Our Journey

Blessings to All Catie’s Followers!

 We are all together traveling to St. Jude.  Tomorrow we will arrive back in Memphis, TN to celebrate our second and final Remembrance Weekend with other families and the doctors, nurses and staff who cared for and loved Catie.  Last year, you may recall that weekend was held in the beginning of June.  We pulled the kids out of finals and brought them down.  It was a turning point for Max and Maggie as their emotions quickly rose to the surface.  Max spent the better part of last summer angry.  We all did all that we could to be there for Max and help him through this very difficult time in his young life.

 This year we again have pulled all of the kids out of school for a long five day weekend.  It took a lot to even reach the decision to attend Remembrance Weekend.  There were many other activities being held this same weekend.  We chose to go back to St. Jude over our annual Family Retreat Weekend in Malvern and over the Halloween Party which will raise awareness and donations for Catie’s Wish.  The bottom line seemed to be going was the best way to honor Catie and carve out time as a family to remember and reflect on the journey that we all experienced with Catie.

 We all love to talk about Catie.   We openly share our favorite “things to do with Catie,” “best times with Catie,” “Catie loved this or that,” and “remember when Catie did…” stories.  We also talk, though with less frequency, about Catie being sick, having cancer, losing her hair, being in pain, being in a wheelchair and dying.  We seem to constantly talk about where Catie is now, what heaven is like, how we feel Catie’s presence in our lives, and how we know that she is with us every day.

 It all has been part of our journey,  the journey for each of us and for our entire family and it is not over.  We welcomed Catie into our lives.  We loved sharing our lives with her and experiencing her life.  We laughed when she laughed.  We struggled when she struggled.  We suffered when she suffered.  We helped prepare Catie for every first of her life.  We prepared her to die and return to heaven; even as she prepared us.  Now more than two and a half years later here we are.  In many ways sitting at a computer typing to you (just like in those first days and hours at Hershey Medical Center) – those we know and love and trust to have our backs in time of uncertainty – asking you to please keep us in your prayers.  Pray this weekend and please offer prayers for us, and especially for Max, that God’s grace will be with us as we remember and honor Catie’s life.

 We will be seeing several families for the first time since December 2008.  They have lost their child in the past two and a half years and we want to offer them our love and support.  We want to share the memories of how we came to know each other through Catie and their child.  We hope to be there for others as all of you have been there for us.  There are also some kids we pray for who are back at St. Jude, having relapsed and we want to visit them and pray with them.

 We know that some of our memories will not be easy.  We trust that the good that we attempt to do for others will outweigh the pain and longing.  We pray that we are doing the right thing for our family and that we are following God’s will in our lives.

 Thank you for being there for us.  We pray for all of you each and every day.

 God is good, all the time

 Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Mia, Molly, M.E., and always Catie

Posted by Kevin O'Brien Thursday, October 20th, 2011 @ 10:52 pm

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