His Deep Blue Eyes

His Deep Blue Eyes

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I lost my dad 4 months ago to liver disease. He had been battling with it for a year and a half after being told he only had 6 months to live. My favourite memory was meeting my dad. As he isn’t my biological father, I did get to meet him when my mum was going to take me and my younger brother to meet him at his work. I remember walking up to him and the first thing I remember noticing was his eyes. My dad had deep blue eyes and it felt like you could drown in all the different hues of blue—like an ocean and sky mixed together. He made plenty of jokes that day and it was the start of our 9 year long journey together as a family.

He was the best dad ever and he sacrificed so much for us. He took on the role of our father without a second thought and within 2 years of knowing us he married my mum. I miss him with all my heart and have recently moved out to go to university. I am reminded of his bravery every day and his strength to survive his disease for us and our family. He made me proud and I was proud to be his daughter.

Submitted by Abby Miles in loving memory of her dad, Paul O’Hare

The Fading Tapestry of a Life Once Lived

The Fading Tapestry of a Life Once Lived

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On September 30, it will be ten years since you died. Ten years isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things. But considering you died at the tender age of four, it feels like so much more.

Memories of you have already begun to fade. Evidence of your very existence is far and few between. Clothes you wore, things you cherished, and art you created all fit into a few small bins. Bins that have long since been packed away with the rest of the things we rarely use. A few cherished items and photos of you are left out to admire.

But outside of our home—and outside of our hearts and minds—your short life went by unnoticed. Unknown to the world except by the few who knew you during those four short years, and whose hearts you indelibly touched.

Recently, we traveled abroad and visited cities that are centuries or millennia old. We explored ancient ruins that were abandoned long ago by the march of progress. Ruins that were literally buried under countless layers of dirt and modern adaptation. Fragile artifacts have to be painstakingly unearthed and preserved. Each one a small clue of lives that have long been forgotten.

Archeologists are left to look at impossibly small fragments of what once was. They merely guess at the most rudimentary details of people who were once so important to their family and friends. Without much to go on, they can never hope to know these people beyond their age, sex, status in society, and maybe a few more inconsequential facts. They’ll never uncover the beauty these people brought into the hearts and lives of those who loved them.

And when our lives come to an end, what then? When our belongings are rummaged through after we are dead and gone, what will they piece together about your life—so spirited and vibrant—that ended so long ago?

What will a box of favorite outfits, a few pairs of shoes, costumes, and other small trinkets tell them about you? Could these things ever convey your sense of humor and adventure? Will they tell of your guarded shyness around strangers, yet decisive bossiness at home? Could anyone who never met you begin to use these excavated objects as evidence of the depth and boundless imagination that vividly colored the world we shared together?

Unfortunately not.

We’ve tried to write down memories of you, but they can’t ever fully convey the rich tapestry of your brief life.

Memories only highlight fragments of who you were and the impact you had on those who loved you. They lack depth and detail of your complex, unique being.

Over a decade since your death, the brightly colored threads which had weaved together to form the story of your life have significantly faded and worn. And they’ll continue to do so as time ticks by.

While your family lovingly cares for your tapestry in our hearts and thoughts, we cannot stop or slow the continual damage caused by the passing of time. Each birthday and anniversary of your death serves as a harsh, sobering reminder of this reality.

No matter how faded or damaged your life’s tapestry becomes, you are a vibrant, brilliant part of our life tapestries. This is the one thing that will withstand the test of time. For the rest of our lives, you remain a constant presence; a beacon of love and a guiding light of purpose.

Distance in Grief

Distance in Grief

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“Time heals all wounds.”

I’m certain you’ve heard that saying. It’s a nice thought. But the truth is not so simple and clean cut as that. It makes me think whoever coined the phrase hadn’t yet suffered the devastating loss of a loved one that both shatters and redefines the world you live in.

Another new year was ushered in this past week. It will be another year that my daughter did not live to see. An unwelcome reminder that she has been gone for more years than she lived to experience. It takes me further away from her. Further from her birth, her short life, and the impossible moment of her death.

It is distance.

Distance is a difficult concept to grasp or explain in the context of grief.

It is both good and bad at the same time. Both painful and liberating. It can both soften your devastation while solidifying the difficult reality of loss.

It can help close the door to the agony of early grief, just as it unearths new aspects of grief that you hadn’t expected. And weren’t altogether ready for.

I am thankful for the distance between where I am now and the horror of the day my daughter drowned.

I no longer fear that if I close my eyes I might be forced to recall and relive the worst day of my life. I’m no longer a complete wreck who can’t manage basic functions in the world around me. I am no longer at the mercy of uncontrollable waves of emotion that might leave me a crying, angry, trembling mess for the majority of the day.

But it isn’t just distance. It is distance combined with hard work. If I had not acknowledged my grief or faced my emotions head on, I might still be trapped in a web of despair concealed by numbness. I might have completely cut myself off from any meaningful interaction with life. Or swallowed my pain and pushed it so deep that it transformed itself into a devastating and debilitating illness.

Time alone does not heal all wounds. Time just gives you more opportunities to work through your pain…or to find new ways to try to hide from it.

Distance has given me perspective. The perspective that the four years I did get to spend with my daughter is much more than those who are denied the opportunity to have children in the first place. Or those who lose children before they even take their first breath. And while I am forever grateful for having more than a few days, weeks, or months with her, distance also makes me envious of those who got to spend more time – even decades – with their children.

Four years worth of memories of my daughter don’t add up to much. I don’t have a treasure trove of stories to tell. The milestones are limited and weren’t cataloged all that well to begin with. After all, I was expecting a lifetime of them. She didn’t have friends, lovers, or children who will remember her in perpetuity. Her brothers were too young to remember most of the time they spent with her.

All those everyday moments I took for granted are eroding away on the treacherous path of distance. Details are being lost to time. My mind tries to fill in the gaps based on pictures or conjecture, but it only serves to make me question the validity of those memories I once felt so sure of.

When memories are all you have left, distance becomes your enemy…and a new form of grief.

I don’t know what distance has in store for me. Each passing day, week, month and year seem to bring new healing and personal growth. For that I am truly grateful. But it is always with an undertow of longing. I suppose it is representative of life itself. With love comes pain. With pain comes understanding. Understanding leads to growth. Personal growth brings wisdom, purpose, and fulfillment.

I suppose if I am forced to live the rest of my life without watching my daughter grow, I will continue to try to grow and thrive in her honor. From that perspective, I can’t wait to see what the future will bring.

The Keepers of Your Flame

The Keepers of Your Flame

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When you died, the whole world did not mourn you.

You were not a celebrity, a world leader, and didn’t make the nightly news. You didn’t invent things that changed the world and will not end up in history books. But you made an indelible mark in our lives and in our hearts.

You meant the world to us.

You are our spouses, mothers and fathers; our grandparents, sisters and brothers. Our favorite aunts and uncles and cherished cousins and friends. You are our children; who may have only lived a few precious years or never even lived to take your first breath.

Long after the funeral is over – long after the rest of our world appears to have forgotten you – you stay fresh in our minds. We think of you in the quiet moments. When your favorite song comes on. Or when we see something we think you’d have liked…or hated. We think of how you’re missing from the special occasions in our lives. In our times of sorrow, we wish you were here to give us the hug and reassurance we desperately need from you.

We think of you.

Your legacy is not that of the job you held or the number of houses or cars you owned. It doesn’t matter how much money you made or how much influence you had in your community. Your legacy is that of tender moments and loving embraces. It is how wonderful and important you made us feel while you were with us. It is the smiles you put on our faces and the laughter we shared. Even if we never got the chance to hold you.

You mattered to us.

Your body died, but you live on in our memories. You live in the sparkle of our eyes every time we speak your name or hold you in our hearts. There will never be a time when we don’t remember you.

We miss you and love you.

We are the keepers of your flame.

The Balloon

The Balloon

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I was just watching TV and saw a commercial for a local street fair in a nearby town that my family has been to before. All of the sudden a forgotten memory of my daughter, Margareta, popped into my head. What a wonderful, unexpected gift.

We had gone to the street fair about four months before she died in 2009, when she was 3-1/2 years old. I remember our family walking along looking at booths and stores when we got sucked into a local toy store. Margareta loved most toys, but stuffed animals and puppets were her favorite, which is what she gravitated to.

After a little while, I recall that we saw a little pony ride with miniature ponies on a side street. To my knowledge, Margareta had never been on a pony ride before, so we decided to let her go on it. Boy, was she happy. Her eyes were beaming and her smile was as wide as the Cheshire cat.

Afterward, we continued walking up the street. We saw a booth that was giving away balloons and got a white one for Margareta. As we were walking away, I wanted to tie a slip knot on the string and put it around her wrist so it wouldn’t fly away if she let go. Being her normal strong willed self, she refused. I was stern in my warning that if she refused and accidentally let go and lost it, we would not go back and get her another one.

Saying that my daughter was headstrong would be an understatement. When I was telling her this, I was leaning down so that our heads were on the same level. She looked me straight in the eyes and with a serious expression, purposefully let the balloon go. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what she was trying to prove, but she was very deliberate in her actions.

I don’t remember her crying, but as we walked on, she was sullen and unpleasant, and it was obvious that she was testing my resolve. The rest of the memory is fuzzy, but I do remember this: she ended up getting another balloon! Apparently she won that battle with me.

087Not every memory of my daughter is a sweet one. She was a normal child, and mixed in with the wonderful times were difficult times. We had our frustrations as well as our love and fun. But now, every memory up until the day she died is precious to me because it is all I have left. I am very, very happy to have gotten this one back.

 

 

Submitted by Maria Kubitz in loving memory of her daughter, Margareta Kubitz.