Affliction of a decade

You wake up assuming the day will be like all others, but on this day 10 years ago I went to bed a different person, having had to let my 51 day old baby go, having to watch my almost 3 & 5 year old say goodbye to the little sister they were anxiously awaiting for 10 months. Walking out of a hospital I had come to know so well I could navigate it with my eyes closed. 10 years ago I drove to the hospital like every other day but on this day I got some irreversible news, news that left me with a choice no parent should need to make. Every day we wake up thinking just another day. But little do we know what is ahead for us.

So Live.

Take the extra 5 mins in the shower, pet your dog a bit longer, kiss your spouse or kids or if you’re lucky enough to your parents or grandparents twice! Say I love you. Live today knowing what you thought to be may be different at days end.

With honor I remember my daughter Lily Emma Olive Hall Today.

Affliction of a decade

Thank you for reading,

Sheri

Those darn Facebook memories….

They get you every time, a forgotten moment or a longed for one….

sigh…

Taking a break, for me.

Today is day 1 of my 4 week leave of absence from work. I took it for multiple reasons, mainly my mental health. But also largely to step back and focus for a moment.

My dad, who I haven’t seen since Thanksgiving 2019 as he was placed in a care home on the Island right before Covid started. In the last 2 years he has progressed rapidly in his dementia, possibly in the final stage now as he cannot walk, talk, eat or chew. He was still doing all that when I last saw him just over 2 years ago. So fingers crossed ferries don’t get cancelled and I pass the rapid test at the door tomorrow I will get to see him for in my heart I know may be the last time.

In a few weeks it will be the 10th time Lily will die in my arms, mind and heart all over again and with that distance in time the mind is incredibly fogged. Lastly, my family, my kids miss their mom to no guilty end and Steve and I have struggled with our marriage because of him working from home and having being tasked with the kids more.

All of these have strained on my mental health and well being.Is this timing well thought out economically? No. But we get this one life, money comes and goes. I lived off nothing before, I am not scared of being poor.Most of the time we have what we need even if not what we want. I choose not to worry about that but instead all the needs of those around me who need me, including myself.

🙏💙See you in a few weeks.

My 4 beautiful kids

My daddy.

thank you for reading.

Rest in peace and Power Thich Nhat Hanh

10 years of Hindsight

Hind·sight; understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed. “with hindsight, I should never have gone”

10 years ago today was my due date for my third child.

Though if you ask me it was two weeks earlier according to my knowledge of my body and what my last cycle was, not according to an ultrasound that this date was based on.

10 years ago I should have advocated better for myself and my unborn baby who was ready and needed to come out. I should have demanded to be induced or asked for a c- section.

10 years ago I cried constantly, daily, hourly, knowing that something did not feel right. Deep inside my being something was wrong but instead of following my instinct I trusted the doctor and did nothing.

10 years ago today was my due date. A day that was supposed to be filled with excited energy and expectations. Not the dread that I woke up with.

10 years ago this week my daughter turned inside my stomach for the last time, she flipped herself to be feet first or breach as it’s known as. What we didn’t know was that she was actually folded in half, that what the doctor felt and thought was her head at my appointment later today was actually her bum. Had he (the doctor) realized what he was touching like the nurse did a week from now I would have been induced or more likely given an emergency c section.

10 years ago this coming week my daughter was not receiving the nutrients she needed from my placenta anymore. In the coming week she’d lose .4 of a pound, a warning sign that went disregarded.

10 years ago this week I was the most anxious and scared for what or why, I didn’t know yet.

In hindsight, I should have said she wasn’t moving enough, in hindsight I should have said something felt very wrong, in hindsight I should have argued about my due date being inaccurate, that she needed to come out. In hindsight I would have asked more questions and demanded more answers.

Thanks for reading,

Sheri

Timemachine;

A poem about grief…

By Sheri Hall

If I could build a time machine to take me far away

I’d visit not a place or time; just a moment from one day

A chance to hold your head and hands even if I had to feel the pain again

If I could build a time machine to take me back to you, if only for a minute, that is what I would do

To stare into your eyes, memorize the feeling, hold your head in my hand until we fell asleep again

If I could build a time machine I would go ten years back, you would be safe in my tummy future still intact

if I could build a time machine, I would re do almost every moment, make them leave me alone with you and be even more impatient

If I could build a time machine I would give myself more grace and know that I had no choice or say in the last time I saw your face

If I could build a time machine I would give a proper goodbye knowing it was the last time I would ever see your eyes

If I could build a time machine, I would go back and know I could change nothing, but re live the moment I had with you and cherish it once again.

Thanks for reading,

Sheri Hall

This poem is written for my daughter Lily, for what would be her 10th birthday this December, in honor of her life and my grief; I share.

Affliction of a decade

I sat at the window staring into nothing, my mind blank; feeling overwhelmed and raw. The phone rings, it is the doctor from Children’s hospital, he tells me we must meet immediately, they have discovered new information regarding my baby girl in the pediatric unit after some more testing was done. I feel anger build inside of me, I never agreed to any testing! After all it was all I could focus on, not the possible information he suddenly knew. I said we would drive down shortly and hung up.

The ache of unknown filled me with dread. As many other days I got up and proceeded through motions of necessity with out really thinking about what I was doing. I arranged for a friend to pick up my oldest from kindergarten and my one in preschool not worrying about what they will do, think or eat, like I obsessed over many times, like I guilt over in the after. Steve and I got in the car and drove the hour to the main childrens hospital, the one no parent ever wants to frequent.

We saw our daughter, so slight in her big hospital bed, dried blood on her head and arms, from trying to access a vain the nurse tells me, again I am angered, why could you, did you not wipe it clean? I wanted to scream at these people, these nurses who were seemingly unbothered, who carried on conversations around us about their daily insignificant happenings of their lives. The doctor was told we were there and within minutes we were ushered into a meeting room. This is an odd feeling, most, if not everytime you wait, and wait, and not this time, this is how you know, the anguish and anxiety settles inside you beside the unknown fear that you cant shake.

Her trachea is 1/8 the size of a normal trachea, it is why we always have trouble intubating her, she has multiple rare and a few common holes in her heart, he says all this very matter of factly. We though it was just brain stem damage from birth but it seems she will never live a normal life. I am staring a the table in front of me unable to process my thoughts and feelings, suddenly worried and fearful about my boys who are not with me who wont know why I sent someone else to pick them up. I am filled with helplessness. He is still talking but I am not listening, I tune in as he is saying he will perform the multiple surgeries to attempt to fix these problems but the risk of survival for a healthy baby was slim, and well, she was not a healthy baby. and those words tore straight through my heart, I made a broken baby. It was all my fault.

He would give her a tracheotomy to help her breathe. That in turn would mean she would never, eat, drink or talk. She did already have a feeding tube, which was good, one less surgery, was he making a joke? The irritation I was constantly feeling at the staff here because for them this was another sick or dying baby/child and another day at work that they seemingly were unscathed by any of it and if they were they never showed it.

The damage was done, these moments, these last 57 days of driving back and forth from the hospital, the trauma it produced unknowingly inside my head, to be terrorized by in the after. Waking up from night terrors, feeling confused and unsure of my surroundings and constantly scared as to where my kids were. Sometimes I would dream she was laying beside me and I crushed her. The look of her lifeless body on my living room floor, steves scream for my help because she wasn’t breathing, trying to resuscitate in a state of panic and horror. All of these things caused conflict inside myself. As friends often said in the after I was changed. I rarely smiled, spoke little, and became recluse.

This was ten years, well almost ten years ago. It would be Lily’s 10th birthday this December 30th 2021 and this coming February 18th 2022 will be a decade since this day I described above The day we were asked to make the worst decision of our lives.. We signed the DNR, held our little baby girl as they took all the tubes off and sat in silence as she faded away. The shock of what was happening was like dark sunglasses plastered to my face and I could not remove. They have faded, subtly over this past decade but the affliction of the cause will always be there.

Thank you for reading,

For 10 years these thoughts, happenings and memories have haunted me. I’ve tried many times in different spaces to express them, to let them out. This morning at 430 I woke up and words ran through my head, inescapable. I got up and wrote this. I feel incredibly relieved that I was finally able to put my torment into words, and let it out and let it go. 💜

Sheri

Sadness

sadness equates pain

sameness levels ordinary

hurt to which is unbearing

loss to which unequivocal

feelings that never disappear

thoughts that don’t heal

a heavy heart, a dropped tear

unexplained sadness from previous years

unconscious grief left unchecked

forced to flee from our regret

learning to live with a pain that fades

and a sadness that never goes away

Thanks for reading

sheri

Truth and Reconciliation…Words remind us…

Definition: word<pronounced<wərd, plural<words

A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.a command, password, or signal. “I don’t like the word “unofficial””Similar:term name expression designation location turn of phrase idiom appellation vocable.

Definition: Truth<pronounced> trooth<noun

1. the quality or state of being true.”he had to accept the truth of her accusation”Similar:veracitytruthfulnessveritysinceritycandorhonestygenuinenessgospelgospel truthaccuracycorrectnessrightnessvalidityfactualnessfactualityauthenticitydinkum oilOpposite:dishonestyfalsity
   • that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.noun: the truth“tell me the truth”

Definition: rec·on·cil·i·a·tion: reconciliation; plural noun: reconciliations

1. 1.the restoration of friendly relations.”his reconciliation with your uncle”Similar:reunitingreunionconciliationreconcilementpacificationappeasementplacatingpropitiationmollificationresolutionsettlementrectificationsettlingresolvingmendingremedyingrestoration of harmonyagreementcompromiseunderstandingpeacean end to hostilitiesamityconcordrapprochementdetentefence-mendingharmonizingharmonizationsynthesissquaringadjustmentbalancingsyncretizationOpposite:estrangementalienationfeudincompatibility
2. 2.the action of making one view or belief compatible with another.”he aims to bring about a reconciliation between art and technology”

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/how-canada-forgot-about-more-than-1308-graves-at-former-residential-schools#:~:text=Since%20May%2C%20more%20than%201%2C308,found%20on%20Penelakut%20Island%2C%20B.C.

The rezzy memes

 When 215 becomes 5296 and hardly no one is talking about it… there is a problem.

Words can hurt, words can heal, words that need(ed) to be said but can never be unheard. Words that trigger thought or memory. Words can bring up curiosity and wonder. Words tell a story, offer explanation, give instruction. Words can cause and altercation, discontent and confusion or bring up debate and discussion. Words emote feelings and expression. But for me the reason for this post on words is a trigger word. Trigger words are not always bad either. Many of us think triggered as we become angry, but a word can trigger a memory, a thought of a lost loved one. That is the trigger words I was thinking of yesterday as I made dinner, naming the food in my head as I cooked, the specific ingredient that suddenly triggered a name or person to which my mind relates it to. How often are words, smells thoughts triggers?

Sorry. A simple but extremely powerful word. Sorry.

Sorry for what I said. Sorry for what I did.

In recent months the residential school murders have been unearthed. Not discovered, as these communities have always known. And a few, who cared to learn, learned of residential schools and it’s torture of young indigenous children in post secondary because for what now seems to be obvious reasons the government has chosen not to teach it in the K-12 school curriculum, though some amazing teachers take it upon themselves to include it.

Having had many arguments with my “white” counter parts about reparations and the need to acknowledge what we as landed immigrants have done. They, for the most part throw out the usual, they don’t pay taxes! They have free reserve land, their drunks… It’s hard to listen to and I have always pushed back on these people. Mostly because I am a compassionate human who has empathy. But more so because my dad whose father was Filipino, to which made him look native with a white mother and was incessantly teased. For being native. Like there is something wrong with being a real native person to this country, an indigenous person with actual right to this land.

I bought this book for someone I know who constantly argued that ‘Natives” didn’t have it that bad, that we have made things up to them and that they were tired of hearing about it. I would constantly ask if they really knew the extend of what white settlers did to them? This book does an amazing job at pointing out the facts in timeline form what exactly was done by the newly formed Canadian government of white men who wanted this land and to diminish aboriginal people it originally belonged to.

Thank you for reading,

Sheri

My Flower

I love drawing flowers, chalk is my favorite. Thought I’d add a poem I wrote 8 years onto it.
Hope you’re well during this pandemic, keep hope alive. The light is getting bigger.

Thanks for reading,
Sheri

Broken

My son grunted from the other room, ‘whats wrong’? I yelled, my drawer he says. I get up and walk over, he’s visibly frustrated, the handle is off. I grab it and start to fix it, he says on the verge of tears, you cant, its broken. I see why he says that, though I have fixed this problem before. He is upset because this is my dresser, I gave to him because his broke. My dresser from before kids. I know the handles loosen and fall off. He is upset at not knowing how to fix the problem or that it happened at all. I say its ok. I got it. He leaves the room and I begin to shake.

I am suddenly 12 years old and alone fixing my drawer. I never had help. On one hand I am resilient, independent and strong. On the other I am alone, independent and unable to-trust. I fixed his dresser as I sobbed remembering how I had done this and similar tasks on my own, solely as a child. ‘figure it out’ was my mom’s best advice. Only advice. Figure it out on your own more like. Never help. I felt unloved. If she loved me she’d help me. She didn’t.

This photo is what triggered me. I was feeling good with clean skin, took this picture and all I saw is the scar on my right eye from my face hitting the steering wheel in a car accident at 21. My mom never asked what happened. I always thought it odd. As though she doesn’t care.

I chose, when I had kids, that I would be different than my mother. I would always do, be and help my kids. I would never let them ” figure it out” alone. What is the point of a parent? If not to help them grow, to teach and grasp life together.

My step mom told me once that my mom asked her not to help me…to pick me up if I called… She disagreed ( thank god) and picked me up when I was stranded..its not like I called often. I think it was twice in 5 years…but do you know what that meant to me, her showing up.

The world. It taught me how I wanted to raise my kids. That I cared and that I would always be there.

We all have issues, we’re all told to learn and grow and get over them but some, like abandonment from a parent are harder to accept and get over. Especially when that parent thinks they did nothing wrong.

You feel broken.

You feel feel alone. You get mad when people try to help because your used to being expected to do it on your own. You dont need help, you’ll figure it out. As a parent, to think my kids would ever think they are alone crushes me and I will always help them and be there for them. This world will break them, like we all do or are at some point but it will not be because I, their mother would not help them along the way.

Thanks for reading

Sheri