Dreams and Wishes

ByJoni Bouchard
My Pride. My Joy. My Boys.
My Pride. My Joy. My Boys.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Dear WillBilly,

On the eve of another “22nd day” of another month, of course you continue to be in my thoughts and like everyday I wish more than anything that you were here.  Tomorrow afternoon is an important day for your big brother, as he will receive his iron ring in a ceremony where engineering students in their final year of university take part in what is known as The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.  It’s been almost five years since Justin began his university studies towards his dream of obtaining a degree in mechanical engineering and almost three of them have been without you here.  You’d have been blown away, Will, by looking at the mind-boggling formulas and complexity of the assignments that he completed on a regular basis.  I couldn’t make sense of any of them and wasn’t ever sure if I was even looking at them right side up.  Justin would have been the best math tutor you could ever have and I wish I could have been witness to the two of you sitting at the kitchen table while he was helping you work through a math problem.  As his little brother, you’d have enjoyed it and Justin would have too.

I imagined that this afternoon after school you and I would have driven to the city on a mission to find something nice for you to wear tomorrow.  I wonder how tall you would be now and what size pants and shirt we’d have to buy?  And would you still be trying to convince me that your Vans would be ok with your pants and that no one would be looking at your shoes anyway?  I noticed myself pause and reflect as I typed that sentence, my head nodding up and down like you really did have a point.  Oh, what I’d have given to be in the stores with you this afternoon doing what I wish we’d have had a chance to do.

Come tomorrow morning I already know that my heart will be heavier than usual; that it’ll ache a little more because you won’t physically be with us on this special day.  Of course you’ll be with us in spirit; that I know with all my heart.  You’ll be sitting proudly on my left shoulder where all the boy angels sit and you’ll be inside my heart where you always are.  I already know that I will reach up and touch my left shoulder and that one or both of my hands will cup the heart necklace that is you.  I don’t even know how many times I find myself holding that heart pendant in my hands.  It happens frequently everyday.   As Dad and I and Ben proudly watch Justin tomorrow afternoon we know you’ll be there too… in the middle, of course, where you loved to be.

Oh Willy.  I will never understand why this tragedy happened to us.  I will forever feel so robbed of watching you live your dreams and of enjoying the life you so deserved here with us.  You, our youngest son and little brother to Justin and Ben will always be a part of our lives.  That will never ever change, but oh what I would do to be able to see you, to touch you, to hug you.

I love you, little blue.  Bigger than a bus.  And more than the sky.   I’ll be waiting and watching for the little wink I know you’ll send our way tomorrow while we watch Justin realize his dream of becoming an engineer and receive his much deserved iron ring.

Momxo

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  • The Afterglow of a Bike Ride

     
    Will's Friends Ride For Will!
    Will’s Friends Ride For Will!
    Wednesday, June 18, 2014   Dear Will,   On Saturday, your Third Annual Ride For Will was held here in the community that was (and still is) your home. It was a beautiful day sandwiched between two rainy ones and my fingers were crossed, hopeful that you’d help out by keeping the rain away…. In the back of my mind I was preparing for a ten minute down pour at some point during the event, your signature “gotcha!” way of wanting to always have the last word, and in the end I was thrilled that you waited until we were safe inside.   Three years and three rides have yielded almost $150,000 to your Foundation and I am still awestruck at what happens on this day each June that we call The Ride For Will. People, young and old, show up with smiles and pledges, with hugs and support, not only to benefit your Foundation, but to honor you and show their support for Dad and I and your brothers. It is a memorable and most beautiful bittersweet day that renews our hope that you will never be forgotten. To me, there is something timeless about a bike. The simple pleasure it provides and the freedom it symbolizes is a right of passage in our neck of the woods for each and every child that grows up in this community. I will always remember the excitement that precluded any bike ride into Bragg Creek for icecream or candy and when you and your friends could do it without an adult ride-a-long, quite frankly, you’d hit the big time. Now, Will, your friends are driving to the city in their cars instead of packing their pockets with loose change to buy candy and icecream and that alone is difficult to accept at times. The passing of time is indeed a tough pill to swallow and I am quite sure it always will be.   What is magical about your Ride is that your friends and people who didn’t have the chance to know you show up with their bikes, adorned with WillPower bands, and I Ride For Will stickers on their helmets and bikes. They ride and stop at the refreshment stations and fill up on free candy and freeze pops, pedal to the school and back passing all of the familiar landmarks that were second nature to you. When I see your buddies on their bikes they magically become twelve again and though you aren’t there, YOU ARE. I am hopeful that you will always be with them in some way.  Whenever I see a boy on a bike, I am immediately thrown back into the many memories of you ripping out of the cul-de-sac with your pant leg tucked in your sock (if you weren’t wearing shorts!) in a hurry to meet a friend or two at the bike jumps or the soccer field or at a friend’s house to play. Those were the gifts of an ordinary day growing up here and memories that I will always treasure.   The Apres Ride BBQ and Silent Auction/Raffles that follow your Ride are amazing too. The love and support that shows up at our community Redwood House in burgers and icecream, in items donated for people to bid on and the lure of a raffle item is also magical. The entire day is beyond anything that I can describe and when I think back to three years ago how a few friends suggested and asked if they could organize a family bike ride for us in your memory I am overwhelmed at how it all started and how it has evolved and how it has continued…   It is no secret that you are in my thoughts every minute of every day, Will. My days begin and end with you and on Saturday, June 14th it was evident that you were on the minds of many who were there to support and remember and celebrate your life cut short. I know you were looking down on all of us with your big Willy smile and bluer than blue eyes. Since your tragic passing, it has always been our hope that something good could be born of something so tragic. There is healing for us knowing that in your memory what began as the simple pleasure of a bike ride has grown and taken on an identity of its own. The Annual Ride For Will allows us through your Foundation to make a difference in the world and that just feels right and feels good.   Now as I bask in the afterglow of Saturday’s Ride For YOU my heart feels a little lighter and oh, so full. You, little Blue, are quite a boy.   Love you like a bus on a bike, (and only you could make sense of that!)     Momxo

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  • Ten Years.

    ten years
    May 22, 2021

    Dear Will,

    10 years.

    120 months.

    522 weeks.

    3654 days.

    I cannot even put into words how to describe what this momentous passage of time, this significant marker, really feels like other than to tell you that you are still so sadly missed and immensely loved as much as ever. I imagine you are proudly touting your 10 year wings and I’ve no doubt they are bigger, brighter and sparklier than ever. Tonight I will look for you in the nighttime sky… pretty sure you will be the brightest little light up there tonight and before I retire to my bed I promise you I will find a reason to smile for you and because of you. This day feels heavier than usual for me but as I learned all those years ago deep grief is the price of deep love.

    I miss you more than ever, sweet boy, and the big bus love is as real to me now as it was when you first said it to me when I tucked you into your bed when you were a toddler. The beautiful and cool thing is that the bus gets bigger and better with every passing hour, day, week, month and year and just when I think that bus cannot hold one more ounce of love it just does. 

    Ten years. Sigh…

    Momxo



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  • So… I Did a Thing!

    Friday, June 26, 2026

    Hey Willy,

    After many gentle nudges over the years I jumped off the literary cliff and published our story in a memoir! It’s a culled collection of my letters to you that recounts our mom-son moments and memories, all the ways you relentlessly showed up for me, and how we continue our relationship still. Those early days, weeks, months and even those first two or three years after losing you were heartbreaking—it was impossible to sugar-coat how difficult that was but as I wrote all those letters to you something beautiful and hopeful emerged. Out of fierce mother-son love and a desperate need for a connection with you I found a way to survive and, little by little, grace and joy followed. 

    It is fittingly entitled LOVE YOU LIKE A BUS: Letters to Will and chronicles my journey through debilitating loss to finding joy and purpose again. I did not know how to do life after losing you… I only knew that I could never stop writing to you because it was the only way I knew how to keep you present in my thoughts. I was never ready to say good-bye… I just couldn’t, wouldn’t, and still can’t and won’t.

    Over the years I have questioned and searched and toiled over what my life purpose is. Over and over I have wondered what I am supposed to learn and accomplish in my time here on earth. Occasionally, I wished I could just succumb and be with you, but I knew that could never happen because I needed and wanted to be Ben and Justin’s mom, too. They say it is impossible to be in two places at one time… but they are wrong, Will, because you and I have found a way. 

    In many quiet moments I asked you all the questions I struggled for answers to—the “Why did you have to go?” and “When will I see you again” and “How will I survive in this world without you in it?” Your message has been steadfast. “Mom, you are a helper and a messenger and your purpose is clear. You can help others understand the pain of losing someone they cannot live without by sharing our story. We know that the distance between heaven and earth is only a heartbeat and that wherever you are, I am right there with you.”

    All your whispers and encouragement from friends and family over the years have suggested that sharing my journey might help others through their own grief and also provide them with a wonderful perspective about life and the parts of it they can and cannot control. The reminder that life is fleeting and fragile is one that bears repeating. Living and loving without regret and choosing to see and celebrate all the little things along the way matter—and when you lose someone you love they, ultimately, are what matters most. Collectively, all those gentle nudges were getting stronger to ignore and so, Willy… I did it! I published our story.

    In early fall I will officially launch LOVE YOU LIKE A BUS: Letters to Will. I will proudly stand with you on my left shoulder where the boy angels sit, and we will put it out to the world, Willy. Until then let’s quietly celebrate. I promise I will share more details come September. 

    I miss you, my sweet boy, but I see you and I hear you. And… I love you like a bus wrapped up inside the sky-blue book covers of a mom-son love story about us. 

    Momxo

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  • September and Socks

    img 1592
    Will, Brent and Jordan.
    Friends Then, Friends Still

    Thursday, September 29, 2016

    Hey Will,

    Well, fall is definitely in the air these days and the crisp mornings, yellow leaves and fall smells have enveloped me in what I can only describe as my favourite season. Soon the snow will fly and your favourite season will be upon us. For now, though, I will savour everything that is fall and will remember all of what September was to our family when our world was perfect.

    For a few years now, September is the month Ben returns to university and Dad and I are confronted again with living alone in the house that for a long time was filled with all you boys and all the smelly stuff that is part of you guys. The best Septembers were when you were all here at home — three new school backpacks hanging in the closet, three new pairs of outdoor shoes in the vicinity of the front door and oodles of brand new socks after all the old tattered and mismatched ones with holes were silently thrown away before school started again. New socks… such a September right of passage…

    Sadly, this September should have been our first empty nest, Will, but life threw us that terrible tragedy 5 ½ years ago and we were robbed of precious time. A lifetime with you would never have been enough but oh, to have had more time… I’ve spent much of this month wondering where you’d be this first September after high school, and knowing of course that you’d be at UBC in the Okanangan – Just. Like. Ben. No one would be surprised as your idolization for Ben was no secret. You do know it drove your brother crazy but raining on his parade was what you loved to do and to do that at university would have been a proud feather in your cap.

    I’ve frequently thought about Kathleen too and hoped that she would be on the good side of your conscience; a reminder to you to make good choices. I have also thought a lot about your friends, Jordan and Brent, who are also at UBC in Kelowna and I just know that the three of you would be thick as thieves on that campus and that I’d be worrying myself crazy… then in the next breath wishing more than anything that it was true and that I had the chance to worry about you. Sigh. I’d give anything to have all of that. I was corresponding with Jordan mid September, wondering how he was doing, and when your name came up he, too, agreed that in a perfect world you’d be there with them. I reminded him that as an angel you were there looking out for them, keeping them safe and sharing in the fun. He replied that he knew you were. My heart smiles, Will, when I hear that your friends still keep you close. I hope that they will for all of their lives.

    Next weekend is Thanksgiving and Ben will be coming home. And Kathleen. And Brent. And Jordan. Ben who has adapted to being away from home and whom we are used to coming home and then going again, but for the others coming home having just spent their first September at university will be a bit more exciting. Not just for them, but for their parents and families, too. Dinner is always better when everyone is sitting around the table and we’re blessed that Justin is able to come for dinner frequently. Having Ben at home for Thanksgiving is something I look forward to very much. I count the days. I imagine in our perfect world that once in the driveway you’d pile out of the car on his coat tails leaving everything in the back seat and make a run for the front door thinking it was a race to get their first while he’d saunter in, leaving a trail of things he was bringing with him from the back seat. Of course, there’d be hugs and then to the refrigerator you’d both go only this time it would be a race to see who’d get there first. It’s difficult still to live with the reality that you won’t be returning home too, and the pining that my heart feels tugs heavily on my heartstrings sometimes still pulling me down to my knees.

    Instead, I know that you’ll be with us in spirit. That you’ll be sitting in your spot at the table. We’ll talk about you like we always do and we’ll be grateful for the times we did have together. We’ll reminisce about all of the Septembers that we did have and we’ll laugh and cry and eat turkey and mashed potatoes til our tummies are ready to explode. And then I’ll pick up all the dirty, new socks that will have littered the house whilst Ben is home…

    Love you, Willy. Like a bus full of brand new socks.

    Momxo

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  • Inside Out Wishes

    Wish copy November 1, 2015 Dear Will, There is a sense of calm this morning as I visualize flipping the calendar to November. Since 2011, October has become a long and sad month and each year it continues to beat me up emotionally. We honored your birthday on the 14th in our own beautiful way and found ourselves busy both physically and mentally while we hoped and prayed for a positive outcome for Pa after he suffered a heart attack. He was airlifted to the Foothills Hospital in Calgary where he spent most of the last three weeks of October. It was a stressful time for all of us and I prayed extra hard that my Dad would make it through the open-heart surgery that was the only option to repair his heart. The unspoken and underlying possibility that Pa might join you in heaven weighed heavily on me, Will, and though there were moments where I wished I could trade places with him I was grateful and relieved when he was able to return home and begin his road to recovery and his second chance at life. October became a double whammy month of emotions and today I finally feel like I can breathe again. After spending weeks “hoping” I’m now back to spending my days “wishing”. Wishing that the outcome of the 22nd day of May 2011 were different. I wish that you were here sitting on the couch beside me right now with a pillowcase full of Halloween candy and a mouth full of chocolate. I wish your shoes were at the front door with mismatched socks “sort of in the vicinity” and that your jacket was draped/thrown over the stair banister with the arms pulled inside out. Yes. Inside out. The inside out thing was definitely a Will thing. When I’d do laundry I’d cuss and swear while sorting the clothes, annoyed that all of your t-shirts were inside out. And so I’d either turn them right side in before I’d toss them into the washing machine or before I folded them when they came out of the dryer… the extra time it took kind of drove me crazy. I remember the day I decided to leave them inside out and folded them that way thinking I was so clever and that giving you a taste of your own medicine would surely teach you a lesson, that it’d drive you crazy — but not only did you appear to not care even one bit I think you were completely oblivious to the whole inside out thing. That day, Will, changed the way I did laundry and to this day if there are t-shirts (or socks) that are inside out I leave them like that. Ha! I think. Ha! And like you, no one really seems to care that they are inside out. Oh my, the stuff that drives a mother crazy… I wish you were here with us every single day. Before your passing I used to consciously think about what I’d wish for if I was given a wish and now all I wish for is you. You with your tousled hair and your big feet. Maybe with socks, maybe without. You singing out LOUD to the music on your iPod with your ear buds in and me reminding you to remove them from your ears. You, Willy, loving Halloween because of all the candy and the chance to dress up and be silly with your friends. I would be the happiest human being on earth if the one wish I wished more than anything could come true. And even though I know it’s not possible I continue to wish that it were different. Love you, Willy. Like an inside out bus and a big wish. Momxo

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  • Mother’s Day without you

    Holding you close always and forever
    Holding you close always and forever
    Mothers Day, Sunday, May 12, 2013 (721 days) Dear Will, It’s not an easy day for me. I woke this morning and tried a couple of times to get out of bed, but I just couldn’t do it.  I took the Kleenex box back to bed with me and stayed there all morning. I am trying to find happiness in remembering all the Mothers Day’s I had with you; the breakfasts in bed, the dinners you and your brothers and Dad prepared, the handmade gifts you made at school and the most beautiful handmade cards that I loved more than anything. I have saved them all.  I considered them treasures always but now that I will never have another from you they are more precious than anything I own. As I write you this letter I am sitting on a blanket beside the rock and your tree at Heaven’s Gate; the place where we lost you forever almost two years ago.  It is both so very sad to be here but in some ways, comforting too. Memories of that day and the fun you were having here are as crystal clear as if it were yesterday and in the quiet times in between the birds chirping and a squirrel behind me in the forest chattering away I can hear your laugh and your voice. But, in the next breath as the tears trickle down my cheeks I, too, remember how it all came to an end and our world was changed forever. Before I sat down I opened a bag of wildflower seeds that I brought along with me and sprinkled it all around the rocks and the base of your tree. In a month or two from now I am hopeful that I can sit here amongst the wild flowers; this spot already beautiful but a little closer to heaven I think with a mix of wildflowers shining their faces up towards the sun during the day and bowing their heads at night as if praying for another day to keep you company. I am in no rush to leave this little place of heaven on earth. I will finish up the cup of tea that I also brought along before I pack up the blanket and my iPad and head back home.  Dad and your brothers are going to put together dinner for me this evening. We will talk about and remember the Mother’s Days when you, too, were at the table with us.  And we will all miss you so very, very much Love you, little one.  More than a bus. Momxo

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0 Comments

  1. That definitely made me cry dear Joni. I have been thinking about Will missing this special day with you all and oh how you would be missing him. My heart is with you my friend, I so wish I could make things better, that things were different. Know that I will be thinking of you all today, smiles and tears.

    Reply

  3. Joni you have such a gift with words. I am going to share in hopes my other special moms won’t feel alone in their loss. Strong hearts. xoxo Carol

    Reply

    1. Awe, thanks Carol. If my words can help even one mom then I’ve succeeded. I’d be honored if you shared. Strong, broken hearts… yes; held together by memories and love and the support of those that know the pain of losing a child. Like you. You and I will always walk hand in hand on this journey, Carol. Xo. (Would love to catch up soon. In Fernie weekend after next. Will you still be there?)

      Reply

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