Pieces of You ~ Happy 15th Birthday Emersyn

How did we get to 15? It feels like yesterday I was driving home from lunch with your Dad on September 16th in 2008 waiting for labour to start. Waiting for the moment to meet you, my first child. I will always hold you in that moment in time when you were born on your due date and it felt like no other babies were born that day. Confidence soaring after you were born and I told your Dad to go home and sleep because you and I would be just fine. Almost impossible to get him to agree since he was drawn right in the moment he looked into your beautiful brown eyes. You were his girl and everyone knew it. I said I would protect you forever and that my job would be to make sure you would be ok in this world when I am gone one day. I failed at that not by choice but by genetics and I live with that everyday. SMA, I hate those letters but they never overshone the still evolving love and connection that we have with you. You are 15 and instead of thinking of all of the things that you have missed as I keep those little chapters unopened in my heart everyday, I must think about all of the people you have helped. People tell me when they are going through something really hard they think of you and feel stronger. This does not bring you back to me but it helps me to know that you live on in the good and  the hope in others. 

I picture Isla and Callum reading your blog one day and hopefully getting to know you even better. They talk about you with such ease and they miss you so much yet they never physically met you. This tells me kids need to be exposed to grief in its full journey because grief is love. They are 9 and 12 now and I am in awe of them and feel so lucky to get to know them as they grow up. As I marvel at them it aches to think what you would have done here on this earth. This morning we will head to our usual place to buy your fall planters, flowers for your vase and decorations for your spot at Glen Oaks. We will sing you happy birthday and say hello to the other babies in the Garden of Angels. Dad takes a walk at the cemetery and I need space to sit on your bench in front of your stone just you and I. This is our day the day you were born where I remember feeling sadness that you would no longer be safe within me and so elated to meet you.Tears are notes from the heart and as I sit here in our living room this morning writing this I see sunbeams hitting your picture and cry with both love and grief. Please don’t think this grief takes away from our love. My heart could burst with how much my love for you overflows.

My grief carries me now as much as I carry it. We know each other well. Instead of wishing grief would leave I have made a room for grief that is filled with all of the things I love and all of the comforts needed to catch me when fall. I invite others into that room who need comfort in their grief journey as a rest stop and when they leave they take a piece of you with them. I like to think that there are pieces of you in every human you have helped over the years like seeds growing and making this world better. You put people at ease and awe Emersyn and you inspire them to keep going and take care of others who need it most along the way.

Happy 15th birthday to my first born beautiful child Emersyn Paige. You lived and you live on in your family who will always carry your legacy and recognize the gifts you send at just the right time when we need it most.

With deepest love and gratitude,

Mom xoxo

14 Years

I remember being on my lunch break as a grade 1 teacher and checking my voicemail messages. I was waiting on my 18 week ultrasound results for our first born child and I remember replaying the message from my Midwife, “Melanie everything looks good and you are having a girl”! I remember playing that message over and over again while sharing the news with my teaching partners and feeling a complete sense of joy and excitement. I picked names with my students and shared them with Jay and my extra picky sisters and Scottish parents to find the perfect name. It was a huge search for the name of the first granddaughter who followed four beautiful grandsons in our family and we chose Emersyn or rather she chose us. Emersyn means Home Strength and it is these words we chose to have engraved on to her stone at Glen Oaks.

14 years ago you passed and I can still feel the warmth of the sheets we were laying on beside you in the hospital bed at McMaster. I remember the sounds of Brahms' lullaby playing in the room, the nurses moving in and out with blankets and your Dad laying on one side of you and me on the other. I remember telling them to take the machines away as I did not need a signal to tell me when you passed because I would just know and I did. I felt you move through us as you passed and no one needed to tell us because I am your Mom and always will be. As long as I am alive this is our story, you are my story and I will share you as long as I live. I pause less worrying about the comfort of others when I talk about you or say your name. I am so proud of you and all of the people you continue to touch and inspire. I never thought I would find fulfillment or joy again after you died. I accepted in my heart and mind that I would forever feel a fraction of anything close to joy. I felt like an alien in the land of the living. I am not sure how I came back but it was not all at once but rather in shards and pieces that over time came together. I compare it to a Mosaic broken but beautiful and when the light shines through it is the warmest glow I have ever known. I am forever changed by your life and death.

I remember reading every book written by bereaved parents that I could get my hands on. I needed to see myself in their words and lived experiences. I needed to know that I was going to survive losing my daughter, my girl, my heart. I called bereaved Moms I had never met before who offered to meet with me and I went. I needed to hear about their children, their stories and see their faces. I needed to connect with other SMA Mom’s whose children were newly diagnosed and let them know that they were not alone. They let me hold their babies and I cherished every second as I tried to comfort others and feel close to you. I was searching for you and I needed to prove that you were still with me. I was exhausted but completely compelled to plug into you. I was desperate and felt a constant sense of roaming. I did not see you in my dreams because you were still so real to me. I missed the weight of your body in my arms, your deep brown eyes and the way your whole hand would wrap around my finger even when your physical strength declined you still found a way.

I am strong and vulnerable because of you. I can laugh again but deeper because of you. I can sense when others are in pain and I can sit with that pain more openly because of you. I have deep compassion for struggle because of you and I am so much more forgiving. I can lead, and laugh and love more authentically because of you. I carry the same pain and I carry you which is the purest form of love and joy that I aim to share with as many people as I can while I am on this earth. Emersyn you are my heart and I sent a piece of mine with you and took a piece of yours with me. I have always described my grief journey as a Mosaic both broken and beautiful and when the light shines through it is the warmest glow I have ever seen.

I miss you beyond time and space and love you more than love.

Love,

Mom, Dad, Isla and Callum xoxo