Nothing could be further from the
truth. Yes, having our daughter’s sweet
name brought up by strangers in air-
ports, shopping malls and emails was
sometimes a reminder of our loss (in
that rare instance that it wasn’t already
at the front of our minds). But that
momentary jolt was always replaced
by a sense of gratitude that people
were thinking of her. As long as she
remained in their thoughts, she hadn’t
yet disappeared completely.
THE FIRST YEAR IS, by far, the hardest.
But the Big Days always carry an
awful weight. Experts suggest that
some of the feelings we may notice on
special days include confusion, sad-
ness, longing, irritability, worry and
frustration. They remind us that mourn-
ing takes a lot of time, and grief never
entirely dissipates. We have to be
patient, as do those around us who
wonder why we’re not dressing in
bright colours yet or why we aren’t div-
ing back into our lives.
The heaviness of the loss of our child
returns on her wedding day, although
more so for me than for Rob. I invested
a lot of emotional energy into planning
Lauren’s wedding, putting on the event
that I wished I’d had. Other days that
carry heaviness are, of course, all of
our birthdays (especially hers) and
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day: all of
those events where we’d shared special
memories. And then there’s Christmas.
During the first holiday season we
spent without our daughter, we lit-
erally ran away from home. I found a
fellow Canadian who rented out his
house on the island of St. Martin, in
the Caribbean. We booked it and
stayed for two weeks, doing whatever
we could to get ourselves through that
awful, awful season.LOSING LAUREN WAS everything I
feared but nothing I could have pre-
vented. And if I dwell on that for any-
thing longer than a fleeting instance, I
could lose my mind. And so our job is
to keep going. To remember and hold
close our hope that our souls will be
together again one day with Lauren’s
and to reflect with joy and love and
laughter on the times we had here, the
three of us, in those golden 24 years. To
be grateful that we have no regrets and
can say we were the best parents we
could be (with room for improvement,OUR JOB IS TO REMEMBER AND HOLD
CLOSE OUR HOPE THAT OUR SOULS WILL BE
TOGETHER AGAIN ONE DAY WITH LAUREN’S.rd.ca 99