A Room With a View

ByJoni Bouchard
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The view of Polar Peak from your Memorial Rock

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Dear Sweet Will,

I am writing you this letter today from a very special place. I am sitting on the concrete skirting that surrounds your memorial rock in a natural alcove that Mother Nature carved out in the forest, a short walk from the top of the Elk Chair on the mountain that you so lovingly referred to as your ski home. It is incredibly lush here; so beautiful, peaceful, and quiet. At this moment the only sound would be me crying. I am here by myself for a bit and I couldn’t contain my silent tears so the mountain you loved is hearing me cry out loud. The pain of missing you so terribly sometimes comes out this way, Will. My tears started when I woke this morning. My head was still on the pillow as I reached over to the bedside table for my Will heart necklace. I held it in my hands for a few moments staring at it as if I was looking into your blue eyes. Your ashes sealed inside the silver heart pendant that I cupped in my hands before I secured the necklace around my neck is the most treasured piece of jewelry I own. It is the first thing I put on in the morning and the last thing I take off before I crawl into bed. I have cleaned and shined it with my tears on many occasions and this morning was no different.

Elsy, Kathleen, Sarah, and Tess at your Memorial Rock
Elsy, Kathleen, Sarah, and Tess at your Memorial Rock

I am in Fernie this weekend for our second annual moms, daughters, and dogs hike to your rock. Claire, Sue, and Lisa and their “oh so pretty” daughters who I know you remember (Elsy, Sarah, and Tess) and, of course, the dogs (Sophie, Oakley, Bella, and our Finn) are sharing this special weekend with me. This year, however, your most special friend, Kathleen, and the closest girl I have to a daughter, is also here. I asked her if she’d come along as my “guest daughter” and in a while they will join me here to honour and remember you. But right now is my time with just you and as I sit here with my iPad ready to begin my letter to you I can’t help but notice the beauty that surrounds your memorial rock.

Your rock in itself is incredible but where it rests is a little piece of heaven on earth. The ground is dark brown, rich and fertile, and still moist from the morning dew. The foliage and trees in all shapes and sizes and textures form a canopy protecting your rock somewhat from the elements that are part of a mountain climate. Some of the branches are tinged with yellow now as Mother Nature begins her transition from summer to fall. The ones directly overhead remind me of eyelashes as they flutter to and fro in the sunlight keeping me cool in the shade that they provide. There are still some glittery snowflake decorations hanging in the trees; remnants of the winter day the week before Christmas when Dad and I came here to specifically hang them. As I look down at my feet I notice bits of silver glitter that has mixed with the soil around your rock and my heart, even though my tears, somehow finds a reason to smile. I smile because I remember so clearly each day I visited your rock during this past winter while skiing. Inside my ski jacket pocket was a container that I filled with glitter and sparkles and each time I visited I would sprinkle them around your rock and the snow around it. Angel dust is what I called it. But what I notice most, Will, is the breathtaking view. This room with a view, your room here, is majestic and beautiful and a reminder that we are all so small amongst these huge mountains. However, your spirit and your presence here is much larger than all of us combined. I feel the warmth of your smile and I can hear your giggle (a giggle like no other and one of my favourite sounds ever), but what I long for more than anything else is to have you standing here with me, holding my hand. If only that was possible.

What I will take with me down the mountain today are the countless memories of you at this place you loved and this view from your rock. Mother Nature was kind to bestow upon us this breathtaking view of Polar Peak. Your room with a view is beautiful, peaceful, and tranquil…. just like you.

I love you little Blue. Like a bus. And I miss you bigger than the blue sky above your favourite mountain today. Know that the words we had engraved on the back side of your rock will be there for all time and will always ring true…

You are forever a part
of us and never alone.
We love you, Will,
and we miss you.

Love Mom Dad Justin Ben XO

Momxo

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  • Thank God For Pockets

    Wednesday, August 19, 2015 Dear Will, This summer has been full of thoughts and memories of you. Your little “signs” are abundant and when I think about them I can’t help but smile. It’s crazy how many heart shaped rocks I have found and collected this summer; my pockets bursting each time I arrive back home after a doggie walk with Finn or a bike ride to the river. On our vacation in Maui the heart shaped pieces of coral would, of course, find their way to the pockets of my beach tote and at the end of each day I’d add the coral hearts to the growing line down the middle of the table where we’d eat dinner by candlelight. Me and Dad and you. Wherever I was, it seemed I only had to look down and there were heart shaped signs of you at my feet. Holy cow, Will, I’ve quite a collection and when I empty my bursting pockets I am reminded of the things I’d find in your pockets while sorting laundry. Oh boy, there were Little Lego people and magnets, quarters and loonies that you’d find between the couch cushions where dad would often snooze (“searching” the couch was your cash cow!). I’d find fuzz balls and bits of rolled plasticine, erasers and lint covered candy and the occasional bottle cap or a torn piece of scrap paper with a friend’s phone number written on it so you could call them for a play date. All the random little treasures that were important for you to keep at the time found a safe place in your pockets. Just like my rocks.
    You, Kathleen and Kale on the beach in Montana
    While in Montana I was reminded of the many trips you and Kathleen would make in the golf cart to the store for Laffy Taffy and the iced tea cans you and Kale were collecting one summer. All the sand hill adventures are etched in my mind too — when you and your friends would scurry up the sand hills, rest for a minute or 5 seconds and then run full tilt or barefoot ski back down the hill and into the lake.
    Parker, You and Kale – Mud Monsters
    All the fun you had with Kale and Parker covering yourselves from eyeball to toe with mud and clay, swimming, building driftwood forts and how during your last summer you’d fallen in love with playing volleyball on the beach with the big kids and adults. Some of those memories still bring me to tears.   I’m back in Fernie now where there are memories of you all over the place. The ski hill, the ski shops that become bicycle shops in the summer, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where you had a preferred customer card from all the candy apples you bought (thanks to all the money you’d find in the couch?). Watching ski movies with Josh and how you loved to spend time with him and Andrea on and off your skis. I love it here, Will, because you loved this place. Come next week I’ll return home to our Redwood home where summer memories of you will live forever . I am reluctant to look beyond next week as September 2nd would have been the beginning of your last year of high school. My heart cannot go there yet. For now I will summon and enjoy the many summer memories of you and reminisce in what was. I look forward to each and every little sign you send my way and will continue to fill my pockets with as much as I can. Thank God for pockets. Love you, Willy. Like a bus full of pockets. Momxo

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  • A Four Humped Camel Called October 

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    Will’s Happy Heavenly Birthday Balloons (October 14, 2017)

    October 17, 2017

    Dear Willy,

    October.  Sigh.

    Though fall is my favourite time of the year, this year the month of October is like a camel with too many humps — four to be exact. First was our bike ride into Bragg Creek for icecream (our little Ride For Will), then came Thanksgiving, followed by your birthday, and in a couple of weeks, Halloween.

    The two biggest humps were the ones in the middle – Thanksgiving weekend and then your birthday. These two always feel a bit like climbing a mountain (clarification… what I think it would feel like). There is a looming feeling in the days leading up to them and I feel a little more anxious as each of them draws closer. The most difficult part of those days is getting out of bed. I lay still and remember what it was like when you were here and wish with all of my being that you still were. I think about all the things we’ve missed out on, the stuff we didn’t get to do. I wonder what you’d look like and what your voice would sound like. I sit with these thoughts for a while and inevitably succumb to my tears whilst giving myself permission to feel sad and then with my head down and a tear-stained face I get up and I get going. It’s not always pretty and its not easy but I forge on finding ways to honour you throughout these days . Then, at the end of each of these difficult days, I sigh, still surprised that I make it through year after year after year. Somehow I do. And somehow in these days I find a smile, I find joy and I find gratitude. On October 14th, 1998 (this year your nineteenth journey around the sun) we were blessed to bring you into this world and call you our son. This day will forever be one of my life’s best and though now one of the saddest it will always be a bittersweet celebration. .

    The next hump is Halloween and for me I am happy to report that this hump is growing smaller. Oh boy, I think back to how much you loved Halloween (aka “I love candy” day) and how much you disliked visiting the dentist. You never really understood how bad those tootsie rolls were on your teeth… or maybe you did and they were just too good to give up? I have to come clean, Willy, I still love them, too. (Insert a wink).

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                               Enjoying icecream after our little  Ride For Will (Oct 8/17)

    For a long time I didn’t think I’d ever smile again; hearing myself laugh or feel joy seemed an impossibility. In the months after losing you, I couldn’t find the strength to leave our home. And now, here I am. I can do this. What got me here? Why can I do it now? Well, I do know the answer now. There are two actually. One is time. And the other is you. With time comes clarity and reflection and with clarity and reflection comes the question I ask more than any other, “What would Will want me to do?” Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself that very question at least once. You, sweet one, are my reason and my strength for everything. Oh, and there’s these two other boys, too… the other two that call me Mom. And Dad. And our big, brown dog. I am surrounded with boy love! And I am grateful for all of you.

    The boy love in my world is big, Will. And I love you more than all the boy love put together on a four humped camel with a big bus full of tootsie rolls on the side. You see, it’s not even possible to love someone more than that. But I do…. times a million.

    Miss you, Little Blue.

    Momxo

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  • How Love Works

    Little Will

    January 31, 2020

    Dear Will,

    Boy, oh boy.  Turning the calendar to not only a new month, and to not only a new year but to a new decade sure magnifies how long it’s been since my worst day ever and how much I miss you still.  I know I will miss you forever, sweet boy… that is just how love works.  The minute to minute, moment to moment, day to day; the ebb and flow of every sunrise and every sunset from days to weeks to months and years just seems like too much to process at times. It still surprises me that a minute can feel like forever and forever can feel like a minute. I guess that, too, is how love works.

    I remember years ago (it doesn’t feel good to even say that) I used to count the days since your passing and when those days went from the hundreds into the thousands I stopped.  I had to stop.  Instead, I focused on all the precious moments and memories. It feels better to recount all the lovely treasured moments and memories instead of counting the days without you.  Perspective.  Whoa.  It can sure change things. Again, staying in the beautiful moments is how love works.

    Perspective is an interesting thing.  It can be profound to say the least. One of my biggest enlightenments and something that has been perhaps the most helpful since your passing was when the boys offered their perspective on grief.  They said, “Mom, Dad, instead of trying to figure out how to live without Will, how about figuring out how to live for him.”  Two words… “FOR Will” instead of “WITHOUT Will”.   What a profound difference it makes.  Those words and that message changed things in such a profound and healthy way. Love is a complicated thing but living in the positive feels so much better than living in the negative. It doesn’t change that you’re still not here, but it sure changes how I choose to live and honour you every minute, moment, day, week, month and year. That, my sweet boy, is also how love works.

    I read recently a post that a grieving mom made after losing her young son – a boy just a little older than you – and her message resonated so deeply within me. She talked about perspective… how the little things in life outweigh the big things.  She said:

    “You arrive one day at a place and look back on your life and realize that the little things in your life, weren’t so little after all.  They were big things. Those random moments spent talking while you make supper or swinging on the back porch in the late afternoon, talking while you went down to pick up the mail, those “little” conversations after school, those “little” messes, those “little” texts, those “little” goodnights shouted across the hall…. those are not so little to someone who is missing the person whose time on this earth was…. too little.

    Losing someone you love instills great perspective when you allow it to.  Appreciate the “little” moments with your loved ones, because one day, you may find those moments were not so little after all.”

    Perspective IS everything. Love works in such magical ways if your heart is open. Good things will come if you let love in. The reason I miss you so much, Will, is because I loved you so deeply. Grief is love upside down and yet still it all comes back to love.

    Will Smiling

    You continue to be my compass, Will.  My barometer for all things good and pure. You are the light in my darkest days, the hand I hold when I’m scared.  To smile and cry in the same breath is love. It’s you. It’s “for” instead of “without”, it’s a whole lot of little things instead of a handful of big things, it’s being better instead of bitter.

    I love you, sweet Will. I always did and I always will.  More than and bigger than a million little buses.  You and I both know that’s how love works.

    Momxo

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  • October Days and Little Boy Arms

    Little Boy Arms
    Little Boy Arms
    October 6, 2013 Dear Willy, Well, here it is again.  October; your birth month and one of the most difficult for me. No month is easy by any means, but October conjures up so many memories of you.  For most of your much-too-short life as soon as I turned the calendar to October the conversations would begin… “Mom, my birthday is in 14 days!”  And in the next breath, “can we plan my birthday party?  How many friends can I invite?  Can they all sleepover?  Ok. Well, can some sleepover?”  Today, remembering these conversations that would begin at the beginning of October every year now make me cry. I think back to that very special day in October 1998; to the 14th day of the month when you made your debut into this world.  You, my youngest son, were pure joy from the moment Dad and I found out that we were blessed with another son.  An easy pregnancy, an easy delivery (easy to say now!?), and such a happy and beautiful baby boy with your blonde curly hair and blue eyes. It was one of the happiest days in my life, for sure.  Having you felt like everyone in my world was now here and that my kitchen table was supposed to have five people occupy the chairs that were tucked in around it.  For the first time, I could honestly say that it felt like my family was complete. I took much pride, and still do, in being a mother to three boys. Little Nan, (papa’s mom and my grandmother) was also a mother of three boys and I always thought it was so special.  And now I, too, was a proud mama bear to three cubs.  One of the things I loved the most about all three of you, was the feel of your little boy arms around my neck and even at 12 ½ your arms, the smallest of the three of you, gave me such comfort. Right up until your angel date, I loved the tuck-me-in goodnight hugs we still shared regularly.  I don’t ever want to forget those hugs, Will, for there is just nothing quite like them. Remembering the joy you brought to all of us on the day you were born and the happiness that you brought to our lives as you grew now feels so empty and when October comes around it is especially heartbreaking. It is like you were stolen from me and I am left now with only memories of you as a boy on the cusp of becoming a teenager and a time you were looking forward to so very much.  Watching your two older brothers navigate through the teenage years gave you insight into the freedoms and privileges that were coming your way; learning to drive, girls, girls, girls, summer jobs and spending money of your own, later curfews and later bedtimes.  You certainly didn’t choose to see the “not so fun” parts like more homework, negotiations with Dad and I that wouldn’t always go as you’d hoped, losing privileges, being grounded, etc.  It was just like you to find the fun parts wherever you were. So, as I watch each of these October days come and go and as your birthday approaches I must continue to find the strength to carry on somehow. I know there will be days when grace will be lost; days where it will take all I have to just get out of bed. And then to my amazement there will be days, too, that I will somehow find a smile, feel you with me, and that I will celebrate having had you for as long as I did, even though it was much, much too short. There is not a day, Will, that I wish the outcome would have been different and that you were here with us saying, “Mom, my birthday is in 14 days!  Can we plan…” I believe it is you giving us these warm and sunny fall days and I am grateful.  I imagine it is your way of giving me those little boy hugs I miss so very much.  Beautiful October days… and little boy arms.  Thank you, Will. I miss you to the moon and love you like a bus. Momxo

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  • Perfectly Ordinary

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    January 15, 2016

     

    My Sweet Will,

     

    2016.  The first thing that comes to my mind is the number five.  The passing of time seems always to be where my mind, without even thinking, drifts first.  For fifteen days now we’re into a new year and I shake my head in disbelief knowing that it will be 5 years this May.  I wonder over and over, also in disbelief, how it could even be possible that yesterday and forever can seem the same?  Time is funny that way.

     

    I read a post on Facebook this morning that spoke to me in a profound way.  Instantly, I thought about the words I wrote in my tribute to you – the words that Mary read on my behalf at your Celebration of Life six days after our world changed forever.  I wanted to reprint them here in your letter so you are reminded of what I miss the most about you, Will.

     

    Here goes…

     

    “Last Sunday I experienced every mother’s “unimaginable”.  I lost my WillBilly.  On that evening, a part of me was lost with Will as well; Partly, because I have this overwhelming need to be with him and also because at twelve years of age, quite frankly, he still needs his mom.   Surrounding his passing are emotions beyond words.

     

    I recently read (not once, but three times) Katrina Kenison’s book, “The Gift of an Ordinary Day” and many of the words I am sharing with you today were born from hers and some word for word as it seems Moms everywhere convey the same kind of love. 

     

    Katrina writes and it couldn’t be more true for me that “One of the hardest lessons I am learning is that the answers to the really big questions, the answers I most hunger for, don’t ever come to us from the outside; rather, they come from a quiet place within.  A place we can reach only when we find within ourselves the courage to pause, to abide for a while in that place of not knowing, to be at peace even with our uncertainties, and then to listen and attend with the ear of our own hearts.”

     

    I often find myself thinking back to when Will was really small.  Days that began with cinnamon toast cut into finger size pieces and might end with made-up stories or shadow pictures on a bedroom wall.  In between there were walks to the river, picnic lunches at the park, popsicles, hot wheels and miles and miles of orange track that would meander around our living room furniture.   And then there was lego.  Lots. And. Lots. Of. Lego.  Crayola markers, playdough, puzzles, a plastic wading pool and a lawn sprinkler that could enchant a neighbourhood of kids for hours, a shallow red dish full of dish soap and glycerin, and magic wands that once waved hundreds of wobbly, irridescent bubbles into the air.

     

     As he grew, so did his world.  Sports became a part of Will and as long as he had friends (and he had many) to do them with he was having the time of his life.  A trampoline, a bag of candy, a pair of park skis and powder skis, fancy goggles, snow, sleepovers, bacon, his iPod, bouncy balls, Kathleen, Kale, hoodies, hats, a flannel shirt, his constant singing, his laugh and most of all a family who loved him beyond words were all that mattered.  Simple, ordinary pleasures.  

     

    It’s still hard for me to believe that all of this has vanished, that those times are truly gone for good.  Thankfully, what I have now are countless, beautiful memories that scroll endlessly in my mind.  Memories of his constant show of affection, as well as the countless peanut butter and banana sandwiches, bedtime stories, earaches and scraped knees, baking soda volcanoes, snowball fights, trips into Bragg Creek for icecream and how I hauled his baritone sax to and from school every week because it was too big to carry on the bus.  How I harped at him to finish his homework and how I had to remind him to pick up his wet towel off the floor every morning. Yet I am grateful to have had all of those moments, for they are the ones that have turned out, in the end, to be the most precious recollections of all, even though they went unrecorded, unwritten, unremarked on at the time.

     

    Our photo albums and computers are full of pictures of birthday cakes and holiday celebrations, vacation trips and family adventures.  But the memories I find myself holding onto the tightest, the ones that I will cherish for the rest of my life are the ones that you couldn’t capture in a photograph.  His giggle, his “I love you, moms”, his little boy arms around my neck and his final words every night, “Mom, can you tuck me in?” followed by, “I love you like a bus.”  Quite simply, a family’s life as it is from one hour, or day, or season, to the next.  The most wonderful gift we had and the gift I will cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days.

     

    I will always carry Will with me.  Everywhere I go.  Forever.”

    (from my Tribute to Will, May 28, 2011)

     

    What I want you to always know, Willy, is that I couldn’t miss you more than I did back then or more than I do now.  All of those perfectly ordinary moments have become what I cherish most in life.  They are the movie that plays over and over and over in my heart. 

     

    And just like we ended each of our days all those days ago,

     

    … I love you like a bus, Willy.  A big, ole ordinary bus with perfectly ordinary wheels.

     

     

    Momxo

     

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  • WillPower Graduation 2016

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    WillPower Graduation 2016

    July 6, 2016

     Dear Will,

     

    When I think about all the times I thought about you in June, all the times I called your name, prayed to you, the times I cried thinking about you and the times too, that you made me laugh I am dumbfounded that I didn’t write a hundred love letters to you last month. It was by no means a month where there was no communication ~ Gosh, Will, that would just be impossible. Instead it was a month where I hung onto every bit of you so that I could make it through.

     

    June 2016 was a month I expected would be one of the most difficult in our five years without you. Months after your accident when I began to come out of the scary fog called shock I began to think about all the milestones that you’d miss out on and that, as your parents, Dad and I would miss out on too. All these milestone moments that would transport me right back to my own growing up years; things like my 16th birthday, getting my driver’s license, the scary, first day of high school to name a few. For a long, long time I couldn’t talk about the day in June 2016 that would have been your high school graduation. The one day that packs a big punch not only for what you’d have achieved and accomplished in high school, but also the jumping board from man cub to young man.

     I’ve had a long time to think about this day, to plan how I might soften the blow, to wonder how I could keep it together when I’d see your friends and if maybe I could run away and hide so that I didn’t have to. And then the most beautiful thing happened, Will.

     

    forever friends
    Forever friends

    The week of your amazing Ride For Will I received a phone call that I will never forget. One of your classmates (thank you, MT) planted a seed and asked a question of the High School Graduation Committee. Could there be a chair for you amongst them at the Convocation Ceremony where you could be with your classmates? The pride and love that filled every part of me was a feeling I can’t find the words to describe. Maybe its because there isn’t a word to describe that kind of love? These kids that were once your kindergarten pals, and then your grade school classmates thought about you on their day five years later. They had wristbands made that said “WillPower Graduation 2016” and had a Class of 2016 photo in their graduation gowns with their wrists held high in the air. Jordan presented it to us on behalf of your classmates the day before they would celebrate their own milestone day.

     

    So Little Mr. Blue Sky, if you can imagine a machine that makes tears that can fill a tub faster than a faucet then you can imagine what my eyeballs looked like. Your little light is so darn bright and where there is light, there will always be you.

     

    Love you like a bus, Will. A lit up bus as bright as the sun.

     

     

    Momxo

    grad
    Some friends just never ever forget. Sure do love these man cubs…

     

     

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