CHEO Telethon ran over the weekend and raised lots of money!!  I personally know that with the Costco help and Team Paytan, 2 million dollars we donated!!

AMAZING!!!

So a while back… a while back… Paytan was in grade 4 and wanted to be an entrepreneur… she wanted to design a t-shirt to sell to raise money. She came up with design and together, We put it on the computer and printed out a few t-shirts for her to sell to her friends.
Through a friend we learned of a website to post your design ideas for the public to buy on t-shirts. Paytan asked if we could upload her design…. and we did!
I thought I would share her design and say that I just noticed it featured on the Redbubble Facebook site!

So a few weeks ago my girls’ school had a bake sale and raised $1400 for CHEO in Paytan’s name!! And….. someone suggested to contact Costco because they will match the donation!!
Our EA teachers connected with Costco and today, we as representatives of JYES and myself and Hails, on behalf of Paytan presented Costco with the raised funds!
They are matching the amount and over the next few more weeks continuing to raise money for CHEO!
We have been invited to join the Costco family during the CHEO Telathon in June to do the overall presentation!!
“It’s only a BAD DAY if you say it is”

Today, picking Hailey up from school… she had a memory that she shared with me …
She was 6 years old and Paytan was 8. They were sitting on Paytan’s bed and Hailey was crying because she had just realized that when Paytan was in grade 6 and she was in grade 4 that it would be Paytan’s last year in the same school as her. And that, Hailey said scared her a lot … Paytan hugged Hailey and told her that that time would be a long time away from then and it would be ok …
Hailey and I both had a good cry, because little did we know that Hailey’s fears back then were bigger than we truly knew!

We love you and miss you Paytan!

🎉🎂 Happy 13th Birthday my Sunshine!! 🎂🎉

We laid flowers on your grave today… and cried a lot because we miss you! I know you are in a far better place and probably having races around Heaven with your Daddy. Your sweet smile and the sound of your giggles will forever be in my ❤️. Your sister and I are watching your favourite show today… Bones… 😊

❤ I love you more than words can ever say ❤

As a parent we do everything humanly possible to protect our children….. the helplessness I felt when my child coded the first, second and third time…. I have no words how I felt….. nor could I stop what it did to my daughter…..

this is a note I found after her first coding…. a few months after she had passed away …💔

Today marks 6 years for my late husband’s second amputation….. This photo was taken a few hours after the actual amputation.

He was awake during both amputations and had only a nerve block…. no anesthesia!

Ten days later, March 21, 2011 he passed away from a massive diabetic heart attack.

❤️❤️

I long for the “full”silly days we used to have…. all the giggles, smiles and funniness. Once upon a time I had both my girls. My oldest is with her daddy in heaven…. my youngest I cherish whole heartedly….. if I could wrap her in bubble wrap…. lol…

Paytan, you’ve been gone a little bit over a year now and still it seems like yesterday.  Hailey and I miss you more than words we have to say…..

It breaks my heart every time I have to say the words I used to tell both you girls after Daddy died…. the words…” it’s not our time to go to heaven. When it is we will see each other again”….. those words I said to both you and your sister….. I now say to just your sister….. “it’s not our time”….

❤❤❤❤

Loss … how do you explain the loss of someone so close to you… someone you gave birth to… that dark empty space that was once shining.  How do you step out of the darkness and into the real world again? For me… it’s called auto pilot. A place where all my losses and sorrows are pushed away… deep down inside so that I can function day to day.  It’s the quiet times that you will see a tears in my eyes.  The down times, when I am just sitting, drifting and reflecting about what was once. Who was I then? Who am I now?  I was a wife before he passed away. Known for being that … it was always our names together when spoken to or about.  And now … it’s my name.

Same as my girls … was always my girls, the girls, their names were always said together …. and now it’s just her’s.

Loss… takes away a lot. It makes you hold closer those you can, who are still here.  My losses are deep and seem to be never ending. I can recount the passing of my pets, dogs, cat and gerbil …. a good friend in high school, an uncle, grandmother, grandfathers …  But loss can take the form of people just not being in your life anymore as well.  And I have many, many people who have walked away from my situations.  Stating that they, they can not deal with what is happening.  And they weren’t even helping… just watching.

Loss is felt deeply. And I supposed that saying that Time heals wounds could be applied here.  But does it heal the wound? Or do you just get used to the pain til it kind of numbs you?