My Heavy Heart

ByJoni Bouchard

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

My Heavy Heart

Dear Will,

Not surprisingly, the month of May is weighing heavily on my heart. Seventeen days in and having made it through another Mother’s Day I thought maybe, just maybe, I might get through it without falling down. Well, I was wrong. As I digitally put pen to paper to write you this letter you have to know that I’ve verbally penned a thousand letters to you already this month. For a long while I’ve been able to spin a positive message on my pain… but this month, it’s just too much.

The lead up to your “Angel date” and more specifically the throwback to what was your last full week of life is one that has repeatedly been the most painful. The struggle to find balance is a challenge and the recipe that mixes the ingredients of work and home changes from day to day and moment to moment. I tried to be at work today, Will. I thought that being with the kids at school would be the distraction that I needed but it didn’t play out that way. I know that being in the school you loved can be a double-edged sword and though I’ve experienced both sides, for a long time I have found incredible comfort within those walls. Your happy place was my happy place, too, however, finding myself in your hallway and in your classroom and ultimately staring at your locker today sent me into a tailspin that I couldn’t recover from. All of those triggers together today were just too much for me.

In hindsight what I needed today was to be at home inside the memory-laden walls of our home with Dad and our big, brown chocolate lab. As I write Finn is beside me (one could argue he is half on top of me) his head on my lap. I quickly take notice of his chest as it rises up and down rhythmically with each breath. I stop typing concentrating on matching my own breath with his, the steady in and out, inhale and exhale… I close my eyes and caress his warm, velvety ears and my heart begins to feel lighter, the sting of my tears not quite as sting-y. The heaviness of the morning dissipates a little in this moment and I feel grateful to be right where I am. I believe the lesson in these waves of overwhelming grief is to let them happen, to ride them out so to speak. Eventually the tears have to spill; after all a heart can only hold so much pain at one time.

In the rain/snow mix that is also today (how fitting?) I have found my spot on the couch with a blanket and the warmth of a fire burning in the fireplace. It is here now that I will sink into sleep while I think of you and happier times. I will reminisce about when our world was perfect and my heart didn’t know the heaviness of living without you.

I love you, Willy. Like a bus. A big, beautiful bus with a heart full of light and brown velvety chocolate lab ears.

Momxo

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    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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  • Signs and Big, Big Love

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    Dear Will,

     

    For 24 days Christmas has been looming and try as I might to extinguish some of the hype and build-up, to downplay the shopping and wrapping, and gift giving… it still comes… like a Willy in a china shop.  Why do we do it?  Why, when it’s just not right that you’re not going to be sitting with us Christmas morning in your pajama pants, a t-shirt and your hair going in every direction?  This question comes up over and over and over.  And the answer is always the same — because you would have wanted us to celebrate Christmas.  And so we do.

     

    IMG_1783

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    gingerbread

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    Happy Christmas in heaven, Little Blue.  Thanks for gifting us with the presence of your spirit on all our yesterdays, and for today and tomorrow and everyday.  As I wipe away my tears and follow them with a smile I am reminded that you are never far away, and that you are the answer to many of my questions.   I would do anything for you, Will… even Christmas. 

     

    I miss you and I love you.  Like a bus full of Christmas magic.  And big sparkles. 

     

    Momxo

     

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0 Comments

  2. One minute you were telling me you were okay, the next minute I couldn’t find you. Oh how the overwhelming feelings just take over. My heart is so heavy for you. Loads of love.

    Reply

      1. … and that’s how grief works. I thought I could shake it off, Mary, and then BAM I was in the middle of it. It’s like a knife in my heart all over again.

        Reply

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