The school held their 3rd Annual Valentine’s bakesale in memory of Nora on February 13th. They raised $1450.70. Even though Ms. B.D. is now retired, she still made 8 beautiful decorated treats as prizes for the raffle, and Ms. Turco made 8 baskets.
One of Ms. B.D.’s Decorated Treats
Ms. Turco’s Baskets
Examples of Raffle Prizes for Valentine’s Bakesale, February 13, 2020
Kate and I had our booth again where we sold Nora’s bday jelly and “Nora’s Narwhals” pouches. We took in $545 for Meagan’s Walk. The pouches were new this year; I had picked up some fabric that reminded me of Nora, so I decided to make change purses and pencil cases out of it. I sewed all weekend while Kate was at Camp Ooch — it was a special task for me to do that made me feel close to Nora and Kate.
Kate at our booth, February 13, 2020
Essentially this event kick-starts the fundraising for Meagan’s Walk, which will happen this year on May 9, so it gets Lisa & I stared on setting up Team Nora’s Narwhals. This year we’ve been designing Narwhals hoodies to sell, along with the t-shirts. Hopefully we will have the online ordering going by this weekend, and the link will be available on our team website.
Looking forward to this birthday, I was excited for Kate and loved watching her enthusiasm, but also knew it would not be an easy one given it was the last birthday Nora had. What I did not expect was how heavy Nora’s absence would feel for Kate & myself. Kate started feeling it leading up to her birthday, expressing to me one night how much she missed Nora. For me, it hit like a ton of bricks during the birthday weekend. For her party, Kate requested to have Audrey & Frances up to the cottage for a birthday sleepover because “there’s more room up there”. This felt right — they could enjoy the winter wonderland, and also Nora had Tristyn up to the cottage as an early 9th birthday sleepover in August 2017 and Kate likes to replicate Nora’s birthdays (and we would not have been able to have a 100 people party likef Nora’s actual 9th birthday!). But (no surprise) a winter sleepover is A LOT more work! I headed up a day before everyone to set up — bringing water (the plumbing was shut off), stocking wood (to warm the frozen cottage), clearing ice and snow (e.g., the garage doors were frozen shut, so I needed to free one before accessing the snow blower for clearing the driveway; and the fire pit was solid ice so I built a fire and slowly cleared it out), and carving out a winter playground outside and activities/decorations inside. I think the kids had a great time, but I was so physically exhausted I had a hard time recognizing it! And the pain of Nora not being there — helping, playing, coordinating — was emotionally exhausting. Thankfully Lisa (Frances’ mom) had come along and helped keep things moving.
The fun things the girls did were: Saturday — breakfast smorgasbord; scavenger hunt (set up by Kate) with a prize of hand-made fanny packs containing a waterproof flashlight and notebook; playing in the snow and hot dogs at the fire; lots of playing inside, including a collage; tacos & cupcakes; more playing outside in the snow in the dark with the flashlights; and a game of Apples to Apples.
Scavenger Hunt
Birthday girl & cupcakes
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Lisa, Kate, Audrey & Frances with glowing snowballs
Sunday (Kate’s birthday) — waffles, presents, a nature hike up the hill (that turned into snowman building rather than hiking since the girls were so excited to play in snow as there has not been any in the city), more sledding, lunch and then departure. On the way home, Kate had requested to go by Nora’s grave so we stopped there with her friends, and then stopped for dinner at little diner in Whitby.
Our third Christmas without Nora and it seemed even harder to go through the motions for this one… Sadly, our friend Tony (the partner of Andrea from our band) died on Dec 21, making our days even more solemn and reflective. He was a very loving man, and loved Nora & Kate very much.
Kate chose to stay in the city for Christmas day because that is what she remembers most of Christmas’ with her sister. We did what we could to get through. Maya took her up to her in-laws Christmas tree farm, and Kate picked out a big and little tree for the house this year. We did some visiting with friends leading up to Christmas, and she had a fun time opening presents on Christmas morning.
Little tree in her room, Dec 15, 2019
Big tree, Christmas morning, 2019
We headed up to the cottage on Boxing Day and met Jackie & Derek there, and Sophie, Chris & Fisher came up for a couple nights like last year. New Year’s eve we were on our own again, and played a game of Monopoly as a tribute to Nora.
Ice heart for Nora, Dec 29, 2019
Snowy hike, Jan 1, 2020
We started our new decade without Nora with very heavy hearts so kept busy in the beautiful outdoors. Kate built an awesome snowman she named Billy Bop Bob with his pet pig. She got very attached to them, so when the weather was so warm that they melted before we left, many tears were shed. We also planned and prepared for her upcoming birthday party weekend.
Kate decided to take part in her dance school’s performance of the Nutcracker given how much she loves dance and performing in the Ooch spring musical. We were both blown away by the magnitude of the event, and how well it was organized and performed — all from our small neighbourhood dance school. While the choreography was handled by the school’s namesake (Pia Bouman), the 100’s of costumes, props, etc, were organized and maintained by parents. It was an intense fall of rehearsals and even busier weekend of performances, but it was a perfect distraction for Kate & I. I volunteered on the sewing team and met some very solid parents while learning a lot about tutu’s. Kate did an amazing job performing her dances, and even helped out behind the scenes with the costume sewing.
Mice and Mouse King, Dec 7, 2019
Chinese princesses & their court, Dec 8, 2019
She had friends and family at each performance, and proudly accumulated a beautiful bouquet. I couldn’t help but think throughout how proud Nora would have been of her, finding something of her own that she loves to do and working hard at it, and how much Nora would have loved watching the performances.
We are still going to Lighthouse every two weeks. Kate especially likes and needs to go there. She continues to appreciate and benefit from spending time with other kids who have lost a sibling because they “get it”. We learned from Lighthouse that November is also Children’s Grief Awareness Month. Everyone wrote messages that were posted outside on the walkway of Lighthouse…
Kate wanted to spend the week together again leading up to the date of Nora’s death, so her & I headed up to the cottage on the Tuesday. We had a turbulent week with some happy but mostly sad times of missing Nora. Kate came up with activities to let out her anger, like drawing a “C” (for cancer) in the snow on a post and throwing ice balls at it, or to declare her love, like writing songs about Nora and her name in the snow.
November 13, 2019
November 14, 2019
The sun still rose on Nov 16th. We went for our “traditional” walk in the park with Dylan & Jackie (who came up on the 15th). The park was empty and beautiful, so we explored some of the spots we visit in the summer, following an otter for a while who was fishing along the shoreline.
Sunrise, November 16, 2019
Mazinaw Rock, November 16, 2019
We headed home very early Sunday morning so that we could visit Nora’s grave (on Kate’s request) and then get Kate to her Nutcracker rehearsal.
Back at Shirley St, on Nov. 14th, the school was an ocean of green, according to Mr. Harris.
This past weekend there were too many things for Kate to do — and they were all really important to her, so she wanted to do them all. And she did, or at least partly…
First, it was Camp Ooch’s Teomul Weekend At Camp so she took the bus up to the Muskoka’s on the Friday afternoon, and then her dad drove up and brought her home (asleep) on Saturday evening. She had one night and a FULL day of fun there!
Kate (with James) going to camp, October 18, 2019
Early Sunday morning, we were off to the starting line of the Scotiabank run at Ontario Place. She ran the whole 5km, in 33 min! This run was so important for her to do because we were supporting Dr. Jay Children’s Grief Centre. We raised $1250 (thank you!).
After the race, we couldn’t stick around to meet with the Dr Jay’s team this year. She was off to Camp Ooch downtown for 4 hours of Ukulele and guitar lessons.
I can’t believe she had the energy to get through, but she did, and was in great spirits afterwards. The staff at Ooch provide her a strong sense of community, one that (for her) includes Nora. She still is in good spirits a couple days later — she’s downstairs right now practicing Country Roads on the guitar!
We went to the cottage for the Thanksgiving long weekend with Jackie & Derek. We had a turkey dinner, our first one since Thanksgiving 2 years ago with Nora… Kate was in good spirits for the weekend, which made it nice, given it’s a hard weekend.
The weather was beautiful on Sunday (and it was our last opportunity of the year with the boat in the water) so Kate convinced everyone to hike the Cliff Top Trail for a view of the fall colours.
Kate on top of Mazinaw Rock, October 13, 2019
The 3 of us rode our bikes into the park and had a snack at our favourite family picnic spot.
Kate did the cross country meet once again, even after spending the three days prior at home with a stomach bug. She did great, but was hoping to make the top 30 like Nora had in 2016.
It was a wet and windy day. Dylan met her at the beach for a while, and kept her warm. As much as I’d like to have also gone to cheer her on, I could not go back there after taking Nora in 2017. She had wanted to go but couldn’t actually run at that point because her tumour was too far along. She was (of course) miserable…
Ms. Turco couldn’t find Nora’s jersey for Kate to wear (oh, how we miss Ms. B-D) but Kate was happy to be #8, her age. Ms. Turco took some great pictures of Kate and caught some great smiles, as she always had of Nora!
Kate stretching before race, Oct 3, 2019
Kate after race with ribbon, Oct 3, 2019
Kate is still keen to run the Scotiabank 5km. It’s so important to her that she will come home a day early from Ooch’s fall weekend at camp (WAC) so she can be in Toronto for the race! She was really upset when she learned that both WAC and Scotiabank were on the same weekend, so Dylan offered to drive up to camp on the Saturday to bring her home in time to run. Now that’s commitment (and worth supporting her as she raises funds for Dr. Jay Children’s Grief Centre)!
Kate wanted to stay in the city for Nora’s bday, and do something with Camp Ooch since Nora had her huge 9th birthday party with them. Luckily they had a “Day of Magic” program on Saturday, which was appropriate given Nora & Kate’s love of magic tricks. Ms. B-D dropped off Nora’s favourite bday cake, as always.
Kate, Dylan & Mary had Albany pizza for dinner, and I left to visit Nora’s grave and then to the cottage. The sky that night was incredible with an almost full moon rising and later on some northern lights, reminding me of my beautiful Nora.
On Monday, Shirley St. school was a sea of green to remember Nora and honour the 1-year anniversary of the opening of Nora’s Nook.
On Kate’s first day of Grade 3 she was clearly thinking of her sister… She had been worried about going back without her sister there, and with some other changes (like Ms. B-D retiring and Frances going off to Clinton School). But luckily she has the same teacher that Nora had for Gr. 3, Mr. Harris, and her friend Audrey is in her class. Plus we have all the other amazing and supportive staff of Shirley Street School.
We spent the last few weeks of summer at the cottage. One afternoon, we did an activity where we wrote out things we didn’t like, and then threw a wet sponge at it to wash the words away. We started with things like “Cancer” and “Not being able to play with Nora”. Near the end I wrote “People who don’t understand”, and Kate added “…don’t realize true sadness”.
Throwing wet sponge, August 14, 2019
Frances & Lisa came up for a weekend, and then Kate’s friends from Camp Erin (twins Natalie & Nora) came with their mom & sister. It was a full house for a night. We floated the lanterns they made at Camp Erin.
Kate headed off to Vancouver for a couple weeks, and I caught up with her on Aug 2nd, and Aunt Karen came too. We spent lots of nice family time together but it was of course very hard being there without Nora, as our last visit had been the summer of 2016…
We spent July 13 – 19 at the cottage. Jackie & Derek were up with us for the first couple nights but otherwise it was just us three.
Floating in Mazinaw, July 15, 2019
Kate & I kayaked over to Viking’s Point. Last winter, we’d hiked there through the snow with Sophie & Fisher to find a geocache. In the geocache, we’d left a heart eraser that we’d written an “N” on. Kate & I retrieved it, and saw that the eraser was still there.
Immediately after school ended, Kate packed up for her annual week at Camp Ooch. This is now a good way to transition her into summer each year, given how sad the end of school year is for us. She gets one week of FUN with the awesome Ooch staff, and her friends who might also be having a tough time. She was very excited this year to be in the ‘older girls’ cabin with her friend Loralie from Lighthouse. The week tired her out — she fell fast asleep on the car ride home after I picked her up from the bus!
