Author: Joni Bouchard

  • 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

  • Our Maui Vacation with You

       
     Wednesday, July 22, 2015

    Aloha Will,
    Today marks another month without you. The 22nd of every month is another tally mark and try as I might to not look at it this way it is impossible not to.  As Dad and I go about enjoying our days here in Maui you, sweet Will, are on our minds every minute. I took you on the plane with me when we left on the 12th and as you sat on my left shoulder where I’m told the boy angels sit I thought about how I longed to make this trip to Maui with you physically.  The “could haves, would haves, should haves” echo through my body still.
    And then I see you. And I believe that you are indeed here with us.  Sometimes you make me laugh in how you show up. This morning as I write to you this bird stops by just a few feet from where I sit and he turns his head and stares at me, fluffs his feathers, cocks his little head and let’s out a little noise that sounds like he’s choking on a popcorn kernel or something. I watched him watching me and then he turned sideways and strutted off one foot in front of the other while his head bobbed in and out sort of like a crazy dance move. Every few steps he’d stop and look back at me and then off he flew. I know that was you, Will. That crazy little bird was crazy little you saying good morning. I smiled at him and actually said good morning to you out loud. 
    I also see you as one of the many, many geckos that grace this beautiful home where we are staying. You scurry about, straight up and down walls, sometimes leaping from a plant pot to a leaf or a branch, sometimes ripping to the edge of the swimming pool where you’ll stop still in your tracks, look at me and then start doing what looks like little push ups. And then there’s the palm trees. When they sway back and forth in the breeze I imagine that maybe it’s you waving to us.  I believe you are the sea turtles that Dad sees every time he goes windsurfing and that they are you watching out for Dad when he’s so far off shore that I lose sight of his sail. Please tell me that’s what you’re doing!  And I believe that you are the heart shaped pieces of coral that I pick up on my beach walks. They are the centrepiece on our table and in the evenings while we enjoy our post sunset dinner you sit on our table… smack dab in the middle of Dad and I. 

    Sitting on our dinner table
     

    Perhaps the most profound sign of you so far was the boy on the boogie board last Thursday. It was late in the afternoon and as Dad and I were soaking up the sunshine we were mesmerized by this little guy to our right. He was maybe 7 or 8 and he was using his boogie board as if it were a skim board. Over and over and over he would run full speed into the shore break clutching the board under his arm and then at just the right moment he’d lay it down, jump on it with both feet and then launch himself, arms and legs flailing, into the air where he’d tumble into the other side of the shore break. We watched him for a long time, mesmerized by how much this little guy reminded us of you. Sometimes he’d do flips off the curl of the wave just as it crashed to the shore and in the aftermath of all the churned up sand and white water shore break that would wash up the beach, there too he’d be.  It was like the shore break delivered him back to where his parents sat and watched him. Each time Dad and I imagined that he’d say, “Watch this! Mom. Dad. Watch this!”  And off he’d go again and again and again…  I couldn’t take my eyes off of this little  boy and the fun he was having. He had the same zest for life that you had, the same skinny little body and lanky arms and legs. The way he ran was like watching you run and the cool little swagger that was part of him reminded me of you too.  His idea of using that boogie board as a super launcher was so “you” and in my mind I could hear your giggle. I saw that little boy two more times that week and each time my eyes were drawn to him like he was the only other person on the beach.   I still can’t stop thinking of that boy.  No one was having as much fun as he was.  I wonder if that was you, Little Blue?  It sure could have been. 
    These Maui days are some of the most relaxing I’ve had in a long, long time. I don’t remember feeling this peaceful, this rested, this calm in the four years and two months since your angel date. I do feel you are here with us in so many ways, that you share my heartbeat and my breath and that you are indeed a part of me.
    Love you like a bus, Willy. A big bus full of super launcher boogie boards.  See you on the beach today, little Blue. I’ll bring the sunscreen. 
    Momxo

  • Yesterday and Forever

    Will and Kathleen... and now she's graduated from high school. Where did the time go? Yesterday and Forever
    Will and Kathleen… Yesterday and Forever ago

    Tuesday, July 7, 2015

     

    Dear Will,

     

    It’s been a tough couple of weeks. It’s always tough, but these two weeks have just been tougher. I know that Kathleen’s high school graduation was part of it… gosh, you knew so many of those kids and they just seem so grown up now. And that’s it. They are grown up and you, little Blue, are still 12 ½ in my mind.

     

    When I look at your friends I think to myself, “where’d the time go?” and in the next breath it feels like eternity. I’ve said many times to many people that it seems like forever and yesterday all at once and the only thing that separates the forever and yesterday is a moment. Our good friends lost their 19 year old son 5 weeks ago and when I think of them as I often do it feels like yesterday that we were beginning the horribly sad road that they have just found themselves on. It all comes back to hit you again when you wonder if you would even have the strength to have to begin again.

     

    Today, it feels like I’ve been on this road forever with no end in sight. 1,509 days have passed and I still wish it was all a bad dream or that you’ve been at a sleepover or at camp for 1,509 days and tomorrow maybe you’ll be back. Of course, that’s not true. No one does that. Sadly, I can’t book a trip to come and see you and I can’t put a circle around a day on the calendar that I can pick you up from the airport from a long trip. The reality is that I don’t know when I’ll see you again; I only know that one day I will be at the end of my life here on earth and you will be the first person I see on the other side. The visual I have of our sweet reunion is the most beautiful vision I hold. It is quite literally what keeps me going.

     

    Oh, Willy. I miss you like yesterday and forever and love you like a bus on its way to there.

     

     

    Momxo

  • Mother Nature and YOU!

    Your Forever Friends
    Your Forever Friends Riding For You

    Sunday, June 21, 2015

    Dear Will,

    It’s been a bit since I’ve written but that is no reflection of how much I’ve been thinking about you. There is no part of any day that you are not on my mind. Your memory lives there and is part of my every breath. And I’ve certainly not stopped talking to you in my quiet moments, most times out loud.

    Will in the middle of it all
    Will in the middle of it all

    Last weekend we held your annual Ride For Will and one thing I want to know is how much you had to do with that chaotic weather?? I know the large snowflakes that fell on Friday morning were you, always the teaser, the taunter, the boy who loved snow so much that given the choice of a warm sunny day, you’d take the snow every time. You got me as I looked out the window to see the white stuff falling and before I got my iPad and hit record video I swear I could hear your mischievous giggle… you know the one – the one right before the panic that got you running to my side for protection from your brothers when you’d pushed their buttons one time too many.

    Saturday started out so promising, so nice with the sun waking us that morning. You, little Mr. Blue Sky shining down on us as we set up for registration and put the tents up in the sports field to house the bake sale and the medics, the face painting and the PA system. “Just in case” is always our reasoning and because we all know that June in Southern Alberta can deal all kinds of weather my fingers and toes were crossed that you’d be the boss of the weather. This time, maybe that weather task was too big for you and next year, maybe you could ask the big guy up there for some help? I wonder, does the big guy trump Mother Nature?

    The good news is that nothing could dampen the spirit that surrounds your Ride. I am in awe at those that continue to support us through this event. The young and old, your school friends and ski buddies, family and friends, all those that gather in your memory and remember and those that didn’t know you, but feel like they do through your story and the good that we are doing in your name and your memory. It is a big bittersweet day for us; a day so full of love and missing you that no harsh weather could diminish. I couldn’t help but smile at all the muddy grins on faces dotted with mud and all the muddy stripes on the backs of the riders as they finished. For you, a bike and a mud puddle meant fun and it was evident that those that rode saw it that way too (or had no choice but to!).

    I love you little Mr. Blue Sky. Even when Mother Nature overrules you. I guess when it comes to the weather she really is the boss. Stay on her good side, Will, as she can be quite unpredictable! And that’s one mother that you don’t want to make angry!

    Love you like a bus rippin’ through the mud.

    Momxo

  • No Dental Visits in Heaven

    Happy Times... Will and his friend, Natasha Happy Times… Will and his friend, Natasha

    Tuesday, March 31, 2015

    Hey Will,

    I just got home from the dentist and I was there for a long time this afternoon (yuk)! It is no surprise that most people do not like dental work. This was certainly true when it came to you having to visit the dentist. Even regular cleanings and check-ups would throw you into a tailspin. The novelty of the dentist’s treasure chest full of bouncy balls, rings, green slimy sticky hands, and army men in parachutes that got all tangled up in the string wore off quicker for you than others and I remember once having to make good on a promise that I’d buy you a new Beanie Baby after a check-up.

    A dental visit for you was rarely a positive experience. More than your brothers you were the one that seemed to have the most uncomfortable dental appointments in our family. When your friends were excited about wiggly teeth you were the opposite because for you it was quite possible that it meant a trip to the dentist. Your baby teeth, Will, just never wanted to come out on their own. Those little buggers might still be in there if Dr. Mike didn’t have to pull them out. Imagine your mouth full of teeth – baby ones and big ones, rows upon rows… It was difficult for me to have to take you when I knew how nervous and upset it made you but it was out of necessity that you needed to go. No mom I know would choose to put her child through that much discomfort if it wasn’t necessary. Necessary was the part that was hard for you to understand.

    As I lay in the dental chair today thoughts of you and your teeth were all I could think about. I had taken my iPhone with me thinking that I’d pass the time listening to music but not once did I put in my ear buds. I couldn’t think about music when all I could think about was you. I was remembering all the times when you were small that I sat and held your little hand while you were in the chair and the couple of times when the dental assistant had to ask me to leave because occasionally it was worse when I was there. Sometimes I think it hurt me as much as it hurt you when I had to take you to the dentist. Watching you try so hard to be brave when a tear or two would fall out of your eye and down your cheek all the while knowing that the floodgates were holding back many more was heartbreaking. And most times we hadn’t even arrived at the dental office yet… sometimes we hadn’t even left home.

    What I thought about the most though was how happy you must be to not have to worry about seeing the dentist anymore. Heaven knows no pain, Will, so that can only mean there are no dental visits for you up there. When I close my eyes I can see you giving me a big thumbs up for that. And I can also hear you telling me that those big slimy green hands that stuck not only to windows and mirrors, but to carpets, upholstery, and my hair were the best toys in the treasure chest.

    Sure do miss you, Willy. Way, way more than you miss not seeing the dentist.

    Love you like a bus,

    Momxo

  • Because We’re A Forever Thing

    DSC00069 copyWednesday, February 25, 2015

    Dear Will,

    I’ve been thinking that in the last little bit you’ve been a lot of places looking out for many that need a little more WillPower than usual. Gosh, the ones that I know about are many and the ones that you are watching over that I will never know must be countless. Maybe they beckoned you, maybe you were at the right place at the right time, and maybe you’ll never leave those who will need you always. That would be me, Will, because you and I are a forever thing.

    I believe that you are on the mountains in Andorra and Japan with one of the bravest and most beautiful girls we know who has skied her way into competing on the world stage in junior freeskiing. Then there’s your cousin who needs you to help heal his badly broken leg (not to mention he’ll need you to help him eat all of the candy that Pa’s been giving him 1) to keep his spirits up, and 2) to keep him anchored ON the couch). I know you’re hanging around your special childhood friend who carries you always in her heart as she works through decisions on what comes after high school and the big question, “what the heck am I gonna do now?” Wait till you see her in her grad gown, Will… she’ll be the most beautiful girl in that big room. There’s also the freestyle twins who are never without their WillPower bands, your ski racing pal who takes you to all of his races, and your ski buddy who is nursing an injury he suffered while training.

    I’m beginning to believe that the ski community that knew you and those who sadly didn’t but know about you now, take you with them each time they put on their skis. Be it freestyle comps or downhill races or just for the fun of it the WillPower you bring to each of them is a common thread. I am grateful too that you are sending a little extra WillPower to my dear friend who is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders as she moves through one of life’s biggest challenges. With you on one side and me on the other we can help her, Will. We can.

    As busy as you are spreading about WillPower and watching over those that you care about I am ever grateful that you watch over me too. It is you who whispers in my ear “Mom, you can do this” when I’m not sure that I can. When I’m full of fraught you help me find perspective, you encourage me to look for the silver lining in life’s struggles and sometimes you tell me to crawl back under the covers for a little while. I know you’re behind my smile these days and that you’re never far away. Your footsteps are all over my heart and when I need you I just whisper your name and in you come with open arms and twinkling blue eyes, sometimes dancing or jumping and flipping, and always, always with a WillBilly smile.

    I love you like a bus, Little Blue, and because you and I are a forever thing, I always will.

    Momxo

  • Signs and Big, Big Love

    Fernie Alpine Resort photo credit: Fernie Alpine Resort
    Fernie Alpine Resort
    photo credit: Fernie Alpine Resort

    Saturday, January 24, 2015

    Dear Willy,

    It’s a beautiful, bluebird morning in Fernie and I am in my pajamas with a cup of tea watching the sunshine awaken the mountain that beckons you. You, Will, are all I am thinking of.   I feel drawn to this place, a gentle unwavering pull that is you. It seems to me that so many adults struggle with where they want to retire, where they see themselves wanting to spend the next chapter of their lives when their kids are grown and have finished university to embark on “the school of real life”. The decision to spend more time in Fernie and make this the place where we will retire became crystal clear when we sadly and tragically lost you in May 2011. Life and me so defined by that day – like a line in the sand. I subconsciously categorize all that happens in my world as before losing you and after losing you.

    Will skiing in Fernie - the place he wanted to someday call home.
    Will skiing in Fernie – the place he wanted to someday call home.

    The before is full of so many wonderful memories; days full of laughs and giggles, of hugs and I love yous (oh, there were some “I’m mad at yous” too), of brothers pushing buttons to provoke deliberate annoyance, of driving here and there and everywhere, and of constant negotiations around, well, everything. Life was good then, it was full and the way it was supposed to be, the norm so to speak… all of them days that I would give anything to have back. Life after losing you has been a struggle to say the least. Days where there is no choice but to find a way to live, days where I must go on without the physicality of you. Even though I see signs of you everywhere and know in my heart that you are all around me spiritually, the physical part is what I miss so very much. The reality that I cannot see you grow, that I can’t tousle your hair and feel your hugs or hear what your teenage voice would sound like are still too hard to bear. What keeps me going, Will, is my belief that I will see you again and that when I do we will be together for eternity. Believing that you strategically send signs that confirm your presence continue to put the warm and fuzzy in my living days.

    Our FinnWilly
    Our FinnWilly

    I will forever believe that you are every beautiful snowflake, every rainbow, every blue butterfly, and every heart shaped rock on my path. You are the sparkle in a dewdrop and the twinkle of a star and you are that warm wind that sometimes so suddenly will hit my face on a frigidly cold day. I believe that you are the knowing eyes in our dog and the playful spirit and knowing way that Finn just has to be in the middle of Dad and I wherever we are. I think all of this is YOU showing up, sending your love, and reminding us that you are here.

    Please keep on showing up, Willy. Keep on sending those signs that sometimes stop me in my tracks and sometimes make me turn around and go back, the signs that make me whisper your name and make me stop and stay in the moment for awhile. You are the signs that make me feel warm and fuzzy, that sometimes make me smile and sometimes make me cry. Today, Little Blue, you are the blue sky that serves as the backdrop to the mountain you called your own. You are the sunshine that makes that blue sky possible today and you are the reason that I find myself smiling right now.

    Big, big Love (photo credit unknown)
    Big, big Love
    (photo credit unknown)

    Love you like a bus, Will. The bus that sits on the white sparkling snow somewhere over the rainbow. That’s big love, Will. Big, big love.

    Momxo

  • When Its Not The Happiest Time of the Year

    IMG_1783December 23, 2014

    Dear Will,

    Will's Santa Hat is our angel on the top of our tree
    Will’s Santa Hat is our angel on the top of our tree

    I have been thinking about you more than usual if that is even possible. This time of year so happy for others is not so happy for me. The memories of Christmases past flood my conscience and at times I feel that I am not even here, but with you instead. Yesterday, a “22” day was especially hard though today doesn’t feel much different. Dad and I and Finn are in Fernie now, awaiting the arrival of your big brothers later this afternoon. I am looking forward to having them here, as the four of us together for Christmas is all that really matters. I’ve put up the tree and decorated it just so – you are all over it as usual and your brothers too (and, well, Dad and I too in the form of our Fernie family ski passes). Your Santa hat is our angel on the top of the tree, the one that you took a sharpie to in grade 3 and wrote your name in large letters so that no one would take it. I love how you printed your name… there really was no difference from when you were a tiny tot to when you were last with us as your name is really just a simple series of sticks when you think about it. So much easier than when Justin and Ben were small and had to learn to maneuver their pencil to form curves. I guess by the third child I’d figured out that there wasn’t a simpler name to print than yours. It is all a non issue other than when you boys were learning to print your name and well, you, little blue, had it the easiest. Our tree is also adorned with some of the ornaments that you made at school that I couldn’t leave in the Christmas box. The paper cut out snowflake that you made and glued to a CD, and the brown felt gingerbread boy that you sewed and stuffed all on your own when you were in grade 2. There’s also a wooden sign that you painted and strung with a very long piece of metallic thread. I love these little masterpieces even more now than when you brought them home all those years ago. They are priceless memories of Christmases that seem now so perfect because all five of us were together.

    I have already told you how we’ve adopted some new family traditions since your passing and they are simple and beautiful. Our stocking exchange has become a family highlight and the greenery and baubles that lay so peacefully on your stocking Christmas morning and then grace our Christmas table hugging the snowy white candle that we light in your memory seems so perfect. We look forward to and love the last present under the tree, a neatly wrapped box from you to us that is always a family jigsaw puzzle that keeps us busy on the days and weeks following Christmas. These have become important pieces of Christmas that have allowed us to celebrate in your memory and in a way that I believe you would embrace wholeheartedly. You will always be a part of our Christmases, Willy, just as you are a part of our every day.

    Tonight or tomorrow morning I will ice the gingerbread boys. It’s the same recipe that I used to make when you were little but the boys are smaller now. I found a small gingerbread boy cookie cutter and in each little tin or box I enclose a little note that says, “Before they can be men, they must be boys”. I came upon these wise words two years ago and now they seem so apropos to include. Again, they make me think of you.

    I miss you, Will. So very much still and I now that I always will. As I sit and stare out of my big Fernie window at the incredible view of “your” ski hill I am reminded that if you were here you’d be up there skiing now. You’d have begun the day with your Dad and I imagine now you’d be hucking flips rippin’ it up with Josh and Calvin.

    This season isn’t the happiest time of the year for me… or for anyone that has lost someone so loved. I try to smile and though for you I do, it isn’t without a tear too.

    Happy Christmas up there, Will. I know you’re with us, watching me now as I wipe a tear, and find a smile. Rip it up on the ski hill for Dad and your brothers. And then join us here on Christmas morning and watch us laugh and remember and love you forever.

    Love you like a bus full of Christmas lights and turkey,

    Momxo

  • And So Winter Begins…

    snow
    My three boys loving the snow!

    Sunday, November 2, 2014

     

    Holy Cow, Will!

     

    You and the ski legends “upstairs” have been busy. After an October full of balmy temperatures and a Halloween that will go on record as one of the warmest in a handful of Halloweens, the big blanket of Willy that I am looking at this morning is another testament to your love for snow.

     

    Friday night I was watching the neighbourhood kids in their Halloween costumes parade from door to door in their “skinny” costumes instead of the “fat” ones we’ve become accustomed to because of the snowsuits the little ones needed to wear underneath their costumes. No little roly-poly’s this year, no mittens or gloves or winter boots and no snow to trudge through. The streets were alive with kids and parents who were not in a hurry to get out of the cold and back into their homes unlike some of the bitter cold Halloweens I remember when you boys were younger.

     

    snowman

    This morning is quite different. As the snow continues to fall the streets in our Community are quiet. It seems no one is rushing out of their homes… yet. It is still early and soon there will be a few who will venture out to begin to shovel their driveways. By mid morning I’m pretty sure our cul-de-sac will be full of kids in snow gear building snow forts and snowmen, piling snow to build jumps, and the “snow toys” that have been packed away since last winter will find themselves once again all over the yards of those with children. Until three years ago that was our house and if I could wish it all over again I would.

     

    The season of winter coats and pants and wet socks begins. The season of lost mitts and constant reminders to put on warm winter boots is now here. The days of clean clothes being dumped from the dryer so the wet ones could be tossed in to dry while the kettle was boiling water for hot chocolate is about to begin. The front door mess of wet toques and mitts, of snow boots and jackets, and ski pants with one leg turned inside out while sometimes still attached to a snow boot is now a memory of winters past. And perhaps the sweetest memory of all was your rosy cheeks and crazy “toque-head” hair. Many a time, you’d adorn one sockless foot while the other sock looked like a snake because your foot was pulled from your snow boot while your sock somehow wanted to stay in there, your big boisterous voice full of excitement and your unforgettable BIG smile when you’d finally come inside from a building-then-playing session in the big snow. Will, these were the days that I will cherish always — the days I would give anything to have back. I’m sure you also remember my raised voice, the sound of my frustration at the mess that would accumulate at the front door. When I’d tell you to hang up your stuff, you and your brothers would say the same thing, “Mom, it doesn’t fit in the closet” or “Mom, what’s the use of putting it away when I’m gonna put it on again as soon as it’s dry.”  And so it seemed that the heap of wet jackets and clothing and all the extra stuff that became a part of the front entrance to our home somehow stayed there for the whole winter. Yup, those were the winters I will fondly remember, the gifts of ordinary winter days.

     

    Will on the podium.jpg

    Today I imagine you up there with your BIG smile and boisterous yippees and yahoos making all that snow that wintertime brings with a big heavenly snow machine. I can visualize you wanting to dump bigger and bigger amounts upon us down here… though not for me per se, but for all the ski nuts like your dad and your brothers and your ski buddies who are anxious to begin a winter full of fun on skis and snowboards. Undoubtedly I will need to remind myself over and over, again and again, in the upcoming months of how much you loved the snow — a tactic I use to get through our winters down here without you. When watching the snow pile up appears nothing but a headache to me, I remind myself of how much you loved it and that can make me smile at all of it (for now).

     

    Love you, Willy. Like a bus and a big heavenly snow machine.

     

     

     

    Momxo

  • Sixteen Candles on an Angel Food Cake

    third birthday
    Will’s Third Birthday

    October 14, 2014,

     

     

     

    Happy Heavenly Birthday Will,

     

    Upon waking this morning and with you ever present in my mind, the first words out of my mouth as I looked out my bedroom window and up to the sky were my birthday wishes for you. Today is your 16th birthday and I am saving today just for you.

     

    So much has happened in a week, since my last letter. It was so great to have Ben home from University for Thanksgiving; gosh, I miss him (his mess, not so much) and I was grateful for having both Justin and Ben at the table for our turkey dinner on Sunday. You were there too, in the middle of the four of us lighting up our table by candlelight.

     

    Unfortunately, Thanksgiving was far from the minds of Nana and my Uncle and cousins and family as they are in the midst of missing their beautiful sister, wife, mom and grandmother. Auntie Barb succumbed to her battle with cancer early on Saturday morning and has left all of us with all of those questions that have no answers. I remember it as if it were yesterday, those first days after losing you. All the numbness and the pain, the disbelief and the wishing that it were just a bad dream. It STILL feels like that. I drove to Medicine Hat on Friday wanting desperately to see her and to be there for Nana. I wanted to tell Auntie Barb that you’d be waiting for her, and that you’d make her smile and take her to Papa D. She beat me to it Will – as soon as I took her hand in my own and before I could speak, she told me she’d be seeing you soon and that she hoped I wouldn’t be too sad. If I could have traded places with her I would have. I told her that and in her wise and barely audible words she told me life didn’t work like that. I returned home Sunday morning wanting so very badly to see Dad and your brothers and to find the comfort I needed amongst them and memories of you in our home on Thanksgiving and your birthday.

     

    Today I think about you being 16. I wonder what you’d look like, how long your hair would be or whether you’d want it short. I wonder how tall you would be and what your voice would sound like all grown up. I wonder how big your feet would be and if you’d be wearing a hat or a toque today. I wonder if you’d be shaving, and if you would have a girlfriend. I wonder if Kathleen would show up after school today with a bag full of your favourite candy and if today would have been the day you’d have passed your driver’s test.

     

    I smile knowing only that you’d be handsome as ever with the bluest eyes in the land. I smile knowing that you’d be taller than me, and that your feet would be large. I know you’d be over the moon happy today, happy to be 16 and the centre of attention and happy to be driving like your friends. While I was walking Finn this morning I thought about what kind of car you might have up there. Whether it was an expensive racecar type that boys dream about or a ski van. Pondering those thoughts for a few minutes it suddenly came to me that you’d probably have the same vehicle as Ben. A truck just like his… probably even the same color… and I think Ben might actually be happy about that too.

     

    Today I will visit Heaven’s Gate and I will place a painted rock under your tree there. Tonight we will have angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream just like we would have had if you were here with us. Instead I imagine that today Auntie Barb might just bake you the best angel food cake ever and that she’d ice it with that really fluffy white icing that only Nana D could make.

     

    Happy Sixteen, Willy. I am sending you love and wishes and hand blown kisses all day.

     

    Love you like a bus and a birthday truck just like Ben’s.

     

     

    Momxo