One step at a time...

On November 16, 2009 I should have been celebrating the beginning of my 5th year in Vancouver...

On November 16, 2009 I should have been able to tuck my daughter in, sing her gently to sleep and tell her how much I love her...

On November 16, 2009 I should have been able to hear my daughter say "Je t'aime" as she trailed into dreamland...

Instead, on November 16, 2009 I was faced with the gross realization that it had been 7 months and 20 days since my daughter passed away in my arms...

And that the next day, she'll have been an angel longer than she's been alive by my side...

What a way to start a week, ugh?

But as I reflect on that day and those thoughts more specifically, I know that as this 5th year in Vancouver starts there is a wind of change that lifts me up. A wind that is powered by two very small lungs... Two very healthy lungs that belong to one hell of an angel... Angel Ella, my baby girl!

She is the force that makes me get up and breathe...

She is the strength that allows me to feel, feel with every ounce of my body... something I was probably unable to do very well before she came into my life....

She heightens my sense of smell... She is the spring in my step... and the song in my heart... The pupil of my eyes...

She brings me to tears and always follows through with a smile or a good giggle...

Without Ella, I might have gone on to live my life as uneventfully as I did before...

Without Ella, I might have not paid it forward as much...

Without Ella, I might not have really known what it was like to live and to really love....

And as I go about my day, there is not one moment that she is not on my mind..

I can still sense Ella's touch on my cheeks as she reaches for my hair...

I can still smell her baby smell...

I can still see every roll of her body as she dances playfully...

I can still feel the slight tug of my hair as she twists it over and over around her little finger...

And who could forget about "le doigt d'honneur" - that middle finger that would pop up on one hand as the other would give you a piece sign... F you and peace all at once - what a diplomat she was :)

I so wish I could have it all back, just for one more minute... to hold her... to sing to her... to kiss her... to tell her I love her...

That won't be possible until I meet her in afterlife, I know... And so I've decided that I would continue to do what I've been doing in the last nearly eight months and which has been working quite well so far: live knowing that Ella is always with me...

I know... you probably think I've lost my marbles... But why not?

Ella got me back on a horse after 4 years away... Afterall, that was supposed to be "our" thing.

Ella got me to start yoga... Okay, that one is not as much her as what happened to her. I just needed to something to help ground me. But I know she gets me through it!

Ella showed me pink glittery gum boots I had to buy last week, a couple of days after I went looking for puddles to play in (and did play in) because if Ella had been alive, that's what we would do together...

As Ella would have been 16 months in 2 weeks, we would be at the stage of doing crafts together and now thanks to her, I have a desire to be more creative - something from deep inside me that I am rediscovering... All in her memory but also because if Ella was with me, that's what we would do...

But in her passing, Ella gave me a beautiful gift... The gift of our lives together and our story... and though it is indeed a tragic story, it is a story to which I would make no changes except to bring her back...

Today, I was able to share that story with a room full of colleagues as I prepare to return to work on Monday... Some I know very well and some I'd never met... And just like it has been the case since Ella's passing, she continues to touch people... Or is it that we, together as mother and daughter, touch people...

Someone told me yesterday that Ella and I have a very special gift to share....

Someone told me last month that at 35 his life is not nearly as full and fulfilling as Ella's life has been and that he is inspired by her and how she continues to motivate people to be better individuals...

As I embark on new adventures, Ella will be with me just as she was today when I faced my fears head on. It will not be an easy road... It will not be a steady road... But with a rock-solid little girl like Ella with me, there is absolutely no way I can get lost...

ELLA - Everyone Loves Little Angels

Looking for answers...

It's been nearly a year....

In fact, next Thursday, Oct. 8, will mark the one year anniversary of obvious physical signs that supported what already knew... That my daughter Ella was sick... and that I did not why or from what....

How ironic is it that on the day I was taking a second formal step in figuring out how I can give Ella a brother or sister, the dreaded news came.... The news I'd been longing for, formally for a year minus a week although I questioned it from the day she was born... and which in the last few days I had secretely wished would never comes as a formal diagnostic...

Today, hours after meeting with the counsellor that would "clear" me to become a mom again, I got the news... Ella had a disease... And that disease now has a name... A disease which I may have passed on to her... A disease which, clearer than ever now, would take her life... Ella was missing a very crucial gene and there is no way we could have ever predicted it... or even saved her...

One doctor called it... And yet it was not thought of as being a the real cause for her illess... And then a pathologist called it, and still it was not thought of as being THE diagnostic... I guess science does not lie as today, both a doctor and a pathologist were in my thoughts and in my heart as I heard the news....

Ella, my sweet, vivacious, bright as button and so happy and charismatic litte girl did not stand a chance... And now, I am faced with a whole lot more questions than I started my day with...

Did I pass this genetic disorder to her... Can it happen again.... Could the stress and discontent that was surrounding me during pregnancy and what should have been the best days of my life contribute to Ella's illness? Could a diagnostic last November have rendered a better quality of life for my angel for those few precious months she had with us? Was there TRULY nothing we could do to save her?

As I ponder on all of those questions tonight, I am in disbelief... Disbelief that such a perfect little girl, with a smile that lit the sky and eyes that saw right through your soul, could be striken with such a radical illness that it silently kills her from the inside out...

Ella, I know was here for a reason. She has taught me so many lessons - some I never wished to learn and did not have a choice to learn; and some that were repeated to me for years on end and I still did not get them until now...

And as I strive to honour Ella and do right by her, I am left wondering what the future holds and if I am right in thinking from the moment I realized something was off with my baby girl, that I did this do her, completely oblivious and unaware of it.... or if this was a fluke of nature that brought me my little angel to teach me a lesson and make everyone's lives around more meaningful because she was part of it...

I doubt I'll find out about most of those answers in this lifetime, and in the meantime I will hang on to the thought that my beautiful angel Ella will send me the next best thing to her resurecting: a beautiful and healthy rainbow baby....

ELLA
Everyone Loves Little Angels