My heart is extra heavy today with the all too familiar hollow feeling mixed with anxiety as three years today at 3:20pm I watched my sweet baby girl close her eyes and go to sleep forever. As I wrapped her tiny little hand in mine while her daddy and I cradled her in our warm embrace I could feel her little pulse beat slower and slower. Never have I been so present in a moment as I was in the last hours of her life that day. Watching and witnessing every little detail of her knowing that at any moment it would all end. How does a mother look into her daughters eyes in her last precious moments of life and soak it all in to remember her eyes, smile, little face, little piggy tails and the touch and feel of her knowing to never have it again for the rest of my existence. Trying to do all of that and still help her feel comfort and safe in our arms so she's not afraid or feeling pain, and tell her for her own comfort but not really mean it that "it's okay baby girl you can go to sleep, your free to go, mommy and daddy are here". I had asked and begged her so many times to stay and not to leave mommy, sometimes screaming it, that i knew it was my job to tell her it was okay for her to go. Not wanting any of this but knowing it had to be said to her because so many times i think she held on for me. In the end our hope was lost, our battle was fought, in the end SMA won.
Tragically, Beautiful is how I best put this day into clarity 3 years later.
At this point in my life that day was the most tragic, horrific awful day I've ever had to experience but right beside it was the experience of life, death and heaven surrounding me and Scott in just four walls of the PICU. To put into words the peacefulness we felt comforting and embracing our daughters last moments of life and her tired little body as her journey to heaven began are unspeakable. Our room was so peaceful and there was a warm light almost as if we were centred off from the hospital in the middle of a meadow on a beautiful sunny day. There was only the noise of us speaking to her and the music she loved to hear so much playing in the background. Songs Ive never listened to again since that day. She was happy and she was smiling and there was so much love but at the same time the tragedy of losing my sweet, innocent little girl forever and ever. Heaven surrounded us in our room that day as we carried her to heavens gates and offered our little girl back to the creators arms. It was tragically, beautiful....My heart completely shattered, I cried as her life just slipped through my fingers just like that. To think back at how peaceful and how we were able to be there and have her wrapped in my arms as her life here on earth ended and our experience of heaven surrounding us was beautiful and somewhat re-assuring she maybe okay. There are really no words. As we were pulling out of the hospital that day with our little family minus one i was devastated having to leave her there and never to be with her again and wondering who would be taking care of her now. As we made a left turn out of the hospital entrance not even past the front of the hospital, a beautiful monarch butterfly flitted so gracefully directly in front of our windshield, up and down, back and forth first to Scott than over to me for about 20 seconds. As I was crying and not able to say a word I watched it and knew that it was my little Keely so excited saying "Look at me Mommy & Daddy I'm free, I can fly". That day Keely left her physical body that had betrayed her and just a few hours after her death her journey started from being in a cocoon to a beautiful butterfly that had graced her surroundings from shortly after being born. Looking back I know she needed to give me this sign right away because as much as I cared and worried about her I think she cared and worried about me just as equally. She let me know she was going to be okay by showing me she immediately became that beautiful monarch butterfly. This was the beautiful...she often sends me signs to let me know she's near and is still a part of this earth just not physically. She surrounds me but I will still always miss her and want her here with me.
She dies all over to me again on this day, ever year and she probably always will. I welcome the pain and want to feel it because the pain is all I have left of her. Where there is pain and tears I am feeling her and remembering her the utmost.
"Of all the butterflies that chose to stay, I'm in love with the one that got away" - Laura Miller
