Category Archives: Pulling for Paytan – The Beginning

Life of my daughter Paytan… from the beginning describing her, personality, being through school years to her illness and then diagnosis and treatment. Ultimately her passing

Pulling for Paytan - The Beginning

February 18, 2016

I’d to share a moment with you guys…
Just down the road from CHEO… On the way to the Queensway… There is a road called “Freedom”.
Paytan noticed the sign on our first drive home… And started to cry. She asked me to turn around, and pull onto the street. I did and parked facing the street sign… She sighed and asked me to play the song “Home”, by American Authors”… I sat giving her a …huge hug… Listening to her sing along. My eyes filled with tears as she said “I love you, Mommy. To the moon and back. Forever and always”

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I’ve got these letters tattooed on my arm
That remind me each second of where I come from
And the long hard road to get me back home

Back to my mama who raised me up right
And back to my lady who I held every night
It’s a long hard road trying to get home

I’d been gone now for too long

I’m not trying to stop a hurricane
I’m not trying to shake the ground below
I’m just trying to find a way to make it back home

I’m not trying to part the ocean waves
I’m not trying to overthrow the throne
I’m just trying to find a way to make it back home
I’m just trying to get home

I’ve got this image engraved in my mind
Of a light that I had in a whole different time
It still breathes and lives at the end of the road

I’ve seen mountains and valleys through my missing days
But I never once parted with how you begged me to stay
I will run down that long hard and treacherous road to get home

I’ve been gone for so long
But my heart it carries on
As it pounds like a drum
On my journey back home

I’ve been gone for so long
But my heart it carries on
I won’t give up

I’m just trying to get home

American Authors “Home”

Pulling for Paytan - The Beginning

February 26 2016

After last weeks successful book fair, John Young School Council is donating almost $600 worth of books in Paytan’s name to the library at CHEO. The photo I attached are labels that Kirsten Farago created that are being placed in all of the books. If the flowers look familiar, that is because I replicated line for line the drawing Paytan did for her Mom when she was six

Pulling for Paytan - The Beginning

January 19, 2016

My dearest Paytan….
You were a gift from God that I cherished every single day. I waited longer to have you than I had the honour of having you with me.
My heart is in a million pieces … And yet I have to find the beats to carry your sister through the darkness.
My screams are silent as I can’t even find the words to express my devastation of loosing you.
My thoughts are like the swirling whirl of water pulling me under the helplessness I have, as not to have been able… to make it all better.
I’ve lost my breath, and feel faint and sick at the same time.
My memories are surrounded by your smiles and love.
I have no words to say how much you meant to me.
Mommy

Pulling for Paytan - The Beginning

March 7, 2016

To say what I am feeling… Or to describe the black hole that blinds my thoughts…..
That brief moment when your eyes blinked… Your mind thought a thought… And… Then… The incredible sick to your stomach, over whelming blackness of helplessness and panic hits…. The gut wrenching, knees giving out from under you….

you thought you lost your child in a crowded mall.
Well… That’s kind of touching my heart’s pain

Pulling for Paytan - The Beginning

Together

I waited so long to have you… you were “My Sunshine”.
When I look at your pictures, I know exactly what was happening at that moment.
I can tell you everything about it.
A year has gone by now and yet time stands still for me. I can reflect on the events that
all lead up to your passing… thinking about the “what ifs”, and mostly the “whys”.
Why did you have to have cancer? Why did you have to have so many complications?
Why did it have to be so bad? And why did you have to pass away?  No answers…
The stillness of the quiet thoughts embrace my fountain of tears.
I love to see my friends and their kids… the same age as my Boo Bear.
I must say I am jealous of their time with their children. Entering into the
teenage years and all the wonders of growing up.
I do so thank God for the time I have to live and share with my youngest daughter.
To watch her growing up to a young, beautiful, smart woman.
Together our heart long for Paytan … together our tears of sadness comfort each other.
And together we will pick ourselves up, carry each other forward…
until we meet again.