Teen Spirit.

It's been a while. 
Hope this blog finds you well.

The other day, an account I follow on Instagram posted a pic - it was a black screen, and along the bottom where the words;
this time,
last year,
everything was so different...

It hit me like a punch to the stomach.
Can you imagine, this time last year my cousin still had 2 daughters?
That by the end of the week, their 16 year old daughter Alison would be dead?
A lot can happen in a year.

Although I'm in another city, I too have been rebuilding my life since that horrible phone call.
Friends have come and gone, and I'm much more selective about how I spend my time and who I spend it with.  Sometimes I wonder if I've become too selective?  If, in my grief-stricken haze, I've confused my disappointment in loved ones with my anger at losing my cousin? 

Regardless, the walls I've built around myself are starting to crumble, and if I'm not careful - I'll end up falling down with them.  After all, "no man is an island" as that saying goes.  And God knows I'm not perfect either (I mean, I AM - I just think posting that would be arrogant, ha.)

Man.
Remember what 16 was like?
The friends, the boys, the girls, the laughs and oh the tears...
Whenever I feel the heaviness of adulthood, with all it's heartache, frustrations, sleepless nights, bill payments, and bullshit - I think of Alison.

I think about making an impact in my own life because hers was cut so short, and about how her spirit affected so many.  Not only did she save lives by donating her organs - thanks to the hard work of her older sister Jaclyn, she's helped raised thousands to find a cure for the disease that killed her.  (https://www.facebook.com/AlisonsArmy) 
 
It really is amazing how the death of a young person forces us to reflect.
Look at Trayvon Martin's passing.

All of a sudden, an ugly mirror is being held up and whether we like it or not we can't ignore it.
Like my friend and I said the other day, "That child did not die in vain..."
Watching his parents behave with such strength and class, (when they'd have a perfect excuse not to) gives us the courage to say, "If they can function with such poise, I can too."
Aspirational indeed.

Lately I've been having a tough time.

I've been creatively stifled, financially strapped and I stopped going to church. 
Despite all this, I've been working out a lot more and researching my next business venture.
There's something so debilitating about being in that "in between" phase isn't it? 
It's like waiting for vegetation to sprout from the soil.

Like my darling friend Cass said last night, "I love you Laur - you'll get to the next part..."
She's right.
I'll get there because I have to.
I'll get there because I have the opportunity.
And that has to count for something.

Time,

Time,

Time,

See what's become of me

While I looked around for my possibilities

 

I was so hard to please

Look around,

Leaves are brown

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

 

Hear the Salvation Army band

Down by the riverside,

There's bound to be a better ride

Than what you've got planned

 

Carry a gun in your hand.

Look around,

Leaves are brown,

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

 

Hang on to your hopes my friend,

That's an easy thing to say,

But if your hopes should pass away,

Simply pretend - that you can build them again

 

Look around,

Grass is high,

Fields are ripe

IT'S THE SPRINGTIME OF MY LIFE

 

Seasons change with the scenery,

Weaving time in a tapestry,

Won't you stop and remember me?

 

~ The Bangles

(Paul Simon)

  

 

 

 

   

Alison

This one's for you.
With love.

A few weeks before I turned 20, while I was visiting family in Cape Town, my friend Cindy was killed in a car accident.  I never found out until I returned home several months later.

It was then that I learned how different the pain is when someone dies before "their time."
The shock.
Denial.
The pain.
(Both emotional and physical.)

While I maintain that losing both grandmothers were the saddest times I've experienced until now (Granny was 93 already - but I tell you, so much of my youth went with her) there is something so devastating about the loss of a child.

When my brother's friend committed suicide he was only a teenager.
I made a VOW to myself then and there to keep depressed/lonely feelings at bay and seek help/friendship/ANYTHING when times were bleak.
And there have been many.

Last week, my family lost someone so special and so lovely at the tender age of 16.

While most of you are shuddering - it's probably because on a subconscious level, you're recalling what a tough age that was in the first place.
The peer pressure.
The bullying.
The boys.
The bullshit.

My little cousin had to deal with all of the above plus an illness.
She'd endured multiple surgeries, hospitalization, and severe physical pain.
Suffering from colitis, she became somewhat of an ambassador for Ostomy organizations across Canada.

You can read one of the many tributes written about her here:
http://muggins7.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/a-life-cut-far-too-short-losing-one-of-our-own/

On Thursday morning, she went to hospital for the last time.
I keep waking up thinking it's a nightmare.
It
Just
Can't
Be.

I remember when I went home for Christmas a while back...
I walked into my aunt's house which of course was packed (our family is huge) Alison RAN across the house to hug me.  She were so excited that I came home.
(I remember just knowing when I walked through that door that she would greet me first)

That is my last memory of her.

Oh honey.
If you only knew how I was sobbing right now.
Maybe you do.
Of course you'd want me to stop and feel badly for my sorrow.
You were sweet like that.

I take some solace in knowing that you are out of pain and in God's hands.
When it comes to my family, I really hit the jackpot.
But oh to have one more Christmas.

It will never get old not in my soul (not in)

 My spirit keep it alive

We'll go down this road 

Till it turns from color to black can white 

~ Frank Ocean