in our room one night!
Lydia, by the way, has insisted on keeping her bedroom door closed at all times since we first found the mice in the linen closet way back in November 2007. I have never, ever, seen a mouse in her room, nor have I ever found droppings in her room, anywhere. Not in her closet (I have thoroughly cleaned it out several times), not in any corner or under any pile of toys. Nowhere. Nada. Nothing.
So, back to March 22.
Monday March 23, I am not sure why, I decided to check the traps I had left set in Harry's room. I looked under his crib and low and behold. There was a newly-dead, big fat (possibly pregnant) mouse, dead in the trap under his crib. I yet again, bleached Harry's bedroom floor.
Okay, I thought, are you going to help me Harry? It seemed somehow like a message from Harry. To find a dead mouse under his crib, caught in a trap that didn't even have any bait set in it.
So, I decided to try again. Tuesday, I cleaned up the basement (in preparation for our trip, and concerned about spring flooding, I wanted to make sure that everything of any value in our basement was at least 6 inches off the floor). A few weeks ago I had noticed that the mice had gotten into a bag of grass seed, so I painstakingly swept up every last seed and made sure the basement was spotless. And set 4 more traps and a water trap.
Then I bought yet more wooden traps at the corner store across the street.
I had brought the electronic trap upstairs a few weeks ago, filled it with peanut butter. The mice were going crazy sniffing the peanut butter from the outside, as evidenced by the droppings by the end of the trap, but none of them were willing to go INTO the damn thing. Nonetheless, I refreshed the peanut butter in the electronic trap and set a wooden trap just by the end of it. Set three wooden traps in the kitchen and two in the mud room. I also decided to try another trick I had read about, tied a piece of nylon stocking to the bait area and put the peanut butter on that, supposed to give more surface area, mice are supposed to tug it and set off the traps.
Wednesday night, March 25th, three days after my plea of help to Angel Harry, I killed my first mouse at about 9:00 pm. I heard the trap snap in the kitchen. Wow. Cool. Five minutes later another trap went off. I swear to God, I killed five or six mice that night. Couldn't get any work done. Every time I sat back down at my desk in the dining room another trap snapped off and I had another mouse to dispose of. But not just in the wooden traps. I zapped three mice in the electronic zapper as well. I gave up trying to get any work done by 11:00 pm, had just settled down in bed, when I heard yet another 'snap' downstairs and there was another dead mouse.
Okay, this is interesting, I thought. Next night, same thing. I kid you not. I killed another five or six mice. I started a 'dead mouse' collection jar just outside our side door, nestled in the snow at the top of the stairs. At one point Thursday night, I heard two traps go off in rapid succession in the kitchen. I went in to check, damn. Two empty traps. One of the crafty ones. Then I noticed movement at the bottom of the kitchen cupboards. The mouse wasn't dead, but it had hurt its leg trying to get away when it had set off one of the traps. Thinking fast, I grabbed a Tupperware container and trapped the injured mouse underneath it. And went to bed. Hoping it would just be dead in the morning.
It wasn't. I had to drown it. Lydia, ever helpful, had see the overturned container in the kitchen - I had told her not to touch it, because there was a mouse under it - she suggested I get the big butcher's knife and cut off its head. Wow. Didn't know she had it in her.
Friday night I killed at least another mouse, maybe two. All in all, over three nights I killed somewhere between 11-14 mice. I lost count. Five or six were pretty small, babies really. Caught two big fat ones, Mommas maybe? And another batch of older, more crafty ones.
I swear Harry heard me and was helping me. Why else, after a year of trying, was I able to kill so many mice in such a short time? Maybe the nylon was making a difference? But why was the electronic trap working after lying dormant for many months?
That weekend, I cleaned up the floors through the house, yet again. On Sunday the 28th, Lydia and I left for France. I left three traps set in the kitchen, one in the dining room with the electronic trap, and two in the mud room. I figured if we still had mice, we'd see lots of droppings when we got home, after they had had three weeks of freedom to run wild around the house.
When we got back from France. Nothing. Not one dead mouse the whole time we were gone. But NO droppings either. Anywhere. Seriously. No droppings under any furniture, in the kitchen, dining room, mud room. Nowhere. Nothing.
I'm not 100% sure that the mice are really gone. But since getting back from France. I have not heard or seen a mouse. I have not seen any mouse droppings. I'll keep the traps set. But I really believe my little Angel Harry heard me and helped me out.
I am considering very carefully what I should ask him for next time!
Interestingly, Lydia has started keeping her bedroom door OPEN ever since we came home from France. She has always seemed to have a level of communication with Harry that I don't quite understand. She told me it's okay to keep her door open now.
Love,
Cynthia
p.s. for those of you who might be wondering, no mice do not cause Rhabdoid cancer. Yes, I wondered that two, and asked the doctors at one point, they reassured me, there is no way the mice caused Harry's cancer.
It started with three mice who moved in and decided to set up house in the bottom of our linen closet in the upstairs hallway. They must have thought they had found Nirvana for the winter season. They'd begun making a nice nest in an old swim towel and had found the mother-lode of food to sustain them for the winter - two of those fabric tube, grain-filled heating pad things, that you dampen and heat up in the microwave to wrap around your neck to soothe sore muscles.
Scared the living daylights out of me one evening when I went to get a towel from the linen closet and one of them jumped out at me.
I immediately bought a couple packages of wooden mouse traps, set them with peanut butter and put them in the linen closet. In quick succession I killed two of the mice, but the third one proved to be more crafty. I took everything out of the linen closet and washed the lot and cleaned out the closet with bleach. The third mouse wisely decided to abandon that winter home, but I couldn't figure out where it had gone. I set traps around the house, but never saw it again, and didn't see evidence of mouse droppings anywhere either.
I naively hoped she had just decided to seek winter refuge elsewhere. Ah, not so, likely not so crafty as cautious due to her 'delicate condition'. Yep, I'm pretty sure mouse number 3 was preggers. She must have gone into hiding somewhere in the walls, but we didn't see her or her offspring again for several months.
Many months later, after Harry had passed over, I was telling a friend of mine about the mice. Mariah practices Reiki and has many wonderful reference books in her studio on different aspects of Spirit. One book we decided to check out together after discussing the mice, on the symbolic meaning in our lives of the appearance of different animals.
Well, according to Mariah's book, the appearance of mice in our homes can mean, among other things, that we need to pay better attention to seemingly insignificant details in our lives.
I figure Harry's cancer may have started growing sometime around November 2007 ... little details that need better attention.
I can't recall exactly when we started to see the mice again. Or not so much see the mice, but rather see their telltale droppings around the house. But I am pretty sure it was sometime in January, just before first taking Harry to the hospital. This time the droppings were always on the main floor, in the kitchen, behind the bench in the front hall, behind furniture in the living room.
The only place we ever again found mouse droppings upstairs was in Harry's room. Really. Poor wee thing. I remember in January of 2008, when I would get up to nurse him in the night. After he was done and we were having a snuggle in the rocking chair before I put him back in his crib, he would sometimes point to the end of his crib.
Silly me, I thought, "Oh how clever my little boy is, pointing to his crib to tell me he is ready to go back to sleep".
He might have been, he was a very clever little boy!
But he also very well might have been saying, "Mummy, look, did you see the little mouse in the end of my crib?"
I'm really glad he was always safely ensconced in a sleepy sack in his crib!
Now, I know for certain that we never found any mouse droppings in his room BEFORE we took him to the hospital. So really, it is conjecture on my part that he saw mice in his crib at all, then. He really might have just been asking me to stop snuggling him and let him get back to sleep. I'll admit, I sometimes held him long after he had finished nursing. There is nothing more peaceful and beautiful than listening to the night sounds of your home, with your family safely tucked into their beds, with your precious little one asleep in your arms. I would sit and drink in Harry's smell, always telling myself to treasure these nights he and I had together.
I didn't have much time to worry about the mice when Harry was diagnosed. I had a number of traps set around the main floor of the house, but didn't have much luck catching anything.
But they were visiting Harry's room, evidence of which I found in April, after he was home from the hospital. He had been given a number of lovely stuffed animals in the hospital - a large number of different 'big cats' in particular. Until this time I hadn't had many stuffed animals in his crib, but given that he was over a year and well able to move all around his crib, I had set up a line of his 'big cats' at the end of his crib, to watch over him.
Again, back in his room and up to nurse in the night, Harry again pointed to the end of his crib one night. Too tired and unfocused in the night, I had tucked him back into bed and he had fallen right back to sleep, as he always did. But the next morning, when organizing his bed, I found a mouse turd in amongst the stuffed animals. Yuck. As if dealing with cancer weren't enough, my poor dear, having to deal with mice in his room as well, to top it all off. What an indignity!
Well, those stuffed animals came out of his bed right away and into the wash. Bleached Harry's floor and set several traps in his room, notably by the heat register and under his crib. Don't think I caught anything, but didn't see any more mice droppings in his room, either.
Over the next year, from last April till this March, I have set upwards of 20 different traps in the house. We bought an electronic mouse trap and set that in the basement, managed to kill one mouse I think. We bought those useless 'white noise' things that you plug into your wall sockets, which are supposed to emit a high frequency noise to keep mice away, and put them all over the house. They don't do a damn thing, by the way.
I have refreshed the peanut butter numerous times - the mice just licked the traps clean, left some poop to say thanks for dinner, and went on their merry way.
I tried setting the traps with bacon. The mice carefully removed every last trace of bacon without setting off the traps.
I have, over the past year, killed maybe five, six, or seven mice. Obviously the slow or less dexterous ones. In late February or early March this year, I noticed the mouse activity was getting really crazy. We were now starting to see them running about the house, damn buggers were getting bold as anything, coming to clean up the crumbs under the dinner table about fifteen minutes after we finished dinner.
I was reaching the end of my rope. I was so sick and tired of those damn mice!
On Sunday March 22, I was up working on email after putting Lydia to bed. Henry had just left the day before for Amsterdam. Within a five minute period I saw two different mice run across the dining room floor. I had really had it.
At my wits end, I cried out, "Okay, Harry. Mummy needs your help." "I get it, mice mean pay attention to details. I got the message, I paid attention to the details. We're done, right? We don't need the message any longer. Please Harry, Mummy is so sick and tired of these mice. Can you help me? Can you make these damn mice run into the traps, whatever? Can you help me finally get rid of them? I promise, I'll pay attention to the little details from now on!"
Around Christmas or New Years I had killed a mouse in his room. It was one of the things that finally prompted me to seriously tackle cleaning up his room.
Attention to details.
In the month after he passed over last year, I had washed up a number of loads of his stuff, clothing and bedding, and it was stacked on his chair and all in his crib. I hadn't had the energy to do anything more with it. Well, the mice had been having a field day in his room / crib and there were lots of droppings there. So I had re-washed everything in his room, pulled out all the furniture and bleached the floor. But this time, I as well scrubbed his crib, scrubbed off dirty finger prints, ours and Harry's, scrubbed off long-dried up spit-up from the cracks and crevices. I finally put all the clean things away, put all of Harry's clean clothes back into his clothing cupboard. Cleaned up most everything in his room, there is just a pile of mementos on top of his clothes cupboard that I have to figure out how to save and bottles of left over medicine, that I am not sure what to do with.
I had left two traps set in his room, thought neither of them had any bait set in them.
And once his room was cleaned up I hadn't seen any more droppings upstairs. Until late February, or early March, when I had also seen them in our room one night!
Lydia, by the way, has insisted on keeping her bedroom door closed at all times since we first found the mice in the linen closet way back in November 2007. I have never, ever, seen a mouse in her room, nor have I ever found droppings in her room, anywhere. Not in her closet (I have thoroughly cleaned it out several times), not in any corner or under any pile of toys. Nowhere. Nada. Nothing.
So, back to March 22.
Monday March 23, I am not sure why, I decided to check the traps I had left set in Harry's room. I looked under his crib and low and behold. There was a newly-dead, big fat (possibly pregnant) mouse, dead in the trap under his crib. I yet again, bleached Harry's bedroom floor.
Okay, I thought, are you going to help me Harry? It seemed somehow like a message from Harry. To find a dead mouse under his crib, caught in a trap that didn't even have any bait set in it.
So, I decided to try again. Tuesday, I cleaned up the basement (in preparation for our trip, and concerned about spring flooding, I wanted to make sure that everything of any value in our basement was at least 6 inches off the floor). A few weeks ago I had noticed that the mice had gotten into a bag of grass seed, so I painstakingly swept up every last seed and made sure the basement was spotless. And set 4 more traps and a water trap.
Then I bought yet more wooden traps at the corner store across the street.
I had brought the electronic trap upstairs a few weeks ago, filled it with peanut butter. The mice were going crazy sniffing the peanut butter from the outside, as evidenced by the droppings by the end of the trap, but none of them were willing to go INTO the damn thing. Nonetheless, I refreshed the peanut butter in the electronic trap and set a wooden trap just by the end of it. Set three wooden traps in the kitchen and two in the mud room. I also decided to try another trick I had read about, tied a piece of nylon stocking to the bait area and put the peanut butter on that, supposed to give more surface area, mice are supposed to tug it and set off the traps.
Wednesday night, March 25th, three days after my plea of help to Angel Harry, I killed my first mouse at about 9:00 pm. I heard the trap snap in the kitchen. Wow. Cool. Five minutes later another trap went off. I swear to God, I killed five or six mice that night. Couldn't get any work done. Every time I sat back down at my desk in the dining room another trap snapped off and I had another mouse to dispose of. But not just in the wooden traps. I zapped three mice in the electronic zapper as well. I gave up trying to get any work done by 11:00 pm, had just settled down in bed, when I heard yet another 'snap' downstairs and there was another dead mouse.
Okay, this is interesting, I thought. Next night, same thing. I kid you not. I killed another five or six mice. I started a 'dead mouse' collection jar just outside our side door, nestled in the snow at the top of the stairs. At one point Thursday night, I heard two traps go off in rapid succession in the kitchen. I went in to check, damn. Two empty traps. One of the crafty ones. Then I noticed movement at the bottom of the kitchen cupboards. The mouse wasn't dead, but it had hurt its leg trying to get away when it had set off one of the traps. Thinking fast, I grabbed a Tupperware container and trapped the injured mouse underneath it. And went to bed. Hoping it would just be dead in the morning.
It wasn't. I had to drown it. Lydia, ever helpful, had see the overturned container in the kitchen - I had told her not to touch it, because there was a mouse under it - she suggested I get the big butcher's knife and cut off its head. Wow. Didn't know she had it in her.
Friday night I killed at least another mouse, maybe two. All in all, over three nights I killed somewhere between 11-14 mice. I lost count. Five or six were pretty small, babies really. Caught two big fat ones, Mommas maybe? And another batch of older, more crafty ones.
I swear Harry heard me and was helping me. Why else, after a year of trying, was I able to kill so many mice in such a short time? Maybe the nylon was making a difference? But why was the electronic trap working after lying dormant for many months?
That weekend, I cleaned up the floors through the house, yet again. On Sunday the 28th, Lydia and I left for France. I left three traps set in the kitchen, one in the dining room with the electronic trap, and two in the mud room. I figured if we still had mice, we'd see lots of droppings when we got home, after they had had three weeks of freedom to run wild around the house.
When we got back from France. Nothing. Not one dead mouse the whole time we were gone. But NO droppings either. Anywhere. Seriously. No droppings under any furniture, in the kitchen, dining room, mud room. Nowhere. Nothing.
I'm not 100% sure that the mice are really gone. But since getting back from France. I have not heard or seen a mouse. I have not seen any mouse droppings. I'll keep the traps set. But I really believe my little Angel Harry heard me and helped me out.
I am considering very carefully what I should ask him for next time!
Interestingly, Lydia has started keeping her bedroom door OPEN ever since we came home from France. She has always seemed to have a level of communication with Harry that I don't quite understand. She told me it's okay to keep her door open now.
Love,
Cynthia
p.s. for those of you who might be wondering, no mice do not cause Rhabdoid cancer. Yes, I wondered that two, and asked the doctors at one point, they reassured me, there is no way the mice caused Harry's cancer.
Friday, May 1, 2009
39 and Holding
Today is my 39th Birthday.
I have never worried about turning 40 before, but somehow after the year we have had, 40 feels like a huge milestone, both good and bad. But, I guess I have a whole year to worry about turning 40!
Last year, Harry just made it home from the hospital for my birthday - he had been in for a few days for a blood transfusion and a bout of febrile nutropenia (fancy word for fever due to very low white blood cell counts, one of the many fancy terms we learned last year), in his recovery phase from his third round of chemotherapy.
Gareth and Kathleen came by with a lovely chocolate cake to help us celebrate.
Lydia made me stay in bed an extra ten minutes this morning so she could put my presents on the dining room table for me, just like I do for her. She made me a lovely picture / card, which she even wrote "Happy Birthday Mummy" and signed it from her, Daddy and Harry. She also made me a paper bracelet. What a sweetie. What would I ever do without her, she brings such pure joy to our lives.
Henry has ordered me a cake this year, a first! Some family and friends will drop by this evening to join us for cake.
I know our angel Harry is going to be right here with us. Wishing me a happy birthday too.
Love,
Cynthia
I have never worried about turning 40 before, but somehow after the year we have had, 40 feels like a huge milestone, both good and bad. But, I guess I have a whole year to worry about turning 40!
Last year, Harry just made it home from the hospital for my birthday - he had been in for a few days for a blood transfusion and a bout of febrile nutropenia (fancy word for fever due to very low white blood cell counts, one of the many fancy terms we learned last year), in his recovery phase from his third round of chemotherapy.
Gareth and Kathleen came by with a lovely chocolate cake to help us celebrate.
Lydia made me stay in bed an extra ten minutes this morning so she could put my presents on the dining room table for me, just like I do for her. She made me a lovely picture / card, which she even wrote "Happy Birthday Mummy" and signed it from her, Daddy and Harry. She also made me a paper bracelet. What a sweetie. What would I ever do without her, she brings such pure joy to our lives.
Henry has ordered me a cake this year, a first! Some family and friends will drop by this evening to join us for cake.
I know our angel Harry is going to be right here with us. Wishing me a happy birthday too.
Love,
Cynthia
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Bike Riding
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
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
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.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
March-ing On
March feels so much easier than February.
I am sure that the weather has something to do with it. Although, March roared in like a lion here in Winnipeg - one of Lydia's last hockey Tuesday nights in early March was cancelled - not due to melting ice - but due to a -30C wind chill - once we moved the clocks forward one hour on March 8th, Mother Nature seemed ready to give us a break to accompany the evening sunlight.
It is difficult to describe just how overjoyed we are to welcome Spring back to our midst - winter settled in here the first week of November and we have had snow on the ground and unusually cold temperatures for four months straight! This past week we have FINALLY recorded above 0 C daily temperatures, the snow is starting to melt and the sidewalks are a treacherous mess of melting ice and puddles. Splash pants are a must, as are rubber boots, but walking is a dangerous activity - Lydia and I took two tries to make it to the park Monday afternoon - she fell into two puddles and soaked her mitts and the back of her shirt (which was not properly tucked into said splash pants) on our first attempt. But spring is really in the air and there is a feeling of anticipation in the air, there is no holding it back now, while we may get some cold days yet, real winter is behind us.
March last year was consumed by Harry's first two rounds of chemotherapy and everyday life in Rm 535 on CK5, or as everyday as life could have been on an oncology ward with your wee son hooked up to at least four different IV lines pumping a cocktail of lethal drugs into his wee body via a thin white line entering directly into his chest. But my memories of March match the sunshine. March was a month filled with optimism and hope. Harry was ALIVE - a major gift just in and of itself. He was responding brilliantly to the chemotherapy, he was his joyful, happy, contented self again. Each day with Harry was filled with so much love and laughter, it is impossible not to look back on last March and smile.
I am trying so hard to hold onto that feeling of light and optimism that I felt last March. It was a gift to feel that - to know so truly what it feels like to live in joy and love today, just today, not worrying about tomorrow, but truly living in and for today.
That was one of the true gifts of this journey with Harry - to be given the opportunity to experience fully what it means to live in the moment - and to live in JOY in the moment. Many people search their whole life to find this experience. And while I would rather that the journey with Harry had taken a different path, one that left him here with us, I am so grateful to have had that experience. I can look back on our past year with Harry and be so thankful for all of the wonderful moments of that experience.
We miss our little Prince so much. He is never out of our thoughts, though sometimes just below the surface, he is always in our hearts. I think we are coming to a place of acceptance in our journey with Harry, accepting this new configuration of our family. Although, our family will always be a family that includes Harry. Lydia so easily and purely captures this - nearly every day at school or daycare she draws a family picture - and it is always Mommy, Daddy, Lydia and Harry. His physical absence will be felt forever. I realize that will never go away, though it might dim a bit with time. Right now, I still always think, in every moment, how the moment would be different if Harry were here in his physical body with us. I don't know that I will every stop doing that.
I think I understand why somewhere between 75 and 90% of couples divorce or spilt-up following the death of a child and why all of the grief books I have read talk about the grief over the loss of a child as the most difficult of all grief journeys to walk. If you stay together as a family then that loss, that absence will ALWAYS be present, forever, from this point forward. To try to get away from that feeling of dislocation - that 'something is missing-ness' - I can well imagine feeling that the only way towards healing is to disband that family group, create a new family with someone else, where the absence of the child lost will not be central to the family configuration. I can't imagine that in the end that really helps. But I can full understand the feeling, the need to 'get away' to create an entirely new circumstance, where the child never was, so they might not feel so absent.
All that said, don't worry though, Henry and I are happily in the other 10-15%! I remember in the very earliest days of Harry's diagnosis. Henry was really scared that maybe we would spilt up over this illness, would our marriage be able to withstand the stress? I didn't even have to think about it for an instant. I think we might have still even have been on CK4 or just in the very early days on CK5, when Henry expressed this fear. I dismissed it outright as preposterous, that was a choice I simply was not willing to make. We were sticking together no matter what, end of discussion. It was one of those moments of clarity when we just made the choice - this would bring us closer together, however the journey progressed, end of story. We would not let this destroy us, it was going to make us stronger.
And so in March, we are trying to stay centred in the light - just as we did last March. Centred in joy, love, light and optimism. It feels so much better to be in this place and even though Harry is no longer physically with us. I so clearly know that he resides with us in the light. So as long as we stay centred in the light, we are never really apart from Harry. He is there with us always.
If you see us this month. Don't be afraid to ask us about Harry or talk about Harry. We are always thinking about him and we love talking about him, remembering him. Yes, it is very likely we might shed a tear or two, but tears are the soothing balm of grief. It doesn't make us feel badly to talk about Harry, it makes us feel sad if we feel we have to somehow pretend we are NOT thinking about him!
If you have any happy (or sad) memories of Harry that you would like to share, please do so on the blog. We would love to capture as many memories and stories of Harry as we can.
In love and light,
Cynthia
I am sure that the weather has something to do with it. Although, March roared in like a lion here in Winnipeg - one of Lydia's last hockey Tuesday nights in early March was cancelled - not due to melting ice - but due to a -30C wind chill - once we moved the clocks forward one hour on March 8th, Mother Nature seemed ready to give us a break to accompany the evening sunlight.
It is difficult to describe just how overjoyed we are to welcome Spring back to our midst - winter settled in here the first week of November and we have had snow on the ground and unusually cold temperatures for four months straight! This past week we have FINALLY recorded above 0 C daily temperatures, the snow is starting to melt and the sidewalks are a treacherous mess of melting ice and puddles. Splash pants are a must, as are rubber boots, but walking is a dangerous activity - Lydia and I took two tries to make it to the park Monday afternoon - she fell into two puddles and soaked her mitts and the back of her shirt (which was not properly tucked into said splash pants) on our first attempt. But spring is really in the air and there is a feeling of anticipation in the air, there is no holding it back now, while we may get some cold days yet, real winter is behind us.
March last year was consumed by Harry's first two rounds of chemotherapy and everyday life in Rm 535 on CK5, or as everyday as life could have been on an oncology ward with your wee son hooked up to at least four different IV lines pumping a cocktail of lethal drugs into his wee body via a thin white line entering directly into his chest. But my memories of March match the sunshine. March was a month filled with optimism and hope. Harry was ALIVE - a major gift just in and of itself. He was responding brilliantly to the chemotherapy, he was his joyful, happy, contented self again. Each day with Harry was filled with so much love and laughter, it is impossible not to look back on last March and smile.
I am trying so hard to hold onto that feeling of light and optimism that I felt last March. It was a gift to feel that - to know so truly what it feels like to live in joy and love today, just today, not worrying about tomorrow, but truly living in and for today.
That was one of the true gifts of this journey with Harry - to be given the opportunity to experience fully what it means to live in the moment - and to live in JOY in the moment. Many people search their whole life to find this experience. And while I would rather that the journey with Harry had taken a different path, one that left him here with us, I am so grateful to have had that experience. I can look back on our past year with Harry and be so thankful for all of the wonderful moments of that experience.
We miss our little Prince so much. He is never out of our thoughts, though sometimes just below the surface, he is always in our hearts. I think we are coming to a place of acceptance in our journey with Harry, accepting this new configuration of our family. Although, our family will always be a family that includes Harry. Lydia so easily and purely captures this - nearly every day at school or daycare she draws a family picture - and it is always Mommy, Daddy, Lydia and Harry. His physical absence will be felt forever. I realize that will never go away, though it might dim a bit with time. Right now, I still always think, in every moment, how the moment would be different if Harry were here in his physical body with us. I don't know that I will every stop doing that.
I think I understand why somewhere between 75 and 90% of couples divorce or spilt-up following the death of a child and why all of the grief books I have read talk about the grief over the loss of a child as the most difficult of all grief journeys to walk. If you stay together as a family then that loss, that absence will ALWAYS be present, forever, from this point forward. To try to get away from that feeling of dislocation - that 'something is missing-ness' - I can well imagine feeling that the only way towards healing is to disband that family group, create a new family with someone else, where the absence of the child lost will not be central to the family configuration. I can't imagine that in the end that really helps. But I can full understand the feeling, the need to 'get away' to create an entirely new circumstance, where the child never was, so they might not feel so absent.
All that said, don't worry though, Henry and I are happily in the other 10-15%! I remember in the very earliest days of Harry's diagnosis. Henry was really scared that maybe we would spilt up over this illness, would our marriage be able to withstand the stress? I didn't even have to think about it for an instant. I think we might have still even have been on CK4 or just in the very early days on CK5, when Henry expressed this fear. I dismissed it outright as preposterous, that was a choice I simply was not willing to make. We were sticking together no matter what, end of discussion. It was one of those moments of clarity when we just made the choice - this would bring us closer together, however the journey progressed, end of story. We would not let this destroy us, it was going to make us stronger.
And so in March, we are trying to stay centred in the light - just as we did last March. Centred in joy, love, light and optimism. It feels so much better to be in this place and even though Harry is no longer physically with us. I so clearly know that he resides with us in the light. So as long as we stay centred in the light, we are never really apart from Harry. He is there with us always.
If you see us this month. Don't be afraid to ask us about Harry or talk about Harry. We are always thinking about him and we love talking about him, remembering him. Yes, it is very likely we might shed a tear or two, but tears are the soothing balm of grief. It doesn't make us feel badly to talk about Harry, it makes us feel sad if we feel we have to somehow pretend we are NOT thinking about him!
If you have any happy (or sad) memories of Harry that you would like to share, please do so on the blog. We would love to capture as many memories and stories of Harry as we can.
In love and light,
Cynthia
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Walk On, Indeed!
Since Harry passed over in August I have read a lot. Typically, mostly books on death, grief, dealing with the death of a child, the afterlife, that kind of light fare.
One of my favourite books so far is by the famous american philosopher Ken Wilber. I have never read any of his work. I have always wanted to, but I couldn’t make it directly enough fit into my doctoral work and I was already reading far more widely than was likely advisable, so I had to shelve his work, figuratively and literally, till later.
This book, called “Grace and Grit” Wilber published in 1991. Grace and Grit documents Wilber’s and his wife Treya’s experiences with her five-year long journey and ultimate death from breast cancer, using his own words and her journal entries. I want to write much more about my thoughts on this book, because I have learned so much from it. Although one of the things that has most struck me is how similar their journey was to ours. Strange as it might be that a baby boy’s journey with cancer can resemble that of a women’s in her late 30s!
One the one hand I have to say I found it, rather perversely perhaps, strangely comforting that she died. This might sound cruel. But part of me will always wonder, did we do enough for Harry? What else should we have tried?
It is reassuring to know that the wife of a presumably wealthy American (Wilber had already published over ten books when Treya was diagnosed and was read widely throughout the world), and not just any American, but *the* american philosopher credited with creating the field of Transpersonal Psychology and especially known for his cogent synthesis of eastern and western spiritualism and philosophy, had ultimately died of cancer.
They had access to the best medical treatment in the world. They tried both allopathic chemotherapy and radiation, but also a wide-range of alternative therapies. They were critical and discerning, yet open to it all.
So it makes me feel better to know, in a crazy way, that with all their access and knowledge, even a Zen Buddhist master’s wife could die of cancer.
Very near the end of the book. When Wilber is describing Treya’s very last days. He quotes a famous Zen Koan, which he felt most aptly described Treya’s incredible attitude in the face her journey with cancer. I nearly fell off my chair when I read it.
The Zen Koan goes like this:
A student asked a Zen Master, “What is Absolute Truth?” ...
... and the Zen Master said only, “Walk On!”
That is my little Harry, my pint-sized sage, teaching us in his way the meaning of absolute truth ... walk on my loves, walk on.
One of my favourite books so far is by the famous american philosopher Ken Wilber. I have never read any of his work. I have always wanted to, but I couldn’t make it directly enough fit into my doctoral work and I was already reading far more widely than was likely advisable, so I had to shelve his work, figuratively and literally, till later.
This book, called “Grace and Grit” Wilber published in 1991. Grace and Grit documents Wilber’s and his wife Treya’s experiences with her five-year long journey and ultimate death from breast cancer, using his own words and her journal entries. I want to write much more about my thoughts on this book, because I have learned so much from it. Although one of the things that has most struck me is how similar their journey was to ours. Strange as it might be that a baby boy’s journey with cancer can resemble that of a women’s in her late 30s!
One the one hand I have to say I found it, rather perversely perhaps, strangely comforting that she died. This might sound cruel. But part of me will always wonder, did we do enough for Harry? What else should we have tried?
It is reassuring to know that the wife of a presumably wealthy American (Wilber had already published over ten books when Treya was diagnosed and was read widely throughout the world), and not just any American, but *the* american philosopher credited with creating the field of Transpersonal Psychology and especially known for his cogent synthesis of eastern and western spiritualism and philosophy, had ultimately died of cancer.
They had access to the best medical treatment in the world. They tried both allopathic chemotherapy and radiation, but also a wide-range of alternative therapies. They were critical and discerning, yet open to it all.
So it makes me feel better to know, in a crazy way, that with all their access and knowledge, even a Zen Buddhist master’s wife could die of cancer.
Very near the end of the book. When Wilber is describing Treya’s very last days. He quotes a famous Zen Koan, which he felt most aptly described Treya’s incredible attitude in the face her journey with cancer. I nearly fell off my chair when I read it.
The Zen Koan goes like this:
A student asked a Zen Master, “What is Absolute Truth?” ...
... and the Zen Master said only, “Walk On!”
That is my little Harry, my pint-sized sage, teaching us in his way the meaning of absolute truth ... walk on my loves, walk on.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Angel Baby
We have many nick names for Harry. One of my nick names for him was, “Angel Baby”. How prophetic.
I recall so clearly the last time I called him that. It was on February 24th, 2008. We were still in the room on CK4, not yet moved up to the oncology ward CK5, but it was after we had been given the devastating news of his cancer. A nurse had come into the room to do something, I can’t recall what, take some blood, check a temperature, take a blood pressure reading?
I put the side of the crib down, I was on Harry’s left side, and I held his hand and stroked his head and comforted him as she poked and prodded. I can so clearly hear myself saying, “It’s okay Angel Baby, don’t cry, you’ll be okay Angel Baby”.
And then, my Awareness, observed myself hunched over Harry’s hospital crib; heard myself say those words, prompted me to say to myself “Stop. What kind of idiot calls her child, who has just been given a grave diagnosis of metastatic liver cancer, “Angel Baby”.
“Oh God," I thought. "What AM I doing. NO, I don’t want him to be my Angel Baby. Don’t call him that, I can’t call him that. What AM I thinking?”
I never called him Angel Baby again. Well, until he was my Angel Baby. Now I’ll always call him my Angel Baby.
Love,
Cynthia
I recall so clearly the last time I called him that. It was on February 24th, 2008. We were still in the room on CK4, not yet moved up to the oncology ward CK5, but it was after we had been given the devastating news of his cancer. A nurse had come into the room to do something, I can’t recall what, take some blood, check a temperature, take a blood pressure reading?
I put the side of the crib down, I was on Harry’s left side, and I held his hand and stroked his head and comforted him as she poked and prodded. I can so clearly hear myself saying, “It’s okay Angel Baby, don’t cry, you’ll be okay Angel Baby”.
And then, my Awareness, observed myself hunched over Harry’s hospital crib; heard myself say those words, prompted me to say to myself “Stop. What kind of idiot calls her child, who has just been given a grave diagnosis of metastatic liver cancer, “Angel Baby”.
“Oh God," I thought. "What AM I doing. NO, I don’t want him to be my Angel Baby. Don’t call him that, I can’t call him that. What AM I thinking?”
I never called him Angel Baby again. Well, until he was my Angel Baby. Now I’ll always call him my Angel Baby.
Love,
Cynthia
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The Harry Venema Memorial Fun Park
Hi Folks
Here is the first description of the Harry Venema Memorial Fun Park, we're planning at Robert A. Steen Community Club. We've established a working group to bring this vision to reality.
We've now raised well over $10,000 dollars and expect to attract co-funding for project construction.
I'll use the blog to keep people apprised of our progress.
thanks,
Henry
Here is the first description of the Harry Venema Memorial Fun Park, we're planning at Robert A. Steen Community Club. We've established a working group to bring this vision to reality.
We've now raised well over $10,000 dollars and expect to attract co-funding for project construction.
I'll use the blog to keep people apprised of our progress.
thanks,
Henry
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Canadian Liver Foundation
The Canadian Liver Foundation just called. Yes, I am not kidding. Yes, I gave them $50.00.
The poor guy, I think he said his name was Adam, he started on his spiel and as soon as I heard him say, “... calling from the Canadian Liver Foundation ...” I interrupted him and said, though I am not quite sure why, because I didn’t need to divulge this information, “Yes, our son just died of liver cancer in August, we’ll give $50.00”.
So apparently there is a way to stop a telemarketer dead, mid-sentence and render them suddenly speechless.
Until he called I had forgotten that it must be pretty much exactly a year since they last called. It was around the same time of day. I remember checking the number on call display as the phone rang. A “480-number.” I knew it was a telemarketer and I had debated not answering. But I did anyway.
Last year, I patiently listened to their spiel, “Canadian Liver Foundation ... blah blah blah ... research for liver disease ... blah blah blah”. We give a lot of money to charity. I sighed, considered it for a moment, “Should we give to the Canadian Liver Foundation?”
Then, I thought, “Oh, hell, we don’t know anyone with liver disease”. Yes, I really thought that.
And I said, “Thank you very much, but we give a lot of money to charity each year, and we just can’t afford to give anything else at this time”. And I had politely hung up.
We don’t know anyone with liver disease. Two days before taking Harry to the hospital to find out that he was, very likely, dying of metastatic liver cancer, I said no to a telemarketer from the Canadian Liver Foundation because, “we didn’t know anyone with liver disease”.
I’m not sure what that means. But if you believe in signs, then it was one of just several signs, of what was waiting for us. This year, it just seems like a cruel reminder. Yes, okay, okay, okay. I know someone who has died of liver disease.
The poor guy, I think he said his name was Adam, he started on his spiel and as soon as I heard him say, “... calling from the Canadian Liver Foundation ...” I interrupted him and said, though I am not quite sure why, because I didn’t need to divulge this information, “Yes, our son just died of liver cancer in August, we’ll give $50.00”.
So apparently there is a way to stop a telemarketer dead, mid-sentence and render them suddenly speechless.
Until he called I had forgotten that it must be pretty much exactly a year since they last called. It was around the same time of day. I remember checking the number on call display as the phone rang. A “480-number.” I knew it was a telemarketer and I had debated not answering. But I did anyway.
Last year, I patiently listened to their spiel, “Canadian Liver Foundation ... blah blah blah ... research for liver disease ... blah blah blah”. We give a lot of money to charity. I sighed, considered it for a moment, “Should we give to the Canadian Liver Foundation?”
Then, I thought, “Oh, hell, we don’t know anyone with liver disease”. Yes, I really thought that.
And I said, “Thank you very much, but we give a lot of money to charity each year, and we just can’t afford to give anything else at this time”. And I had politely hung up.
We don’t know anyone with liver disease. Two days before taking Harry to the hospital to find out that he was, very likely, dying of metastatic liver cancer, I said no to a telemarketer from the Canadian Liver Foundation because, “we didn’t know anyone with liver disease”.
I’m not sure what that means. But if you believe in signs, then it was one of just several signs, of what was waiting for us. This year, it just seems like a cruel reminder. Yes, okay, okay, okay. I know someone who has died of liver disease.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Happy Harry Inner Tube Dancing to the Wiggles
I wanted to post something happy about Harry. Not every day is sad for us. Many of our days since Harry passed over have been full of joy and love and laughter. We so strongly feel Harry's presence in our home and lives. We know that he is "just around the corner" or sometime right in the room with us, always loving us. I am just trying to figure out how to post videos to YouTube. Henry has put all of our video clips of Harry (about 41 minutes total, I think) into an iMovie movie. We will post it on YouTube - but we have to chunk it into 5 segments (max allowed is 10 minutes). So we still have some tinkering to do.
However, I have figured out how to post a small movie to YouTube.
Here is a link to one of our very favourite videos of Harry. It is Harry 'dancing' inside an inner tube in our living room.
The four of us were hanging out one morning. "The Wiggles" came on TV. Harry LOVED the Wiggles. In the video we captured the moment when the song "Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle" came on and Harry started spontaneously clapping, laughing, and wiggling right along. This is such a CLASSIC Harry moment - he is so full of joy and life. It is my favourite video of him and one I just treasure. It always makes me laugh and cry tears of joy when I watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTJ_fhONu_M
We're also slowly trying to put together all of the pictures we have of Harry - somewhere between 1500 - 2000. We'll eventually get them all organized and into slideshows to download! I want to make a MyPublisher glossy book of pictures of Harry too. I am trying to write as much as I can - but also have to work on papers from my doctoral thesis for publication!
Have a wonderful, wiggly, day.
Love,
Cynthia
However, I have figured out how to post a small movie to YouTube.
Here is a link to one of our very favourite videos of Harry. It is Harry 'dancing' inside an inner tube in our living room.
The four of us were hanging out one morning. "The Wiggles" came on TV. Harry LOVED the Wiggles. In the video we captured the moment when the song "Wiggle, Wiggle, Wiggle" came on and Harry started spontaneously clapping, laughing, and wiggling right along. This is such a CLASSIC Harry moment - he is so full of joy and life. It is my favourite video of him and one I just treasure. It always makes me laugh and cry tears of joy when I watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTJ_fhONu_M
We're also slowly trying to put together all of the pictures we have of Harry - somewhere between 1500 - 2000. We'll eventually get them all organized and into slideshows to download! I want to make a MyPublisher glossy book of pictures of Harry too. I am trying to write as much as I can - but also have to work on papers from my doctoral thesis for publication!
Have a wonderful, wiggly, day.
Love,
Cynthia
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Six Months
Harry died six months ago today.
He has now been gone for longer than the whole journey, longer than the whole time he was sick. It has passed in a flash. It doesn’t seem possible. How can it be six months since he died? From February 22nd to August 3rd seemed like the longest of times, a lifetime. August seems like almost yesterday, yet not almost yesterday. Time has moved in such strange ways this past year.
Would you believe that when I woke up this morning I didn’t automatically realize what day it was?
In bed, Lydia had asked us if it was a special day today. Was it anyone’s birthday, anyone who we knew? February 3rd? In my groggy, half-awake state, I knew that the day was important, but I couldn’t quite yet grasp why. The significance hid behind the cobwebs of my not-yet-awake mind. Who did we know who was born on February 3rd? I told Lydia,” I am sure it is someone’s birthday somewhere in the world”.
Looking at the clock, pushing 7:30, I quickly got out of bed, “We have to be on the ball today ‘Tuda. It is a work day for Mummy”. And Lydia’s comment was quickly forgotten in the sweep of the morning rush of getting dressed, making beds, eating breakfast, making lunch, and getting Lydia and I out the door in time for school and my bus.
It is someone’s birthday. Lydia’s school friend Callum turns five today. We’re going to his birthday party on Sunday.
It was when I was riding the bus to the University that it hit me. I guess I have been so pre-occupied with dreading all the other anniversaries in February that I had completely overlooked this one. February 3rd, oh, yes, of course, now I know. February 3rd. How could I possibly have forgotten so soon? It has now been six months, a whole half-year, a whole impossible half-year since Harry died.
The tears streamed down my face as I sat riding the express bus to the university and the cobwebs were torn and washed from every corner of my mind. Every moment of the last year flashes through my memory and I think of the last time I held my wee Harry. So skinny, his wee body ravaged from the chemo and the cancer. The last time I kissed his impossibly smooth, papery soft skin. The last time I felt his wee hand grasp my fingers and I weep.
God, I want him back. God, it feels so fucking unfair that he should be gone. Today I can’t pull out my philosophical balms and soothe myself with thoughts of the meaning of his life. Right now, in this moment. I just think about how much I miss holding him in my arms. The perfect weight of him in my arms, always balanced on my left hip. His right arm draped around my shoulder and his left hand tucked protectively down the front of my top, resting just at the top of my left breast, over my heart. As if he just needed one hand on Mummy’s flesh, to make sure I was real.
How can I even begin to put into words the ache I feel? The loss? The sorrow? I cry for me, for Henry, for Harry, for Lydia. I cry and shake my head at the impossibility of it all. How? How? I always ask myself. How did this happen? Why did this happen? How can it be possible that my dear sweet boy has died? And not just died, but died of cancer. How could it have taken my son? Wasn’t it enough that it took my Dad? Did I have to give it my son too??? This isn’t supposed to happen. I am not supposed to have to deal with this.
I know, I know. I can hear Henry’s voice already in my mind. When you get out of your ‘woe is me, victim-mode’ you can come and talk to me. You are not a victim. You are not being punished. Everyone suffers. I could have been born in central Africa, an innocent caught in the cross-fire in the Middle East, poverty-stricken, famine-stricken, family ravaged by AIDS … choose your sorrow. But yet, some days, the weight of my own particular sorrows feels so unfair. And oh, but some days it is so easy to believe in a vengeful god, sitting on his throne up in heaven, raining down another lightening bolt of punishment.
What sin could I have possibly committed to warrant this?
But as soon as I say all this, I stop. I don’t really feel better, fuming and raging this way. It helps for an instant. But when I stop, nothing has changed. The past is still the past and Harry is still gone. It doesn’t do any good to sit and ask questions that can’t be answered. It doesn’t do any good to wallow in self-pity. It gets me nowhere. It doesn’t change a thing and it doesn’t really help. It mostly just leaves me feeling empty and alone.
As we’ve known from the very beginning, the only thing we can control, the only choice we really have, is how we are going to respond in this moment. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like much. But it is perhaps the most powerful choice of all. If I look into the past, I can’t change what happened. If I look too far into the future I feel overwhelmed at the thought of enduring day after day, year after year without Harry.
So I try to do what Harry taught me best. I try to live just today, to only think of today, this moment, this instant. Just breathe and be. Try to just be happy in this instant. It is so hard. But, as Henry says, it is the only thing that we can do to honour Harry’s memory.
So that is what I try to do, to try to get through today. Enjoy the moments of today. But on a day like today, it is harder. Because through every happy thought I can’t help but let through the sad, sad, sad thought:
Harry died six months ago today.
He has now been gone for longer than the whole journey, longer than the whole time he was sick. It has passed in a flash. It doesn’t seem possible. How can it be six months since he died? From February 22nd to August 3rd seemed like the longest of times, a lifetime. August seems like almost yesterday, yet not almost yesterday. Time has moved in such strange ways this past year.
Would you believe that when I woke up this morning I didn’t automatically realize what day it was?
In bed, Lydia had asked us if it was a special day today. Was it anyone’s birthday, anyone who we knew? February 3rd? In my groggy, half-awake state, I knew that the day was important, but I couldn’t quite yet grasp why. The significance hid behind the cobwebs of my not-yet-awake mind. Who did we know who was born on February 3rd? I told Lydia,” I am sure it is someone’s birthday somewhere in the world”.
Looking at the clock, pushing 7:30, I quickly got out of bed, “We have to be on the ball today ‘Tuda. It is a work day for Mummy”. And Lydia’s comment was quickly forgotten in the sweep of the morning rush of getting dressed, making beds, eating breakfast, making lunch, and getting Lydia and I out the door in time for school and my bus.
It is someone’s birthday. Lydia’s school friend Callum turns five today. We’re going to his birthday party on Sunday.
It was when I was riding the bus to the University that it hit me. I guess I have been so pre-occupied with dreading all the other anniversaries in February that I had completely overlooked this one. February 3rd, oh, yes, of course, now I know. February 3rd. How could I possibly have forgotten so soon? It has now been six months, a whole half-year, a whole impossible half-year since Harry died.
The tears streamed down my face as I sat riding the express bus to the university and the cobwebs were torn and washed from every corner of my mind. Every moment of the last year flashes through my memory and I think of the last time I held my wee Harry. So skinny, his wee body ravaged from the chemo and the cancer. The last time I kissed his impossibly smooth, papery soft skin. The last time I felt his wee hand grasp my fingers and I weep.
God, I want him back. God, it feels so fucking unfair that he should be gone. Today I can’t pull out my philosophical balms and soothe myself with thoughts of the meaning of his life. Right now, in this moment. I just think about how much I miss holding him in my arms. The perfect weight of him in my arms, always balanced on my left hip. His right arm draped around my shoulder and his left hand tucked protectively down the front of my top, resting just at the top of my left breast, over my heart. As if he just needed one hand on Mummy’s flesh, to make sure I was real.
How can I even begin to put into words the ache I feel? The loss? The sorrow? I cry for me, for Henry, for Harry, for Lydia. I cry and shake my head at the impossibility of it all. How? How? I always ask myself. How did this happen? Why did this happen? How can it be possible that my dear sweet boy has died? And not just died, but died of cancer. How could it have taken my son? Wasn’t it enough that it took my Dad? Did I have to give it my son too??? This isn’t supposed to happen. I am not supposed to have to deal with this.
I know, I know. I can hear Henry’s voice already in my mind. When you get out of your ‘woe is me, victim-mode’ you can come and talk to me. You are not a victim. You are not being punished. Everyone suffers. I could have been born in central Africa, an innocent caught in the cross-fire in the Middle East, poverty-stricken, famine-stricken, family ravaged by AIDS … choose your sorrow. But yet, some days, the weight of my own particular sorrows feels so unfair. And oh, but some days it is so easy to believe in a vengeful god, sitting on his throne up in heaven, raining down another lightening bolt of punishment.
What sin could I have possibly committed to warrant this?
But as soon as I say all this, I stop. I don’t really feel better, fuming and raging this way. It helps for an instant. But when I stop, nothing has changed. The past is still the past and Harry is still gone. It doesn’t do any good to sit and ask questions that can’t be answered. It doesn’t do any good to wallow in self-pity. It gets me nowhere. It doesn’t change a thing and it doesn’t really help. It mostly just leaves me feeling empty and alone.
As we’ve known from the very beginning, the only thing we can control, the only choice we really have, is how we are going to respond in this moment. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like much. But it is perhaps the most powerful choice of all. If I look into the past, I can’t change what happened. If I look too far into the future I feel overwhelmed at the thought of enduring day after day, year after year without Harry.
So I try to do what Harry taught me best. I try to live just today, to only think of today, this moment, this instant. Just breathe and be. Try to just be happy in this instant. It is so hard. But, as Henry says, it is the only thing that we can do to honour Harry’s memory.
So that is what I try to do, to try to get through today. Enjoy the moments of today. But on a day like today, it is harder. Because through every happy thought I can’t help but let through the sad, sad, sad thought:
Harry died six months ago today.
We Are Seven by William Wordsworth
Henry's cousin Miriam sent us this poem the other day, after reading the "February" blog posting. The third stanza so reminds me of Lydia, "she was wildly clad; Her eyes were fair, and very fair; Her beauty made me glad". It is with the same determination and spirit that Lydia insists we are still a family of four and that she is, was and will always be, Harry's big sister.
How strange it is to me. When a parent dies, we don't suddenly say, "oh you are no longer a daughter or a son". So why, when a child dies, do we wonder whether someone is still a mother, father or sister?
Henry and I thought the poem was so lovely and wanted to share it. Here it is.
We Are Seven
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
-A Simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
--Her beauty made me glad.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?"
"How many? Seven in all," she said
And wondering looked at me.
"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."
"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be."
Then did the little Maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree."
"You run above, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five."
"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
The little Maid replied,
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
And they are side by side.
"My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.
"And often after sun-set, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.
"The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.
"So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.
"And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side."
"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven?"
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
"O Master! we are seven."
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"
How strange it is to me. When a parent dies, we don't suddenly say, "oh you are no longer a daughter or a son". So why, when a child dies, do we wonder whether someone is still a mother, father or sister?
Henry and I thought the poem was so lovely and wanted to share it. Here it is.
We Are Seven
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
-A Simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
--Her beauty made me glad.
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?"
"How many? Seven in all," she said
And wondering looked at me.
"And where are they? I pray you tell."
She answered, "Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.
"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."
"You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be."
Then did the little Maid reply,
"Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree."
"You run above, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five."
"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
The little Maid replied,
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
And they are side by side.
"My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.
"And often after sun-set, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.
"The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.
"So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I.
"And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side."
"How many are you, then," said I,
"If they two are in heaven?"
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
"O Master! we are seven."
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"
A Dream - From January 31 2009
I had a dream last night. It wasn’t about Harry, though I do dream of him often. It was about my childhood home in Guelph.
Many of you will know that my childhood home, my Mum’s house, burnt almost to the ground in a house fire in 2005. August 1, 2005 actually. Apparently, that weekend holds a huge energy of significant change for my family. We had just moved into our first home, our current home, on 2 August. The first phone call we received, as the movers were still bringing in the boxes, was from my Mum, informing us that her house had burnt down the day before.
If anyone has ever wondered where I get my strength from, they have not yet met my Mum. She is such an incredibly sweet and kind woman. She waited a day to call me to let me know her home of 35 years had burnt down, because she knew I was moving on the 2nd and she didn’t want to ‘bother’ me when she knew I would be stressed out with moving the next day. It was yet another surreal moment in my life, the first phone call we received in our first home was my Mum telling me my childhood home was gone. It was like the universe said, “Sorry, but you’re only allowed to have one home in the family at a time, so we had to take one away.”
Since the fire, I have had a number of dreams about the house. For at least half a year after the fire, I dreamt about the house as it looked right after the fire, when we were sorting through the remains, figuring out what could be saved and what couldn’t. (Most of the really precious things, pictures & special family mementos could be saved). My re-occurring dream was of sorting through things in the house, looking for something we wanted to save and not being able to find it. In another variation, I would wonder where something was, I would be searching frantically for it, ending up angry that I couldn’t find it. I would wake up and wonder, where was that thing, did we save it, was it lost? I was learning to let go of all of the things that really weren’t all that important. Things that might be nice to have saved, but that, really, in the grand scheme of life, were not so necessary to my ongoing happiness.
After a while the house dream morphed into something else. Next, I would dream that I was coming back to visit Guelph and was just passing by to see the house one last time. I would be astonished to see a light on in the house. I approached, and saw that my Mum was inside. I went in and found, much to my absolute astonishment that my Mum had decided that she could still live in the house. She had swept things up and put up new curtains. She told me, “It isn’t so bad, really, the upstairs was really only smoke-damaged. As long as I don’t go into the basement (where the fire had started and what was really completely destroyed) it will be quite alright, quite livable.” In my dream, I tell her she is crazy, “Mum, you can’t possibly live here! The house is BURNT”.
Sometime in the past year. I am not sure exactly when, the dream changed yet again. This time, when I went to visit the house, (fortunately) my Mum was NOT living there, instead, when I went inside, it turned out that someone had gutted the inside and they were starting to renovate it. From the outside the house looked the same as it always had. But on the inside, it was much bigger. It looked like the inside of an old castle, stone walls, earthen floor, wooden beams, a large fireplace with a huge stone hearth at one end. I was annoyed with the people for renovating the house. Indignantly, I told them that they had no right to renovate the house - we still owned it!
Last night I had a new dream about my Mum’s house. It was like it was sometime in the future. The house was once again, largely the same on the outside, but the side-street (the house was one house away from a corner) was a much busier through-fare than it is now. (It is a residential neighbourhood near the University of Guelph). The house had obviously been renovated. I approached the house from the side - up what would have been the driveway, but there was a new sunroom stretching across the whole side of the house. As I entered, I was in awe, the house had been totally renovated - but turned into a fabulous English Pub. The new owners had imported all of this gorgeous woodwork from England. I wandered through the house/ pub and was thrilled to see the transformation. I remember crying in my dream, “Oh my Dad would have loved this, Mum always said his dream was to retire and run an English Pub”. I left the house and was riding on a bus, not sure where I was going, but I was on my cell phone, telling my Mum she had to see the house now and how wonderfully it had been transformed.
Okay, then the dream got weird, next thing I knew I was sitting with Michael Ignatieff and three other political leaders (though in the dream I don’t know who they were), and Michael is explaining how logical it is about the transformation about the house.
This is the first dream I have had in which the house is ‘okay’ and transformed into something new and good.
It felt significant that I should have this dream on the eve of February 1.
I take it as a sign that, maybe, just maybe, in February we will realize that we are transformed too, but that it is okay, it is something new and good.
Love,
Cynthia
p.s. My mum sold the property to a developer in early 2007 and the house was demolished later that year. The property was severed, with a neighbour purchasing the back half of the lot and as of yet, I don’t think anything has been built on the remaining frontage.
Many of you will know that my childhood home, my Mum’s house, burnt almost to the ground in a house fire in 2005. August 1, 2005 actually. Apparently, that weekend holds a huge energy of significant change for my family. We had just moved into our first home, our current home, on 2 August. The first phone call we received, as the movers were still bringing in the boxes, was from my Mum, informing us that her house had burnt down the day before.
If anyone has ever wondered where I get my strength from, they have not yet met my Mum. She is such an incredibly sweet and kind woman. She waited a day to call me to let me know her home of 35 years had burnt down, because she knew I was moving on the 2nd and she didn’t want to ‘bother’ me when she knew I would be stressed out with moving the next day. It was yet another surreal moment in my life, the first phone call we received in our first home was my Mum telling me my childhood home was gone. It was like the universe said, “Sorry, but you’re only allowed to have one home in the family at a time, so we had to take one away.”
Since the fire, I have had a number of dreams about the house. For at least half a year after the fire, I dreamt about the house as it looked right after the fire, when we were sorting through the remains, figuring out what could be saved and what couldn’t. (Most of the really precious things, pictures & special family mementos could be saved). My re-occurring dream was of sorting through things in the house, looking for something we wanted to save and not being able to find it. In another variation, I would wonder where something was, I would be searching frantically for it, ending up angry that I couldn’t find it. I would wake up and wonder, where was that thing, did we save it, was it lost? I was learning to let go of all of the things that really weren’t all that important. Things that might be nice to have saved, but that, really, in the grand scheme of life, were not so necessary to my ongoing happiness.
After a while the house dream morphed into something else. Next, I would dream that I was coming back to visit Guelph and was just passing by to see the house one last time. I would be astonished to see a light on in the house. I approached, and saw that my Mum was inside. I went in and found, much to my absolute astonishment that my Mum had decided that she could still live in the house. She had swept things up and put up new curtains. She told me, “It isn’t so bad, really, the upstairs was really only smoke-damaged. As long as I don’t go into the basement (where the fire had started and what was really completely destroyed) it will be quite alright, quite livable.” In my dream, I tell her she is crazy, “Mum, you can’t possibly live here! The house is BURNT”.
Sometime in the past year. I am not sure exactly when, the dream changed yet again. This time, when I went to visit the house, (fortunately) my Mum was NOT living there, instead, when I went inside, it turned out that someone had gutted the inside and they were starting to renovate it. From the outside the house looked the same as it always had. But on the inside, it was much bigger. It looked like the inside of an old castle, stone walls, earthen floor, wooden beams, a large fireplace with a huge stone hearth at one end. I was annoyed with the people for renovating the house. Indignantly, I told them that they had no right to renovate the house - we still owned it!
Last night I had a new dream about my Mum’s house. It was like it was sometime in the future. The house was once again, largely the same on the outside, but the side-street (the house was one house away from a corner) was a much busier through-fare than it is now. (It is a residential neighbourhood near the University of Guelph). The house had obviously been renovated. I approached the house from the side - up what would have been the driveway, but there was a new sunroom stretching across the whole side of the house. As I entered, I was in awe, the house had been totally renovated - but turned into a fabulous English Pub. The new owners had imported all of this gorgeous woodwork from England. I wandered through the house/ pub and was thrilled to see the transformation. I remember crying in my dream, “Oh my Dad would have loved this, Mum always said his dream was to retire and run an English Pub”. I left the house and was riding on a bus, not sure where I was going, but I was on my cell phone, telling my Mum she had to see the house now and how wonderfully it had been transformed.
Okay, then the dream got weird, next thing I knew I was sitting with Michael Ignatieff and three other political leaders (though in the dream I don’t know who they were), and Michael is explaining how logical it is about the transformation about the house.
This is the first dream I have had in which the house is ‘okay’ and transformed into something new and good.
It felt significant that I should have this dream on the eve of February 1.
I take it as a sign that, maybe, just maybe, in February we will realize that we are transformed too, but that it is okay, it is something new and good.
Love,
Cynthia
p.s. My mum sold the property to a developer in early 2007 and the house was demolished later that year. The property was severed, with a neighbour purchasing the back half of the lot and as of yet, I don’t think anything has been built on the remaining frontage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
