About a week ago I participated in Grady's paddle. Grady is the son of Jen, a mom I met through my bereavement group in my community. Grady was born with a heart condition and despite receiving several operations before he was even 6 months old, in the end he succumbed to these operations meant to save his life. Jen and her husband decided to start a fund in his name with a well known children's hospital in our area. They have done a few fundraisers, but this one has been their largest yet! Over 100 people turned out to participate in the paddle and they were able to give a large donation to the hospital. This fundraiser was called Grady's paddle , a 21 or 32km paddle down the Magnetawan river. It is is up north in cottage country, and it was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. My sister came with me. We rented a tandem kayak and were on the water paddling for almost 6 hours! My sister and I did 23km before our arms felt like they were going to fall off and we opted for the ride back and to be content with the shorter paddle. Not too bad for non-frequent paddlers! I was so glad to help out Jen with their vision and to keep Grady's memory alive.
Today I was looking at the calendar and realized that this Friday it will be 7 months since Julia was born, and this past Monday she would have been 3 months old if born full term. I think about what she would be doing right now, if she would have been a slow feeder like Ethan, if she would have been a good sleeper. I think too how my family's life would have been affected. Would Ethan have responded well? He is Mommy and Daddy's little helper, but would he have grown jealous? Sometimes I wonder what this house would have sounded like with two kids laughing, two kids crying. Right now the "baby room" is our "spare room". We can't come to call it the baby's room. It is too much of a reminder. It is full of Ethan's clothes that are too small on him, toys, Ethan's toddler bed, the change pad. I am glad that it is this way. That room was never Julia's space. Maybe in a few more months it would have been, but now Julia's space is in our hearts and in her lovely carved box "Angel of Mine" in our bedroom.
What a beautiful way to remember! I love the idea of Grady's paddle.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the "baby room". Such a hard thing to get our minds around. Ours stayed the "baby room" because we never gave up hope that we would put a baby in there some day.
(HUGS)
Grady's paddle sounds amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe room. It's so hard. We have the dilemma now of it being the 'new' baby's room...which is hard because it is very, very much Matthew's room and has been for quite some time.
We have other rooms that could be the new baby's room...but there was so much purpose put forth in Matthew's room being the nursery--for a lot of different reasons. If we had another baby after Matthew (had he lived), we would have moved him out because it is really the perfect 'baby' room.
I don't know how it will be able to be a room for two...one of whom never got to actually see it. It's just one more of those things that sort of kicks you in the gut when you feel like there is no room left for kicking...
Glad for an update! Thinking of you!
Grady's Paddle sounds so wonderful. Glad it was a good turnout and that they got donations for the hospital. I wear bracelets and a necklace everyday that make me feel close to my babies. I often wonder the same questions you are asking. How can we not wonder... xx
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