I have spent a good part of this week dwelling on the blows I've copped over the past few years, and feeling quite bitter that several of the harder ones were delivered by selfish and uncaring people who should know better. Today I though I would burst with frustration but then I got home and saw a Facebook message from someone I hadn't seen or spoken to since high school, telling me how much she loved this blog. To hear that she was touched by Willow's story, that she had passed the website on to her sister (who has a sick son) made me brighten up immediately. There is something so rewarding about giving Willow a positive legacy, that the story of her life and death might help someone to cope with their own pain or loss.
It got me thinking, though, about the timing of my friends message. You could easily argue it was coincidence that I got such a positive and encouraging message when I had come home after a particularly bad day of feeling sorry for myself. I often argue the coincidence angle because I don't want to be gullible, I don't want to fool myself into thinking the world is looking out for me. It's a massive stretch to have faith in an inherent goodness, in God or Karma after you've begged for help time and time again and seen it come to nothing, just another punch in the guts. At the same time, though, if there are things in motion and something, or someone, divine sending me little bursts of happiness, I don't want to be ungrateful either.
When I found out Willow was sick I had a fight with God. I told him in no uncertain terms that he couldn't have my daughter, though I knew if he wanted her he'd just take her no matter what I'd decided. Throughout Willow's life I begged and bargained and prayed and thought as many positive thoughts as I could, believing what I'd read about the power of prayer and optimism. It's true, positive thinking has some effect- you feel positive so you don't despair and that's what gets you through the day, but to say that prayer and optimism creates miracles is a stretch in my mind (please remember these are my personal beliefs, I don't intend to offend anybody's faith, but please respect mine). By that argument you could say every second of negativity I felt about my daughter's survival added up to a bit fat cross against Willow's name and she died because I couldn't stop being terrified, or because I couldn't quiet that constant whisper in my mind that told me she would die. I thought about that a lot when people said 'be positive'. Were they saying that if I lost hope I'd be killing my daughter?
I'm not without faith, I just don't adhere to any particular religion. Once the anger passed after Willow's death I rediscovered my general feeling that there is something 'else' within and around us, something deeper. I don't know what it is. It's something you don't get to see much in waking life. When you lose someone incredibly close to you there is often a strong feeling that there has to be another world for the soul once it's left the body, or else your loved one would cease to exist and that thought is too unbearable. For me, I've found myself looking for signs from Willow to prove she's still around.
I don't think I could handle having an actual Hayley Joel-Osmond kind of sixth sense, that would freak me out. I would, however, like the ability to feel a little more of that invisible current that connects us all, the gentle breath of the afterlife dancing around us everyday. I'd like to know for sure that Willow is still nearby, because while the few strange incidents that have occurred make me wonder, I can easily dismiss them in a cynical mood as mere coincidence.
There are four moments I can remember from the past 14 months. The first was a few weeks after Willow's funeral. I had been having a fast and disturbing dream when I saw Willow behind the bars of her cot right next to me, her arms flung out towards me. The image was so powerful that it woke me up. Her cot was still beside the bed but now it was empty. If all the other times were just random events, I know for certain that first time Willow was trying to contact me. The feeling was so intense, I've never felt anything like it.
The second time was a week or so after what would have been Willow's first b'day. Bill and I had really struggled on the day, and we'd only started to feel a bit better days after the event. We were on the couch having a playful wrestle when pop! One of the two pink balloons we'd tied to Willow's play pen on her b'day burst. We stopped and looked at each other, surprised. It was the same night our amplifier kept clicking off and on. It could have been a power problem with the amp, the balloon could have been weak and burst naturally. I don't think Bill looked into it too much, but I couldn't help but feel these little things were Willow's way of saying 'hey!' and perhaps her way of playing along with Mummy and Daddy.
The third event happened to the daughter of my friend. We had met our friend Megan when we lived at Ronald Macdonald house with her and her daughter Brodee. Brodee had adored Willow and played with her for hours on X'mas day, dangling a set of keys into her pram to entertain her. We are extremely fond of Brodee and were horrified to hear from Megan that she had slipped into a coma. Megan told us she could feel Willow's presence in the ICU at Brodee's bedside, along with that of Tahlia, another little girl who had been Brodee's friend before she, too, passed away. It gave Bill and I an uneasy feeling actually because we immediately thought Willow and Tahlia had come to collect Brodee and see her into the afterlife. It was beautiful that they were there to help her cross over, but we didn't want Brodee to die. Thankfully though, she woke up.
Later, Megan told us about a dream Brodee had while in the coma. In it she saw Willow, Tahlia and two other deceased friends laughing and singing at a picnic and inviting Brodee to come and play with them. She said she didn't go, and I thank god for that. I think it was Brodee's way of saying she wasn't ready to die. She told her mum Willow was holding a red balloon, but that didn't hold much significance for me. We had released pink balloons on Willow's b'day and at her funeral. Then Brodee later told her mum the balloon had Elmo's face on it. We had released a helium Elmo balloon of Willow's just hours after her death.
The night I heard this I was lighting Willow's candles and talking to her, as I often do, saying I was very proud of her for watching over Brodee and helping her feel safe. I suddenly got 'that' feeling you get when you know there is someone in the room with you, the feeling of another soul encroaching on your space. It was only a feeling but it was strong.
The last incident (only the last for now, I hope) happened only the other day when I was shopping. I saw a whole rack of paraphernalia with the lady bug motif on it, little horns and napkins and cups and party hats for a small child's b'day party. It made me sad to see. Willow had worn a lady bug outfit when she was alive and I always associated lady bugs with her from then on. I knew that if she were alive I'd be buying this exact party set for her.
I started to get very melancholy about it and a little teary. Then suddenly I could hear 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd playing above me on the radio. I hadn't heard the radio at all until that point and if you've heard the song you'll know it isn't a loud rock and roll ballad. It was also the final song we played at Willow's funeral while her daddy carried her coffin to the hearse.
I might have taken that for coincidence too except that when I got outside and pulled out my phone there was a picture of Willow staring up at me on the screen. It was one of the first ever photos taken of her on the day she was born. My phone had unlocked itself and scrolled through my photos to reveal this particular shot. Again, it could have happened by accident, but I took it as a sign. I spoke aloud, told her I could hear her.
I think if you think about it too much you can rationalise every apparent sign from the universe away into nothing. We can't always trust our feelings after all, so many mistakes and insults have been made because we allow our feelings to dictate our behaviour. Yet there's something to be said for gut instinct. Aren't we always being told to trust that? I never thought I had much intuition, and I probably don't, but I always felt I would lose Willow, even if I only said it aloud twice in her life when she was hanging by a thread. I struggle with my cynicism, but I do try to believe these incidences are signs from someone 'beyond', because it's important. Willow might be putting all her bubba strength into trying to tell me 'I'm here mama'. It would be cruel to brush her messages off as an electrical malfunction or a figment of my imagination.
When we learned an MRI had detected damage to Willow's brain, I wanted to reach up into the clouds and throttle God. It was my second greatest fear, after losing her completely- that she would wake up a different person to the one I'd fallen in love with, that she might not know who I was anymore, or that she would lose the joy she'd infected all of us with. We would have to wait for her to recover from her latest major crash before we could tell how extensive the damage was.
I went out to the gardens and sat under the enormous Willow tree that grows there, bawling my eyes out with complete rage and abandon. I kept thinking I should go and pick a fight with the chaplain, ask her why God was doing this to Willow. The chaplain was a lovely, elvish looking lady named Rose. I'd met her several times and loved that she was never pushy about religion and was very respectful of my religious reservations. At that moment I figured she'd have the rhyme and reason. I didn't actually want an answer though, I just wanted to ask why.
Lo and behold, of all the people to walk through the gardens that day, along came Rose. She just appeared, out of nowhere. I don't even know why she was in that part of the hospital, but she saw me bawling, came right up to me and sat on the seat next to me to chat. I told her I felt we would lose Willow and I asked what the hell God's plan was, asked why he was doing this to us. I get tears in my eyes to think about it even now. She was wonderful. She didn't give me some stupid generic speech about God's 'mysterious plan' or tell me if it was his will to take Willow I should be thankful she was chosen. She just sat there and said 'I don't know why this is happening, I don't know what God's plan is'. The she sat there and listened to me cry for a long time and comforted me as best she could.
I'll be eternally grateful for the honesty of Rose's response. She didn't preach at me, she didn't tell me to have faith. She knew that a grieving mum doesn't want to hear that stuff, that she needs to be angry and scared and go through the whole painful myriad of emotions to reach her strength again. And she was there, right then, right when I'd been thinking of her, as though I had conjured her in my mind. Or, as though she'd been sent to me.
I choose to believe the latter.
It got me thinking, though, about the timing of my friends message. You could easily argue it was coincidence that I got such a positive and encouraging message when I had come home after a particularly bad day of feeling sorry for myself. I often argue the coincidence angle because I don't want to be gullible, I don't want to fool myself into thinking the world is looking out for me. It's a massive stretch to have faith in an inherent goodness, in God or Karma after you've begged for help time and time again and seen it come to nothing, just another punch in the guts. At the same time, though, if there are things in motion and something, or someone, divine sending me little bursts of happiness, I don't want to be ungrateful either.
When I found out Willow was sick I had a fight with God. I told him in no uncertain terms that he couldn't have my daughter, though I knew if he wanted her he'd just take her no matter what I'd decided. Throughout Willow's life I begged and bargained and prayed and thought as many positive thoughts as I could, believing what I'd read about the power of prayer and optimism. It's true, positive thinking has some effect- you feel positive so you don't despair and that's what gets you through the day, but to say that prayer and optimism creates miracles is a stretch in my mind (please remember these are my personal beliefs, I don't intend to offend anybody's faith, but please respect mine). By that argument you could say every second of negativity I felt about my daughter's survival added up to a bit fat cross against Willow's name and she died because I couldn't stop being terrified, or because I couldn't quiet that constant whisper in my mind that told me she would die. I thought about that a lot when people said 'be positive'. Were they saying that if I lost hope I'd be killing my daughter?
I'm not without faith, I just don't adhere to any particular religion. Once the anger passed after Willow's death I rediscovered my general feeling that there is something 'else' within and around us, something deeper. I don't know what it is. It's something you don't get to see much in waking life. When you lose someone incredibly close to you there is often a strong feeling that there has to be another world for the soul once it's left the body, or else your loved one would cease to exist and that thought is too unbearable. For me, I've found myself looking for signs from Willow to prove she's still around.
I don't think I could handle having an actual Hayley Joel-Osmond kind of sixth sense, that would freak me out. I would, however, like the ability to feel a little more of that invisible current that connects us all, the gentle breath of the afterlife dancing around us everyday. I'd like to know for sure that Willow is still nearby, because while the few strange incidents that have occurred make me wonder, I can easily dismiss them in a cynical mood as mere coincidence.
There are four moments I can remember from the past 14 months. The first was a few weeks after Willow's funeral. I had been having a fast and disturbing dream when I saw Willow behind the bars of her cot right next to me, her arms flung out towards me. The image was so powerful that it woke me up. Her cot was still beside the bed but now it was empty. If all the other times were just random events, I know for certain that first time Willow was trying to contact me. The feeling was so intense, I've never felt anything like it.
The second time was a week or so after what would have been Willow's first b'day. Bill and I had really struggled on the day, and we'd only started to feel a bit better days after the event. We were on the couch having a playful wrestle when pop! One of the two pink balloons we'd tied to Willow's play pen on her b'day burst. We stopped and looked at each other, surprised. It was the same night our amplifier kept clicking off and on. It could have been a power problem with the amp, the balloon could have been weak and burst naturally. I don't think Bill looked into it too much, but I couldn't help but feel these little things were Willow's way of saying 'hey!' and perhaps her way of playing along with Mummy and Daddy.
The third event happened to the daughter of my friend. We had met our friend Megan when we lived at Ronald Macdonald house with her and her daughter Brodee. Brodee had adored Willow and played with her for hours on X'mas day, dangling a set of keys into her pram to entertain her. We are extremely fond of Brodee and were horrified to hear from Megan that she had slipped into a coma. Megan told us she could feel Willow's presence in the ICU at Brodee's bedside, along with that of Tahlia, another little girl who had been Brodee's friend before she, too, passed away. It gave Bill and I an uneasy feeling actually because we immediately thought Willow and Tahlia had come to collect Brodee and see her into the afterlife. It was beautiful that they were there to help her cross over, but we didn't want Brodee to die. Thankfully though, she woke up.
Later, Megan told us about a dream Brodee had while in the coma. In it she saw Willow, Tahlia and two other deceased friends laughing and singing at a picnic and inviting Brodee to come and play with them. She said she didn't go, and I thank god for that. I think it was Brodee's way of saying she wasn't ready to die. She told her mum Willow was holding a red balloon, but that didn't hold much significance for me. We had released pink balloons on Willow's b'day and at her funeral. Then Brodee later told her mum the balloon had Elmo's face on it. We had released a helium Elmo balloon of Willow's just hours after her death.
The night I heard this I was lighting Willow's candles and talking to her, as I often do, saying I was very proud of her for watching over Brodee and helping her feel safe. I suddenly got 'that' feeling you get when you know there is someone in the room with you, the feeling of another soul encroaching on your space. It was only a feeling but it was strong.
The last incident (only the last for now, I hope) happened only the other day when I was shopping. I saw a whole rack of paraphernalia with the lady bug motif on it, little horns and napkins and cups and party hats for a small child's b'day party. It made me sad to see. Willow had worn a lady bug outfit when she was alive and I always associated lady bugs with her from then on. I knew that if she were alive I'd be buying this exact party set for her.
I started to get very melancholy about it and a little teary. Then suddenly I could hear 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd playing above me on the radio. I hadn't heard the radio at all until that point and if you've heard the song you'll know it isn't a loud rock and roll ballad. It was also the final song we played at Willow's funeral while her daddy carried her coffin to the hearse.
I might have taken that for coincidence too except that when I got outside and pulled out my phone there was a picture of Willow staring up at me on the screen. It was one of the first ever photos taken of her on the day she was born. My phone had unlocked itself and scrolled through my photos to reveal this particular shot. Again, it could have happened by accident, but I took it as a sign. I spoke aloud, told her I could hear her.
I think if you think about it too much you can rationalise every apparent sign from the universe away into nothing. We can't always trust our feelings after all, so many mistakes and insults have been made because we allow our feelings to dictate our behaviour. Yet there's something to be said for gut instinct. Aren't we always being told to trust that? I never thought I had much intuition, and I probably don't, but I always felt I would lose Willow, even if I only said it aloud twice in her life when she was hanging by a thread. I struggle with my cynicism, but I do try to believe these incidences are signs from someone 'beyond', because it's important. Willow might be putting all her bubba strength into trying to tell me 'I'm here mama'. It would be cruel to brush her messages off as an electrical malfunction or a figment of my imagination.
When we learned an MRI had detected damage to Willow's brain, I wanted to reach up into the clouds and throttle God. It was my second greatest fear, after losing her completely- that she would wake up a different person to the one I'd fallen in love with, that she might not know who I was anymore, or that she would lose the joy she'd infected all of us with. We would have to wait for her to recover from her latest major crash before we could tell how extensive the damage was.
I went out to the gardens and sat under the enormous Willow tree that grows there, bawling my eyes out with complete rage and abandon. I kept thinking I should go and pick a fight with the chaplain, ask her why God was doing this to Willow. The chaplain was a lovely, elvish looking lady named Rose. I'd met her several times and loved that she was never pushy about religion and was very respectful of my religious reservations. At that moment I figured she'd have the rhyme and reason. I didn't actually want an answer though, I just wanted to ask why.
Lo and behold, of all the people to walk through the gardens that day, along came Rose. She just appeared, out of nowhere. I don't even know why she was in that part of the hospital, but she saw me bawling, came right up to me and sat on the seat next to me to chat. I told her I felt we would lose Willow and I asked what the hell God's plan was, asked why he was doing this to us. I get tears in my eyes to think about it even now. She was wonderful. She didn't give me some stupid generic speech about God's 'mysterious plan' or tell me if it was his will to take Willow I should be thankful she was chosen. She just sat there and said 'I don't know why this is happening, I don't know what God's plan is'. The she sat there and listened to me cry for a long time and comforted me as best she could.
I'll be eternally grateful for the honesty of Rose's response. She didn't preach at me, she didn't tell me to have faith. She knew that a grieving mum doesn't want to hear that stuff, that she needs to be angry and scared and go through the whole painful myriad of emotions to reach her strength again. And she was there, right then, right when I'd been thinking of her, as though I had conjured her in my mind. Or, as though she'd been sent to me.
I choose to believe the latter.
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