"What happened on my summer vacation"

I belong to an online community of moms. One lady I "met" grew up in BC, not too far from where I live now. She later lived with her husband and family in another city in central/northern BC. While they lived there they had a baby daughter, Lillian, who was full term but tragically died. After this they moved to another city in another area of northern/central BC, where they had another precious daughter who arrived too early and passed away. Avalyn Lael was buried in their town cemetery. Later, my friend and the rest of her family moved to England (where our family used to live and where our son Josiah was buried) and they still live there now.

Last year when we were conversing and I heard their story, I realized that our family would be passing through the town where Avalyn's grave is, on our very long trip with the family this summer, a 14+ hour drive to northern BC for a family camp. I thought I would love to be able to visit her daughter's grave and leave some flowers and a card, do some tending if necessary, and take some pictures to send them. So we did! I was so glad to be able to do this. I bought some beautiful pink gerbera daisies, with ribbon tied around and an "It's a Girl" ornament tucked in, and wrote a card with the words she sent me. (Only a few of the pictures saved due to a new camera that acted weird, which was incredibly frustrating, and I still haven't figured out downloading the video, but they were very gracious about that.)

So, when we were writing to get details of where to go and what to write in the card, I mentioned that it was Josiah's birthday the Sunday we were due to come back from camp, and wouldn't it be fitting if it worked out that we were visiting Avalyn's spot on that day. I honestly hadn't even thought of the possibility, but she said that their family would like to go and visit Josiah's grave on his birthday! So they did! She took so many beautiful photos. I just wanted to share one to start. You should be able to see more detail by clicking on it if you wish.




The story behind this stone: It is made of slate and was hand-carved by Martin Cook, http://www.martincookstudio.co.uk/ , because I wanted something that felt more special than choosing a factory blasted design from a catalogue. At the time, the price was no more than the factory ones! (I don't know how they compare any more.) To help toward the money I made Christmas cards and sold them at a craft fair, and it was so rewarding to finally get that stone placed, just before we moved (back, for me) to Canada. It was 2 1/2 years after Josiah died.

Like it happens for a lot of bereaved parents, the thought of choosing wording and design for my child's memorial was extremely daunting. I spent about three hours one evening, just writing, purging, whatever came to mind when thinking of my son. Out of all those words were the right ones. It was an amazing feeling to just know.

And you can just see at the bottom a little handprint. That is actually an exact copy of Josiah's own handprint. We sent Martin the print and he carved it in just masterfully, curved concave just like a little hand pressed it in. We are very proud of the stone and how personal it is to us and our son.

Right next to this is the grave of a baby named Elliott, who was born and died in 1997. The phrase on his stone is very poignant:
"Four seasons in one day."
It says so much about his short life and what that day must have been like. :(


Here is the churchyard. This church was founded in 948 AD by Abbot Ulsinus.

Looking at the picture big again, I am feeling rather nostalgic and would love to be able to visit and go sit on that bench on the left for an hour or two right about now.



Thank you, Naomi, for visiting Josiah's place for us and sending us so many beautiful photos.






Edited to add:

If I actually had any readers, I would be asking them to check out a thing where people link to their favourite post (on their own blog) over the past month, here: http://www.elizabethesther.com/threes_a_crowd/2009/09/the-saturday-evening-blog-post-vol1-issue-1.html.

However I don't have any readers. Partially due to sporadic posting. But to follow the rules of the "thing" I will just say that even though it's my ONLY post of the month, this one is probably my favourite for the last long time, as it is so wonderful. Sadly wonderful.

BTW I am really not into promoting my blog, when I say "if I had readers" I am just being factual rather than digging!

Eli makes Hannah's muffins....

One of the beautiful things Hannah's family did at her funeral was make this for the guests to take home:


I love it; it's something you can keep around all the time (the recipe card is now in my main cookbook) and everytime you pull it out, you see her and think of her.

Eli was bugging me for several days to make "Hannah's muffins" and though we didn't have everything the recipe called for, that's not often stopped me before so we pulled out our supplies and he went for it.

One of the supplies I pulled out was the camera.












They were just delicious. We had to make a few changes. We didn't have bran, and I usually bake with whole wheat anyway, so I subsituted whole wheat flour for the flour and bran. Had to fiddle a bit with amounts of liquid after that. We also didn't have four extra-ripe bananas (we doubled the recipe) so we substituted some whole cranberry sauce from a can left in the pantry. (I'd tried this before and it was delicious.) We also simplified the method by putting everything in one bowl.

It was a great success!

Thank you, Hannah and Wendy!

Hannah's Memorial

I and 3 of my children drove with another cousin the day of the memorial (a 4+ hour drive) and back home the next day.

It was packed with people and was a very honouring ceremony. I made a mistake about her age; she was actually 23, and her 24th birthday was only a few days after she died. Hannah's mom (my cousin Wendy) told me at a family get-together about 10 years ago that Hannah reminded her of me. She was such a dreamer, always in another world, didn't care what others thought of her. I said in genuine surprise, "I was like that?" Wendy and the rest of the family just laughed! So although I didn't know Hannah all that well due to living at a distance, I did feel a kinship with her. I was also very impressed with Wendy that she was so ahead of the times-- Hannah was an unheard-of name at the time!

Hannah was a math whiz, who grasped difficult new concepts sometimes more quickly than her teachers. Her mom, Wendy, is a math teacher and tells of how when Hannah was in Grade 6, Wendy took her with her to a fourth-year university complex analysis class. "Hannah was completely absorbed in the content of the class, silently transfixed by the professor and his proofs. Afterwards, Hannah was able to give a simple but accurate explanation of what she had heard. The professor was very impressed."

Hannah planned to be a medical doctor and wanted to have a practice in small-town BC where she could get to know her patients and have an impact.

She also wrote a research project forcasting the future demand for Home an dCommunity Care in BC. Her research supervisor wrote, "Her research was critical to the BC Ministry of Health, and the results hae been used to help redesign the Home and Community Care system in BC. I have been contacted several times from other aencies for her research results..."

I had searched our photo albums for all the photos of Hannah that I had taken over the years, and made a number of copies of them for her family. I know they would have already had hundreds but not these exact ones! Some were of her as a newborn. It was very very sad to see them again. Wendy seemed really pleased when I told her I'd put them in her card.

As I've already got them on the computer now, I'll post a couple of them here.








Hannah with her younger sister






Hannah at 21.

Very sad news

Hannah died at 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning. We would appreciate prayer for her family.

Please pray for my cousin's daughter...

Hannah is about 26 years old, and last year was diagnosed with a tumour on her thalamus. She had surgery to remove what they could, plus other treatments. This year the tumour grew again, and recently her grandfather (my uncle) wrote:

"Hannah is not doing well. She maintains her sweet accepting spirit, remembers events from beyond the recent past, but has almost no short-term memory and can no longer stand or walk. She is surrounded by loving family and we are all appreciative of the in-home care she receives.

To think that we may be losing such a wonderful grandaughter is almost too difficult. Thank you for your love and continued prayers."

I learned that she has a hospital bed at home, and can sit in a wheelchair too. She is still getting some kind of chemotherapy, also. Her mother (my cousin Wendy) and my aunt and uncle are there all the time to help.

I have lost a child, but not had one facing this sort of thing. I hope to visit next week with my parents.

I know there aren't many people who read my blog, but I and Hannah's family would appreciate any prayer you could offer for her.

Thank you sincerely.

Happy heart checks...

Charis and Anya both had their hearts checked a couple of weeks ago. It was Charis's 5-yearly check, and everything was well! And Anya's heart seemed well, too. Neither of them had EKGs, but their echos and sounds were great.

In case you weren't aware, Charis was diagnosed with cor triatriatum* at 18 months old. She was already well into heart failure at that point and without surgery would have not lived more that a few days longer. She did have surgery, met Princess Diana, and is now a healthy 13 year old. Since then we have had all our babies' hearts checked before or shortly after birth. Only Micah had an anomaly, which I mentioned some time ago in this blog, I believe. He had an electrical impulse originating from the same chamber as Charis's issue, and going off in the wrong direction. The doctors said that it doesn't affect his heart's performance at all, for which we are very grateful. Some time I will share more of Charis's amazing story on here.

* http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/154168-overview

Updated: Send a card to Richard....

Updated--Kori has made her blog private recently so the link won't work. You can still pray for them, though.
----------------

Richard is the husband of an online friend of mine, Kori. Richard is one of
the longest surviving people with cystic fibrosis in the US. He also has cancer
that is considered incurable by the doctors. I don't remember all the correct
technical words. He has recently been admitted to hospital in a lot of pain. As
Kori put it in a previous post, "There is NO getting better." Kori and their
sons are requesting people to send cards and letters of well wishes and good
thoughts, to encourage him and their boys. Please consider joining in. I know we
will.

http://lifeasacferswife.blogspot.com/2009/02/cards-for-richard.html

Picture Day.....

No, Tania, it looks like you don't have to wait another 6 months. Thanks for caring!

Today is photo day. Here's our new baby's story....

You can't see me in this picture but I'm here....


Here I am just arrived after a tough journey, wondering what's going on!


When I first met Micah...


When I first met Eli...



I met everyone else too, but Mum has too many photos to show you. I told her she'd have to skip one or two. She didn't like it but she knows I'm right.

Here I am at 4 days old


I have had a lot of trouble with nursing. For a while Mum had to give me her milk in a little tube to give me some practice. This picture is one of her favourites. I was 12 days old. I got a lot of my milk by bottle, but Mum has been doing the strong-arm tactics to get me feeding right. Today I didn't even take one bottle!



Here I am asleep in my special cradle, in my soft blanket from our friend Donna, and wearing my cosy outfit from my Nana and Granddad in England. My mum believes comfy beds help babies sleep better, and I think she's right.


Here I am at 6 weeks old. I'm lying on a very special quilt that my great-great-aunt handmade and gave to my grandma for my mummy when she was born! Does that make it very old?


I try to help my ONLY sister, Charis, with her homework but it's so complicated it always puts me to sleep before I can say anything profound.


Mum and Charis love dressing me in pretty little girl clothes.


I love sleeping in Mummy's arms...


Wait....is that a dimple?


Dimples or not, my family loves my smiles!


And, just as a goodbye for now.....

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I haven't updated in so long there will be lots to tell. If you got here from the address in our Christmas letter, I also gave you another web address for our yearly update and photos. Some of that will be repeated here but generally speaking this site will be a different, maybe more casual sort of thing.

Well, Anja Esther Rose arrived at 11:58 pm on her due date! (October 19, 2008) She was 10lb 1oz. It was a horrible labour this time and I was pretty traumatized, but at least we both survived, she was well, and over time it has faded a bit. She is a completely adorable little girl and we all love her to bits. She has had a lot of trouble with nursing. The nursing clinic nurse says that she has a high palate and too strong gag reflex. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case as I often felt that Aaron and Lukas had a high palate too, causing major issues with them. But I didn't get as much help with them, so it was worse. This time I nurse, and pump extra milk, and then give her the milk in a bottle. So it's really triple the time that most babies need. I also take a drug that helps me make more milk. I am still nursing Micah a bit too. A plus of this is all the energy used. I've lost 15 lbs (not counting pregnancy/baby weight) without trying in the least. I wish this had happened before!

Micah has been very very sweet, and not in the least resentful of his baby sister. "This is my baby girl. She's sooooo cute!" Everyone else is really helpful too. Especially the younger boys! The older kids need to be asked, the younger ones mostly just love helping. Graham has really taken over a lot of things, like most of the shopping.

Jesse is getting a job at a local children's fun centre, running birthday parties for children. His qualifications as oldest of seven made a big difference to the hirers! They can't hire for a few months so he is talking about trying for a McDonalds job for the intervening time.

Charis has been enjoying school a lot. She is an extreme social butterfly and that's her favourite part. There is a teacher there though who has a favourite, and unfortunately Charis is on his other list!

We are finally getting new tenants in the suite below. If anything happens to us, let it be known that our tenants are 3 people from various parts of India, going to commercial flight school! (gasp) It's true, actually, but we don't get a weird feeling from them or anything. We like them and feel quite good about them as tenants. Graham's been busy doing a couple of last minute repairs in the suite. He also bought a new (used) washer and dryer for it and installed them.

Tomorrow we are probably going to some friends' home to watch a 'Vicar of Dibley' Christmas special. They wanted to only invite people they knew would appreciate the British humour. This friend made us a yummy treat that she said was sooo easy and I can vouch that it's very yummy!
Melt
--white chocolate (candy fondant stuff, I can't remember the official name.)
Mix with
--Golden Grahams cereal
--Peanuts
--Raisins
Spoon onto parchment in little bite-size piles and cool. YUM!!!

Breaking news!

What Eli wants to be...

"When I grow up, I want to be the president of a lost country, and make smoking illegal."

We have been incredibly blessed. Yesterday Graham picked up a 1997 Suburban. It is just beautiful. It's my favourite colour, midnight purple, with silver sections. It has LEATHER seats! (8 of them) Triple lighters, to plug in all our luxury items! LOL

Guess what!! It was GIVEN to us! We're blown away! The incredibly generous previous owner was having a hard time selling it, as it uses a lot of gasoline, in the current gas economy, and decided he'd rather give it to us! Wow!



-----
Complete change of subject. Today is Aaron's birthday. We got him a kite in the shape and colours of a peregrine falcon. It even flaps its wings as it flies. It looks amazing! I wish it were easier to load from the camera and post pictures.

A few photos from the past six months....

(Click to enlarge)


First, a series of three pictures showing a little of Micah's relationship with his Grandma. I just love these.







Our official "Quick, take a picture of the kids before we take the tree and decorations down" commemorative photo. I took two of these, and "The Grump" looks MUCH worse in the other one!



And, just for Joanne, I've added the other one!





What a mess this was to clean up, but I had to take a picture. A bit like the obligatory spahetti bowl dumped over the head photo, you know.





Fourth-generation musician building up his -hmmmm, repertoire? As you can see the evidence of if you click to see the larger photo, he is so dedicated he rushed there straight from the dinner table!





Micah also dabbles in interior decoration. Here we see him rearranging the fragile ornaments on the mantle to improve the feng shui of the room.





Eli is really into robotics. He is not going to settle much longer for creations that don't actually DO anything after all the work of connecting the intricate circuits. (The purple and black object is a working motorcycle motor).





The Young Performers' Studio: taking some time to reflect on one's role.





Our more mature performer. Here is Jesse in his role as Fyedke in the school performance of Fiddler on the Roof. It was a stunning performance. A local businesswoman attended the matinee and was so impressed with the high quality that she donated $5000 to the drama department for a real stage curtain. This is a very small school, too, maybe 350 students in 12 grades.

We were bursting with pride!




Art lesson: perspective. Amazingly, Eli already had a handle on this concept before any help!





A special moment with Mommy. (We know he needs a haircut. We think there must be a bit of hippy in us - as we can't bring ourselves to cut it yet!)