Letters to Heaven

I think today that heaven will be abuzz with with messages.  So many people sending thoughts and prayers and wishes.  Of course there is a steady stream of traffic of those messages throughout the year.  But on this day, when you, Laramie, and Brooke were gathered up by the angels and taken from us, the world stops a bit as we all remember our last goodbyes.  And you three were loved by so many.

I cannot focus all of the things I wish and wonder, I will need so many letters to heaven over the years.

Dear Jaycena,

It seems like so long since we have talked.  How are you doing in your new place?  I wonder if you have birds, and bunnies, and horses, and cats since you always loved them so.  Can you see the Saskatchewan sunsets and the waves of wheat moving in the slow summer winds from your place?

I wish I had a new picture, so I know how you wear your hair now that you're 23, and is your favorite color still green?  I could use your help finding some new music for my ipod, and I wish you could play me your new favorites and tell me about your adventures.

I'd like to hear about where you've been and the things you've seen.  I wonder if you can go anywhere and see anything.  I like to think you visit us lots, and hear what we say to you.  I hope you are with us as often as I think you are.  Do you see your great grandma's a lot?  What about those cats of mine?  You have so many friends and family with you now.  But still so many to check on back here, especially that little brother of yours, who is doing just fine I must say.

I don't need to say I wish you were here in person.  I'm sitting at the kitchen table at Grandma's, how many hours we all spent around this I couldn't guess.  But it feels like you should be in the chair across from me, with your feet up, in some cozy sweats and a T-shirt telling me about your life, and we could tease whoever wandered by next.  Because if you were here I think everyone would be gathered up, and there would be lots of people to tease.  I wonder if you'd be making your chili, and if french fries would need to be on tonight's menu.  It's a great day to sit on the couch and watch a movie and sip hot chocolate.  I think about these simple things, things that could be called a waste of time, because these are the little moments that a life is made up of.  I could make grand statements and proclamations, or quote literary giants as I sometimes do, but none of them talk about how I would trade away anything I have for an afternoon of quiet nothingness with you in Saskatchewan today, the simplicity of a movie and a shared bag of ketchup chips.

I would like to invite you to come stay with me -- to walk a piece of the Iditarod trail and see the Balto statue, to see the bears.  But then I wonder if you'd still rather go to New York.  How I'd love to take you there.  There's even a Canadian lululemon there, if you still like that style.

I wish I knew what you should be doing here on earth today, where you had chosen to live and what work you were doing.  After seven years, I know some of your thoughts and plans would be different, and how can I guess where it would have taken you?  Sometimes it bothers me more than others...not knowing these simple things.

"Take me away I need the sand and the waves the sunset and let's not forget those warm autumn days"

I just wanted to tell you I miss you and love you.  I want to ask when I'll see you again, and if you'd be visiting soon?

Love Beetle

It would be a short and simple letter, because I would write again soon.  I would be hoping see you soon too.  Right now am I remembering you smiling in Punta Cana and we drew funny pictures in the sand that the waves would quickly wash away.  I would hope we could go to a sunny sandy beach again soon, if I could hope for such things.

I think a lot today about your mom, and Laramie's mom, and Brooke's mom.  I know they have their own letters to send to heaven.  I think of all your friends and special people who I know feel today as deeply as we do.

I wonder many of the same things for Brooke, and for Laramie.  What special things would they love, where would they be today.  And yes, I wonder about their hair too.

So heaven has more than its share of special angels.  I wonder why they were needed there so soon.  But I do believe we carry them with us always.  And the pieces of us that broke and were lost are carried with them where they are.  And so in that strange way, which is never quite enough, we at least become whole again...on both sides.

Love you...today, always, and forever.

"If you hear this where ever you are just know I need you here.  I need you near me now no matter what I do.
I will always carry you in my heart.  You'll always be my shooting star."

Heaven Sent

Jaycena would be 22 today.  She should be receiving Happy Birthday calls, making good on plans with friends, being spoiled.  I should be telling her all the things today that made me think of her and smile.  I should be hearing about her special day.  But there were no words today.

From Jaycena's Facebook page, words she chose in the corner

There were no words, but there was a sled dog, and in my head spun thousands of words about Balto.  Memories of the cartoon, her still childlike voice saying "Balto," and images of her drawing Balto, talking about Balto to Grandma, watching Balto for the hundredth time with Grandpa and both of them yelling "Barooooooooooo" along with him as he howls into the Alaska wind.  Balto.  Jaycena should be able to see my 'Balto' today.

As a young girl, Jaycena also loved horses.  All horses, all colors, sizes, shapes, breeds.  She carried toy horses, cuddles toy horses, slept with horses, and talked and drew about horses and horses and horses.  There were no words, but there were wild horses along the road. 

This is always a hard day.  My sister sent a little message this morning to wish me safe travels and remind me that a special angel would be watching out for me today.  And indeed safe passage from the Yukon to a town with services in Alaska was made -- despite a punctured tire and some 600 km between garages.  At the end of that was a kind act of a garage that stayed open late to do the repair and charged $9 and declined any extra saying "give it to someone who needs it."  Northern Electric in Tok, Alaska gets a shout out for the earthly assistance...a shout out to my little angel Jaycena who surely put it all together.

And so on her 22nd birthday, what is lacking in words in present in signs all through the days.  Her presence in my world left an imprint that will last the rest of my life.  I found a little snowman in the Alaska wilderness, and tucked a little bear in its scarf for a moment along the way...a little bear given to me once by a little girl long ago yet yesterday...my sign to her in lieu of words.  Happy Birthday...love you Jaycena.

It's Fall in Bermuda

Fall is in the air in Bermuda.  Maybe it's just the Canadian in me that makes me ultra sensitive to the changes, but I am using this morning off to reflect on the past summer and the summers past in Bermuda.  The sky is grey outside, the coffee is going down smoothly, Lexi is asleep on my memory foam pillow, the panthers have curled up on couches and kitty trees, and the music playlist is soft and slow, a playlist I made in memory of my niece Jaycena.  Taylor Swift is singing about fall in her song Tim McGraw as I go to percolate another cup of coffee.  She is heavy on my mind today.  Maybe it's the restless sleep I had with dreams of other people when I would have rather been dreaming of her.  Maybe it's the inquiry of why I sign off facebook status updates with iluj -- many people ask, I don't mind.  Or maybe the melancholy of fall just reminds me of that wound in the heart that never heals.  Most of Our Lady Peace's song Thief has played while I stare out the window.  It really is grey, but the rain has stopped.  There are so many good memories, and i have to remember I will never lose her completely.

Lady Antebellum has a perky beat that will get me back on track.  I first noticed that it was fall about 10 days ago.  The little signs started adding up.  The first sign was realizing that it was getting dark far too soon.  The sunsets began coming at 6:45pm, and disappearing a minute a day, making it harder to photograph them if i was working a late shift.  Next while driving to the beach to photograph some pink sand last week I noticed one lone tree in Astwood park that had yellow and red leaves.  That's when it hit me...it's fall.  I don't think there are very many deciduous trees on the island, but that one was there standing out like a beacon.

We are now onto Seether singing The Gift.  It's hard to type while I'm singing in my head.  It was only a few days after seeing that tree that I was driving home around 8 in the evening and felt the unmistakable chill of the air that grips us cyclists in the winter.  That's another sign that summer is over...expats going home to their snug little stone homes at an early evening.  Now onto Jamestown story singing In Loving Memory.  Definitely not getting a lot of typing done -- perhaps another sign of fall is a faltering focus.  But back to the chilly winter air.  If you look at the temperatures in Bermuda in the winter, they will deceptively remain between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius.  That really doesn't sound so bad.  However, being surrounded by water, and damp air with a high humidity, it actually feels much colder.  Bermuda does not report a wind chill, even when we have winter storms with gale force winds of that cold air hitting you on an open scooter in the driving rain.  It feels well below zero at that time, although nobody from North America ever believes this.  Then there is also that fact that when you arrive cold and wet to your limestone home you have to resort to fuzzy socks and an electric blanket as there is no central heating in Bermudian homes.  It may be getting a little chilly for a dress on the bike in the evenings, but we are still aways from the long weeks off fuzzy socks and blankets, fortunately.  That usually starts sometime between Boxing Day and New Year's, and hangs in steady until March.

Avril Lavigne has now given away to more Taylor Swift...Fifteen.  Two of Jaycena's favorite artists.  Wonder who she would be listening to today.  I can probably guess.

The second last sign of fall was going back on day shift and needing to be at work at 0800.  When the alarm went off the sun had not yet risen, which caught me by surprise after several weeks on later shifts.  Not quite the blackness that preceded dawn in the winter mornings in Northern Alberta...but a definite soft gray instead of a bright sunny day.  Even the panthers weren't interested in waking up and causing chaos on that morning.

As Memories by Within Temptation plays,  we get to the final sign of fall.  I was at a friend's going away barbecue on the weekend.  Not only did I keep looking at the time on my phone in the blackness at 8:30, but I zipped up my jacket before sunset.  This did prompt a few taunts from the other guests about me not being very brave about the cold for a Canadian.  That's when I realized we Canadians have a little bit better barometer and sense the coming cold a bit better than most.  Because here we are just a few days later, under a grey sky, and I just spotted another tree with red leaves out my window while Taylor Swift sings September.

The good news is that fall here occurs late here while winter is already looming at home.  It is much kinder and gentler guest here.  It also represents a time where events settle down a little bit on the island.  I might spend a bit more time at the gym, some much needed time at home, and even a much needed morning alone with old songs and bittersweet memories to ground me after a long and busy summer, to help me rest and reflect, and to gather strength for the winds of change that are picking up in my life again.

And so I close while Seether sings Broken, and see FM Static's Tonight is up next, followed by Natasha Bedingfield's Wild Horses.  A perfect fit.  iluj.  and you too JJ cat.

Jaycena, Forever in our hearts.