We have chosen openness; we have been unapologetic in asking people to reach out and touch our lives and come alongside us. It is a hard task for us but also a hard a task for you who choose to connect with us - both to know what to say or do. So I offer with deep humility our honest, raw perspectives and experiences. They are wholly ours. This is our walk alone.
So when words fail, what can you do? The most practical support we have received is the gift of food. In the first days after the accident, people in the communities in which we live, Furry Creek and Lion’s Bay and beyond, prepared for us meals and baked goods. And now friends in Lion’s Bay, and the school communities of which both Cameron and Erin are a part have committed to providing us a meal a week until the end of the school year. The thought of buying and preparing food simply saps energy. Instead we have been treated to an array of new recipes, the sampling of love from your home to ours. Each meal demonstrates to us profound acts of reaching out, effort, and grace. And the time that we would have spent cooking we invest in spending time as a family, regrouping, re-evaluating and nurturing each other.
We have had many symbolic gifts – a number of personally written poems; paintings and children’s drawings; letters which have outlined what Erin meant to people; a family made Erin a mobile of colourful cranes which is now suspended above her bed; the sharing of literature and comforting poems with profound insights; a star in the big dipper constellation named after Erin; songs written for her; photographs shared and printed. A beautiful quilt made by a complete stranger had all Erin’s interests sewn into the squares – soccer, colours, clothes. A bracelet etched with ‘Live in the Moment’; lovingly put together gift hampers with pampering goods provide treats for the dark evenings. And a past student delivered a cake with birthday greetings swirled in pink on Erin’s birthday. This student has also choreographed a dance reflecting Erin’s passage from this life to the next. Another complete stranger offered us the use of her bed and breakfast for guests visiting us. My close colleague, along with a heart-felt note, gave me a chain on which hangs a gold acorn that I am able to wear until I grow once again to be a ‘strong resilient oak’ – at which point I will return it to its rightful owner. We so appreciate people sharing their recollections of Erin – what she meant to them; what she did; perspectives or things we never saw or heard. A further balm has been friends who have offered us the use of their holiday homes and cabins; this has provided (and will provide) time alone to regroup as a reconfigured family. The support and love these gifts embody provide enormous comfort.
We were sent many growing flowers and particularly orchids. These remain resolute and proud, indomitable flames which charge into the future as a continued source of solace and memory. Five years ago, a friend gave us an orchid in memory of Mike’s mother and each year it flowers at the time of her passing. It is an important symbol but Erin, in a moment of mischief, etched her finger-nails into its fleshy leaves. Now the finger-nails remain as her memorial in the memorial, a perpetual marker of her experimentation. It is only now having walked this walk that I realize how perplexing the cultural ritual of giving of cut flowers is as an expression of sympathy. We received more than 50 bouquets and wreaths. The beautiful scents infused our home and the vases of flowers stood like sentries positioned all around our living areas and were a balm to us in our grief. My mother and sister-in-law, Frances, patiently and graciously spent a couple of hours each day tending to our flowery friends, changing water and cutting back their stems. But one by one their blooms turned brown and their leaves withered. Each beautiful bouquet on arrival linked us with the thoughts of the sender…but became translated into a metaphor of our loss.
So what do you say to those who grieve? We have been flooded with cards and emails– all overwhelming symbols of love and connection with our family. Many friends and colleagues had no words to say – but their simply reaching out just to say ‘we’re thinking of you’ helps – particularly through the gesture of a carefully chosen card. Each connection cements a relationship. Even the most simple of messages has been a comfort.
There is the art of the tribute. Those that provide beautiful memories and positive messages provide our souls uplifting insights and hope for recovery and the future. These raise our energy and help to provide strength rather than emphasising that the road ahead will be hard and the challenges will be great (we know this only too well…). We have appreciated reassurances that the rock-bed of our marriage will sustain us in the darker days rather than of how our union will be tested and placed under strain. For we know not what the future holds and our marriage and family unit is all that we have. People are concerned that they will say the wrong thing. However, there has been none of that other than a bewildering email sent on Erin’s birthday. It had a one-liner cursory comment on her dramatic birth. It was followed by flippant observations about the weather, a trip to a danger-filled foreign land - including joking references about the possibility of being ‘blown up’; it concluded with plans for a happy family summer holiday abroad…while we faced a birthday party without the birthday girl.
Loss is a litmus test for the relationships binding us with others. In fact those reaching out and the manner of reaching out defines anew each and every relationship that we have. There is an expectation that one’s closest family and friends will rally and support, provide comfort, and reach out with empathy and compassion. We have been overwhelmingly buoyed up by so many, and our connections are strengthened as a result. In contrast, sadly a close family member has not sent a card, offered remembrances or any support. In wrestling with this a friend provided the insight that ‘the gap between reality and expectation is suffering’. By readjusting our expectations and recognizing the incapacity for empathy, compassion and wisdom, we have been able to release the hurt. Through Erin we have learned that we need to hold fast to those relationships that edify, support and nurture and to let go of those that do not.
Knowing what I know now, I will be more much more understanding of the immense physical and emotional strain on the bereaved. People have offered their time and have come alongside us in remarkable ways. A friend has committed to run with me once a week when Erin would have had soccer; others have offered company on long walks while reflecting on our life’s changes; a friend’s provision of stress vitamins and minerals has provided much needed sustenance. A gift of a nail manicure, a massage, offers to help clean the home and help in the garden are all amazing, practical demonstrations of support.
We feel very comforted in the manner in which our communities are honouring the memory of our daughter. Her school will have a part of their new playground in her memory; the trail on which she came to rest will be renamed the ‘Erin Moore’ trail; a beautiful ‘Enchanted Forest’ is in the making in Lion’s Bay; her brown owl has spear-headed a new Brownie ‘Trailblazer’ badge created in her memory; the new trail opening in Furry Creek will have a bench with her name etched in it and the Furry Creek community will join together in the Fall to plant daffodil bulbs in her memory. In Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver a copse of trees is being planted to remember her. And her soccer club have created an award to honour her bravery, courage and individuality. There is huge comfort in her lasting legacy, and in knowing that our daughter will not be forgotten.
As in all crises, it is surprising who stays steadfastly by one’s side after the drama has died down. There are those who text and phone regularly to check in on us, those who despite their own struggles in coming to terms with the tragedy remain resolutely beside us, and those who are persistent in their invitations to visit us or to have us around for a meal. These are our quiet angels. For it is a hard and difficult road to support the bereaved. They hold our hands; they carry us. They are our daily acts of grace.
We are immensely grateful.