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Monday, August 30, 2010

Balloons for Declan - a Tribute

Over the past few weeks, I have shared with you my feelings on having to witness my neighbors and close friends having to go through something terribly hard.

Thank you guys for caring and taking the time to visit the Declan's Journey Fan Page - as well as the Declan's Journey website.

The other night, something pretty incredible happened.

It was Declan and Cole's birthday, and to honor and celebrate Declan's life, there was an organized "Balloon Release" done to pay tribute to this amazing child.

So many people posted pictures. So many people from all over the world wrote to Stan and Sherri telling them that they had released balloons.

London.
Japan.
Australia.
India.
France.

Here is video/photo montage I compiled to try to track just a portion of the pictures and stories that were posted about that day about a boy who touched so many hearts.

His smile touched me during his short life. His presence continues to touch me each day.



I have told you many sad things about Declan's Journey. But this is not a piece about grief.

It is about hope.

XOXO,
Kiran

Monday, August 23, 2010

Breathe

"Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you."
~Nicholas Evans

In loving memory of Declan Black Carmical, 2009 - 2010
www.declansjourney.com


Saturday, August 21, 2010

Pray it Forward


Here is the thing.

I have really been bad at this whole blogging thing. I want to visit my friend's blog sites. You guys are all amazing.

I want to comment back on every comment I get. And I know I am no celebrity in the blog world, and my comments cannot compare to the comments I see on my much more "bloggy" friends sites. I have tried. I have failed.

But at least I acknowledge that am bad it. It's probably the same reason I have always sucked at writing thank you cards.

So I write about what's on my mind and perhaps its best if the chaos is left within my mind and home for now - it's not your burden to bear.

In the meantime, most of you have been following the journey of our neighbors and dear friends, the Carmicals, and their beloved son, Declan. When the Carmical family began this journey in late Winter of this year, Sherri tentatively opened her heart and mind to a community.

A community of people she did not know.

Primarily to let family and friends know what the Carmicals were dealing with on a day to day basis so that they didn't have to update friends and family on autopilot.

What nobody realized at that time was Sherri's amazing gift with words. And her unselfish ability, the same which dictates the joyous attitude she approaches her life, to share from her soul in the truest and and most honest way she knew how.

By just being . . . well. You know. Sherri.

That's all we needed to hear.

During a time of immense strain - just hearing Sherri's voice in her writing was so comforting for so many of us who know her, because it was completely her. No pretense. No editing. Just her emotions.

While Sherri was going through one of the hardest challenges a parent could have to face, she was giving comfort through her gift to her family. Her friends. A community of strangers.

Every single person prayed. And then they sent the blog to friends. And their friends prayed.

How we ALL prayed.

Stan and Grandma Carmical also played an enormous role on the Declans Journey blog. Along with Stan's siblings, who helped start the site, the facebook fan page. Every piece contributed was a personal window into the lives of an amazing family at a time of great uncertainty and anxiety.

Sherri never understood how powerful her writing could be - I think we are all still reeling from it and the knowledge that we have a writer in our midst who has the ability to encapsulate so much of what we do not yet know. In a way, Sherri & Stan have started a primer on how to cope with life when not much makes sense.

They have touched the hearts of many while still inspiring us to believe that despite their hurt, Sherri, Stan and their amazing family have been blessed with knowledge of what it means to parent an angel.

Declan touched more lives in his short time on earth than most adults will ever be able to claim. He leaves behind a family who embody grace, perseverance and most importantly . . . love.

He WAS loved.

He IS loved.

Many of you have written to me and asked if there is anything you can do. So, well - here goes.

Please continue to pay homage to my friends Sherri and Stan at www.declansjourney.com. If you have words of hope and encouragement, send it their way.

Keep praying for them. Keep praying for the families who have been touched by cancer. Pray for children who have been touched by this terrible disease. And all of their family. And all of their friends.

If you know friends who have been through what Stan and Sherri have, make sure that you connect them if you can, through the Facebook page or the blog.

Sherri and Stan will be focusing their efforts on helping with the fight towards pediatric cancer. Go tell them about your support. Commend them for their bravery. Keep visiting their site as they determine how they will make this a reality.

They may not respond to every single comment. How could they? (And trust me, Sherri's WAY BETTER at writing thank you notes than me). But they read them. They read every single word offered in love, hope and remembrance.

Most importantly, please continue to remember what Declan represents to all of us in the time we were blessed to have him.

Declan's Story will continue.

And it us up to all of us to ensure that we can tell the story and ensure that it means something.

Whether that means how you hear the cry of your child. Or handle the petty distractions at work.

How you forgive.

How you cope.

How you embrace your life.

How you move on from pain.

If you can, please send your love to Stan, Sherri and family on the Declan's Journey Facebook fan page. Not just today. Your support will mean so much if it continues past today.

Show the same love the Declan showed throughout his life in how you channel what you feel forward.

Love to all,
Kiran

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. ~Norman Cousins

(Comments have been turned off. Please say a prayer instead and send words of your own love and wisdom to the Carmicals on the Facebook Page)

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Color of Blindness

I have often wondered what it might feel like to be blind, which I know is odd and alarmingly asinine, but it's something that I think about at random moments - perhaps when I am admiring my daughter's glossy curls and the way the sun brings out the warm brown in her hair. Or when my son catches my eye and bestows a toothy grin that encompasses his face. Or when my aching legs carry my tired body home as I admire the view on the last mile of a scenic long run.

I have been fortunate to have been blessed with the full knowledge of all of my five senses, so it seems odd that I am especially fearful of losing my sight in comparison to my other senses.

As if the idea of missing out on seeing my children's faces trumps the fear of missing out on their laughter.

Or the smell of their skin.

Or the taste of the candy we share.

Or the whisper of their breath against my cheek.

There is no logic to this fear, and oftentimes, when these moments of realization hit me - I imagine what it would be like to slowly have my world fade to black.

Or gray.

I can't presume to know what color is when your eyes have never known the difference between purple and yellow. Or never had to distinguish the nuances of aquamarine from a deep turquoise.

At night when darkness envelops me and I turn out the light, there is always a tiny jolt of shock as my eyes are thrust into their pitch black surroundings. But even as I become accustomed to the dark and allow my eyes to droop with exhaustion, I know that the fear is unwarranted and that regardless of how dark my world is at night:

My memory of what my world looked like in the light is still etched in my mind.

Morning will bring my world back into view.

My eyes will adjust to the darkness.

*******************************************************

I was nine years old the day my father told me he would no longer be able to drive. I recall very clearly the sound of his voice as I sat facing him in the kitchen of my childhood home, my mother sitting in the corner, not bothering to hide her own tears as she cried into the folds of her sari.

As the youngest of five children and the only remaining child still at home, my parents had decided to explain the situation to me in the gentlest way they knew how.

The doctors had given my father a few more months before he lost his capacity to see. At best, it would be a few years. But the onset of severe glaucoma, coupled with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, made my father's doctors quite confident that their prognosis of complete blindness would happen sooner rather than later.

My father (or Papa, as I have always called him) explained to me that retinitis pigmentosa is a degenerative disease of the eyes that would ultimately lead to incurable blindness. It was hard for me to grasp, so my Papa held up his hands alongside his head to demonstrate the range of his peripheral vision. He brought his hands closer and closer together to show me what the doctor's had told him.

That the darkness would start on the periphery.

And slowly work its way in.

And eventually, my father would live a life in the dark.

I recall with clarity that one of the first thoughts that struck my little fourth grade mind was,

"This sucks."

Who was going to bring me to my friend's parties? Or the library? I really didn't want my mom driving me in whatever Indian outfit she was wearing that day, sporting one of her outlandishly bright and bold bindis that separated me from my friends.

As I realized that whatever social stock I had (never really on the rise, questionable at best) was now at even greater jeopardy with my father's impending blindness, I did what any other self-absorbed child, who couldn't handle the larger issue of her own parents' vulnerability, would do.

I cried.

I cried because I wished my mom would just wear jeans. Then it wouldn't matter that my dad could not drive me.

Then I cried because it wouldn't matter if my mom wore jeans. I knew I still wasn't going to be cool. And lord knows, she would still probably wear some fuchsia colored bindis anyway.

I went on to cry because even as my mother sat there in her sari in the kitchen and released her own tears of sadness for what my father was going through, I also recognized that she was crying out of fear for what this would mean to our family. Would mean to her.

I cried because I realized my parents would age. And that the stability of my world was far from permanent.

I cried because even in my own nine year old brain, I could process that this talk in this kitchen, on this day, would be a turning point for my family.

I cried because hearing my father's prognosis was an explanation for things that had happened in the past which my family had neatly ignored, wishing and willing the best.

Like the time I was standing coherently next to my father to be caught off guard by a painful blow to my face - one so sudden that I had passed out in pain. I came to consciousness, able to hear my mother yelling at my father - how could he not be more careful? And I came to, with the realization that my father had literally just smacked me upside the head.

Literally. Like swept me off my feet when he abruptly turned to absentmindedly respond to something my mother said. And unknowingly swiping me at full force in the nose with a blunt turn of his elbow.

I recall my own father's face as I returned to consciousness. I must have been about seven years old, but even I saw in his face his sadness, and also confusion, as he held me till I was fully revived.

I will never forget the day my father told me that he would soon be blind. It was like a key had been handed to me - a key to something that I had subconsciously known on some level since that day when my dad inadvertently went kung-fu on my ass.

*************************************************************

My father still has his vision today. It is very limited. As the doctors had predicted, his peripheral site deteriorated with shocking speed over the years, however - he has been able to maintain some level of sight that allows him to live a full life. I am grateful that he has been able to live into his seventies, still with the gift of sight.

It is more of a gift today, more than twenty years after he thought he would lose the ability to do simple things which I can do with little effort. Like see his reflection. Or read a book. Or watch "Meet the Press." And see his grandchildren.

I have been shopping with my parents to have people roll their eyes in exasperation at my father's slow gait, as he takes a little longer to get out of their way - or unknowingly bumps into their cart before he can adjust himself. I recall one time at Costco, a woman became very impatient as she almost tripped over my father in her haste to drive her cart like a lunatic in the store.

"Some people!!" she yelled indignantly as she swept by my parents, serving as a great model, one might expect, for the young daughter who followed closely in her wake.

I am ashamed to say that I myself have become impatient with my father.

"Papa!" I have said with a condescending tone (that I cringe at as I replay my own voice in my memories). "Please be careful. You need to look where you are going," I have said.

All the while in full command and control of my own sight.

Just because I am in full possession of my vision doesn't mean that my own perspective hasn't been blurred.

My dad and mother holding Shaila at 4 months.

Despite the lapses in my own perspective and my own moments of blindness, I am grateful that my father has been able to hold on to his sight. I hope he always sees in color.

Bold, vivid color.

Just as bold as my mother's bindis.

"What you lose in blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might not exist. You could be nowhere at all." - Barbara Kingsolver
 

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