Happy Third Birthday 1

Happy Third Birthday
Another year has passed. Another year without you and your brother Marlon. Another year of not seeing you grow and explore the world. Another year of wondering how your personality would have developed. Another year of wishing everything had just been different. Another year of having to accept that you died. Your little sister is ...

Sleeping

I am watching my daughter Thea sleep right now. Her body ever so gently moving with every breath. The sound of her breathing soothing me. She is holding on to her little cloths she cuddles in her sleep. She is so beautiful; such a wonder every single day. Since the birth of our first child, ...

What Doctors don’t Learn about Death and Dying

“Why are doctors not trained to cope with mortality”? That is a question I have asked myself often over the past few years, not only with regard to doctors but any health care professional. This TED book excerpt is an excellent read What doctors don’t learn about death and dying and made me think about ...

A Child and a Tumour

I just watched this video in which Tamara Taggart from CTV News talks about her child with down syndrome and her experience of having cancer. She compares the conversations she had with medical professionals in both situations. I could totally see all those conversations happening in front of my eyes. I remembered a conversation with ...

Second Birthday

Second Birthday
It is Tobias’ second birthday today. It is hard to believe that so much time has passed. Two years of being without Tobias and missing him and his brother Marlon every day. We tell little Thea about her brothers and speak of them often, but she is too little yet to understand. Very often it ...

Dour In Memoriam Benches

A couple of weeks ago the Vancouver Sun reported that Coquitlam was considering a review of their park bench program that allows residents to donate a bench in memory of a loved one. The title of the story was “Some Metro Vancouver cities doing away with dour ‘In Memoriam’ park benches“. You may recall that ...

Perspective of a Nurse

I came across this article “When There’s Nothing to Celebrate” on social media and it caught my interest. It is written by a labour nurse and describes her experience of a stillbirth with one of her patients. I think it is important to read how nurses and health care professionals are affected by a loss ...

Return to Zero

You might recall my first post about the movie Return to Zero from May 2013. It is hard to believe that it has been a year since I wrote about the movie and now we have exactly seven days left before it will be broadcast on Lifetime Canada. My thoughts about the movie that I ...

Home and Alive

It has been quiet on our blog for some time. And there is a very good reason for it. My wife and I were pregnant again with our third child. It has been an intense time with so many different emotions mixed together that it is hard to describe. The most common feeling, especially after ...

Birthday 1

It is Marlon’s third birthday today. A day that should have been filled with excitement from a little boy who was looking forward to opening some presents and having a party with his friends. A day that would allow reflection back on everything that happened during the past year for us as parents: meeting new ...