All The Time

Personal moments from a million different lives are shared as wall posts on Facebook every day. One of these posts stole my heart.

It comes from the wall of one of my friend and goes about a conversation between my friend and her 5 year old daughter (who is the same age as what Daniel would have been):

My friend asked what she wanted to be when she was older, to which she said:

"I want to be a mom. And when you are a grandmother and you die, you will become a star and I won't know which star you are because there are so many. But when I die I am going to become a star too and be right next to you."

I wrote to my friend afterwards:

...it is so beautiful it makes me cry....for me it is a message to confirm that one day I will be next to Daniel again. Stars were one of his most favourite things and one of the first words he said....

She wrote back:

I'm glad i shared then. I wasn't going to. So I suppose I know now why I did. I know you will see your son again. He's waiting for you with a smile on his face. I'm glad i could make you smile. I always think about you and what you've lost. But he is with u every day :) :)

I also always think about what I have lost, about what Henry and Alecia have lost and all I am will be filled with sorrow. And these thoughts....about us losing outDaniel....I cannot imagine anything ever to be more painful.

My children miss their brother. I miss my child. All the time.

Christian

As written by Derek, Christian's dad:

On July 13, 2007 our 4 year old son Christian passed away from Drowning at a local town run camp. We have started a Non-Profit organization to provide life jackets to all children at all camps, lakes, beaches and town run pools across the state of Massachusetts (Currently not required or wanted).

Our son Christian, drowned in our town run camp. He was there for 2 hours on his first day and the 5 staff members and lifeguards didn’t see him. We are in the process here of changing laws and have started a Non-Profit to change some of this law and provide USCG Approved Life Jackets to all lakes and ponds and possibly beaches where kids can get a free loaner jacket. We set it up this way so all children will be safe even if they cant afford to buy one.

Christian was a child that every parent would want. He was loving, caring, and always happy. Unfortunatly we lost him July 13th,2007 to an unforgivable mistake made by lifeguards and staff at the local run day camp. He was there for 2 hours on his first day. While nobody was watching him, he drowned. There is not a day that goes by that I dont cry for him at least once. god I miss him. How could anyone take him from me, he was my best friend and son.

Christian was born on October 17th 2002. We couldnt have been happier. That gave us 2 boys in 14 months that could grow up together and be best friends. They were best friends and his brother Cameron was there the day that he died. Cameron still talks about him daily and tries to make us happy by saying things like he is sitting next to you or I just saw his angel. It is so hard watching cameron without Christian, he looks so alone.

This really is the hardest thing to write. He is gone forever and we cant accept that. Why did we trust others? Why did we take him there? What if we took him there even a minute later, would he still be here. There are so many whys and still no answers. How can we ever forgive ourselves? We trusted and it made our son gone. How can we trust again?

CEF foundation includes 2 separate entities. First CEF Foundation is working to pass Christian's Law, see other page, as well as donate USCG Approved Life jackets to any child that requires one. Everything CEF Foundation does is to promote and provide safety to children that are anywhere near water.

With the backing of Kids Don't Float, a part of Safekids USA, we are collecting numerous lifejackets to provide to town and city run camps once Christian's Law is passed.

I want to ask every person who visits my blog to please support Derek and the CEF Foundation, in any way that you can. Please join the cause on Facebook "Stop Childhood Drowning" created to prevent the senseless loss of our children to drowning.

Daniel's death was senseless and very easily preventable. The only reason my child died was because his stepmother chose to play computer games above caring for the 3 year old child that she had left without supervision while he had free access to an open and unfenced swimming pool. Nothing will ever bring Daniel back but there are things that we can do to let people like Daniel's stepmother think twice...

Finding Me

I feel deeply touched by this beautiful drawing that my friend Michael did for me. We are on the same painful journey and feel a similar pain - Michael lost his son Luke around the same time that I lost Daniel. (Also see my post Luke's Army)

I cannot describe how much I still miss Daniel every day. My heart pains for my child and without end a thousand unanswered questions keep on circling through my mind. I wonder if I would ever find peace...

Fairy Godmother

She shares with me many precious memories of Daniel's first days and weeks and I will always be thankful for her support and companionship after Daniel was born – as a most amazing friend and for Daniel as his Fairy Godmother.

She moved to another city when Daniel was about 4 months old and as a farewell gift she gave me the collage.

I treasure it as symbolic of my energy and as a true reflection of my life after I had Daniel ,complete and filled with joy.

Sharing A Wish

The beautiful ecard below was sent to me on Daniel's birthday, from Debbie. We know each other only through this blog and some email communication. She wrote to me that she felt so helpless as there was nothing that she could do other than to tell that she cared - but it is the most that any person possibly can do to make things better for me. Just care.

Angels

angels come in many forms

they can be the ones you have in heaven 

or they can be your best friend

or they appear in the ones you love

we all have an angel inside us

and one watching over us
- mysticzen -

Baby Danny

 

Daniel when he was 5 days old.

I was so completely in love with my baby and just couldn't get enough of him. The photos were taken by a wonderful friend who came to visit especially to take photos of baby Danny for me. (This was the first of about 6 photo sessions.)

Pictures of Daniel are my treasures because it is still the same, that I cannot get enough of him and will spend hours looking at his photos, dreaming of him, missing him, loving him. As always and forever and ever.

Without Our Children

Our months, become weeks and then we will be counting days, before the hours, minutes and finally seconds until a year is reached without our children.

In one month and one day I will be without Daniel for a year. For my online friend Denise, there are only a few more days left before being a year without her daughter Angie.

I wish I knew what to say to a mother who suffered through her first year of loss and agony. She who knows just like I do, that this pain is not going to end soon. I can only hold her in my thoughts and I pray that she will be surrounded by love and peace but most of all may she feel her Angie closest to her heart.

The words are from the song Tattva by Kula Shaker, for Angie and her Ma…and as always, for Daniel:

Tattva, acintya bheda abheda tattva

Like the flower and the scent of summer, like the sun and the shine
Well the truth may come in strange disguises, send a message to your mind

At the moment that you wake from sleeping, and you know it's all a dream
Well the truth may come in strange disguises, never knowing what it means

For you shall be tomorrow, like you have been today

All Around Us

When I started this blog, I found writing or talking about my pain therapeutic. And I could cry. Now I find my pain so intense and complex that it just unsettles me to talk or even think about it. When I cry it happens without tears or sobs, it feels as how if my body has stopped reacting to the pain in my soul, it is a pain of longing and despair, of how it feels to have lost Daniel.

This photo was taken on 25 December 2005 - my first Christmas day with Daniel, now I am facing my first Christmas day without him.

My wish is to spend the day with purpose and in peace - I have never been attracted to any mainstream Christmas celebrations and after the death of my child my perspective on what I believe is real and important is even more clear.

Namaste. Let love be all around us.

Dear David
Bozho Nikan
Thank you for healing me
I greet you in peace
Alison

About Happiness

Re-establishing my ability to enjoy life turned out to be a journey on its own filled with contradicting emotions and ideas. My list below is a random mixture of my thoughts and feelings about finding personal happiness in my world without Daniel.

• To be happy is not as easy and clear as it was before Daniel died, it has become a complex, confusing and often impossible emotion. It feels completely wrong to be happy but it is still so essential to my well being.
   
• I am aware that it is very normal for bereaved parents to feel guilty whenever they feel happy and I know all the reasons why to release the guilt but I cannot overcome the strong sense inside me that any happiness in my life will reduces from the severity of the tragedy caused by Daniel’s drowning. It feels as if my sadness is testimonial to the depth of my loss and that the only way to stay loyal to the love I have for Daniel would be to continue to mourn his death.
   
• It is okay with me that it will be a different happiness that I will find because regardless of what good fortune may cross my path, I will never feel so resolved and deeply content as I felt while I shared my life with Daniel.
   
• There was something unique and very special about Daniel’s love and I will never be able to put to words how it really was with Daniel and how it really is without him. Whenever I talk with Henry and Alecia about Daniel, we always say that no one but us will ever completely understand how broken we are. Daniel was far far more than just my child or their baby brother. He was our world and centre of our happy togetherness as a family.
   
• On the day of Daniel’s funeral I made a promise to myself that I will do my best to live what is left of my life as happy as I could possibly be and that I promised that I would not allow sorrow to destroy me. At the time, I was in such a deep state of shock that it felt quite possible and achievable. As the disbelief and initial devastation subsided to make place for the reality I often doubt my ability to fulfill this promise.

My Heart's Desire

Our journey from life on earth to death to a renewed life in the next world will always be wrapped in mystery and there are many dogmas mainly based on religion, quantum physics or New Age spirituality about the afterlife. After Daniel had died I felt it was important for me to find more information about these beliefs but nothing was substantial enough to change my view that we cannot factually conceptualise something that is ultimately unknown.

I also have seen many poems and other inspirational pieces about our angel children in heaven – written out of love and from the heart with the intention to bring comfort rather than to give an academic insight.

About a week ago I saw this quote on Andrea's page No Empty Chairs, touching my heart possibly more than anything else that I ever have read about our eternal life. I cannot say that I intellectually agree with or specifically believe in this doctrine as taught by Joseph F Smith but his words will stay with me as a message of beauty, peaceful and heartwarming.

"The infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: 'You will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.' There is restitution, there is growth, and there is development, after the resurrection from death."

Andrea who has lost her little boy Wyatt added to it by saying "I love this truth. It speaks volume of happiness, of joy and gratitude to my soul. Thank the Lord he has revealed these principles to us."

I know why I am so attracted to this learning. It is because nurturing Daniel was the most joyous, pleasurable and satisfactory experience that I will ever have and there nothing that I would want more than being given another chance to take care of Daniel.

A Treasured Space

When I think of this web page with my story about Losing Daniel and of a Facebook group named RIP Daniel Starbuck - I know that they are two of the things that I never ever wanted, not in a million years, but that wasn't for me to decide.

I also think of how much my blog and Daniel's group mean to me. They are "Daniel spaces" and much treasured because that is where Daniel can still be part of my ongoing life, also where people can meet Daniel, even get to know him and for us who love him so much somewhere we can be close to him.

Every person who is a member of Daniel's group on Facebook or who reads this blog is special as you keep the memory alive; and to find a new blog comment or an encouraging message is so often a lifeline, a gift of light and strength to help me through the next dark moment.

The past few weeks have really been difficult for me, feeling like a re-run of that early days, just after Daniel died, with my emotions and thoughts drenched in sorrow and longing but my heart is warm because love is all around me....

On a day, more sad than the other, my dear friend Denise, a sister in grief posted a poem for me in Daniel's group and then came the message from Angel, a mother who also knows the pain:

"This poem brought tears to my eyes and to know that it is all true and that we who have lost our children will see them again someday. I pray that I too learn my lessons so I may go home and see my son, sister and other loved ones who have passed on before me. I pray Ali that your pain will ease and become bearable because I know it will never go completely away. I pray that like me you will see your darling Daniel when you close your eyes and are able to talk to him and hold him in your arms in your dreams. God Bless You "

Mermaids

I dedicate my post today to my 2 Canadian friends Blake and Denise who are walking the same heartbreaking, challenging road than I do.

Blake has lost his son Joshua as a result of accidental drowning and I feel humble and inspired by the amazing work he does in order to create water safety awareness and stop young children from drowning, making the world a better place.

I quote from a message he wrote:

"We are in the most rotten club a person can belong to. I am going to try my best to lock the doors to this club and keep other families from joining. And I am going to teach the children to help me lock those doors"

Denise is my grief sister, a special friend, an angel. She cries with me and we share our thoughts, experiences, sad and happy memories and real life moments.

She taught me not to shy away from the symbols and signs that remind me of Daniel. She explained to me that it is Daniel’s way to tell me that he is with me and that I should embrace without fear all that symbolises Daniel's energy, like the penguins, mermaids, sea shells.

Today I bought a small beaded penguin that now drives around with me in my car and I started to smile whenever I see a pretty girl with long hair because Daniel said they were all mermaids. He loved mermaids and even Barbie and Brats dolls were mermaids and he would be very impressed if I covered his duvet and pillow with Alecia’s old Brats duvet cover and pillow case so that he could sleep and dream with the mermaids.

 "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each" 

- T.S Elliot -

The mermaid weaves a siren song that leads you to vision and mystery. Half woman, half fish, the lovely mermaid represents the power of our unconscious desires.

She gives us the power to seek beneath the waves of our emotions and dreams for the pearls that lie beneath, and she reminds us that unless we follow the truth our inner selves, then our lives are as ephemeral as sea foam.

Mermaids are symbolic of a happy and joyful time and of transmutation. They have been associated with love, intuition, hope and they live in the water realm which is the realm of the intuition, feeling, and the unconscious.

Dreams of mermaids come from deep within oneself and I often listen to the mermaids singing because they are, in fact, singing for me.

Mountains

Daniel's idea of drawing pictures was that he would dictate what object needs to be drawn and someone else must then draw the picture. He was also not a child that would change his mind about his ideas, so I have very few pictures that Daniel made himself.

Apart from one self portrait (which is a story for another day) and the "again again spider" he only liked to draw mountains, that was if I could get him so far to be the artist and not the director :-)

The picture above is of mountains, done by Daniel on 13 March 2008 and the photo below is of Cape Town and Table Mountain.

I am sad that I will never have files full of Daniel's art work and I am sad the he never had the change to go up Table Mountain..."in sky".

Daniel was fascinated by things that were in the sky or that could go up in the sky. When he undressed he would kick of his pants and underpants so that it could fly all over the room..."in sky" and when he played with a ball it always had to be kicked up high, higher as high as it could get.

I miss my lovely child and treasure the sweet memories.

I dreaded my first Mother's Day without Daniel and with Henry and Alecia now living with their father 1400km away from me but it turned out to be a beautiful day.

Thank you so much to my friends Wehrner, Tina and their 2 lovely children Kyala and Colin. It was a sunny day, clear skies and just enough wind for me to hear Daniel's voice. We met at the foot of Table Mountain, took the cable car to the top where we walked, had picnic, admired the stunning views and just talked and laughed.

The made me feel special and welcome, surrounded by love...I even received a Mothers Day card from the children, together with a hand written invitation made by Kyala to come visit again soon.

I am blessed to have people like them in my life.

The Little Schoolhouse

I was a work from home mom until Daniel was 3 and a half and ready to go to nursery school. He was getting bored at home and wanted friends of his own age to play and interact with. My search for the perfect nursery school and a perfect 3 year old nursery school teacher began. I searched the internet, asked friends of friends of friends for input and recommendations. I even spoke to strangers with small children finding out where their children went to school.

Armed with a list of nursery schools and addresses I drove to every possible school to find the best for Daniel. Some received a big "no" straight away, some a "maybe" but the big "yes this is what I want for my Daniel" came the day I went to check out The Little Schoolhouse. I was immediately impressed by their good security regulations, fully walled premises, double gates with intercom and video surveillance. Non parents were only allowed entrance by appointment. As a parent I can today confirm that at The Little School House safety of the children is an all inclusive non compromising priority.

A school where I knew my child would be safe and when I met Ezelle, the school principal and she showed me the school I also knew that my child would be happy there. At The Little Schoolhouse in Rustenburg the energy is warm, caring and understanding and they take so much care to ensure emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical growth and well being of the precious little human beings left in their care.

My next concern was about the person who would be Daniel's first teacher –how could I dream at the time that Teacher Elize would also be Daniel's last and only teacher in what turned out to be his short sweet life. Teacher Elize is a wonderful person and I will never forget her love and understanding for a unique boy who has never gone to school before.

Daniel loved his school and his Teacher Elize big time and who will ever forget how he wore his school T-shirt day and night just after I bought it for him. He insisted the Teacher Elize bought it for him and I was so glad that I had the wisdom to buy 2 blue Little Schoolhouse shirts.

Daniel also adored his friends, he called them his Noddy fwends....and we played an imaginary hide and seek game with them every morning when we arrived at the school. "Where are they? Up in the tree? No? In the class? No? Watching TV? Yes!!!" He made sure that I knew to invite them ALL for his 4th birthday party coming up.

The birthday that he would never reach and a new year at school that he would never start. He drowned the day before he would have gone back to school after the December holidays.

To: Ezelle, Jaconette, Teacher Elize and all the other teachers, staff, parents and friends from The Little Schoolhouse,

Thank you so so much from me and from Daniel for:

• coming to his funeral
  
• the happy time you gave to Daniel
  
• caring about Daniel as if he was your own
  
• Teacher Elize for my beautiful CD that I still play in my car
  
• all the tears that has flown from your hearts after losing Daniel
  
• allowing me to sit in his Noddy class and follow his small footsteps
  
• letting me feel welcome to come back to his school after he had died
  
• every little friend who missed Daniel and asked when was coming back
  
• all the parents who prayed for me and who still keep us in their thoughts and hearts.
  

How sad that we were all deprived from the pleasure of having Daniel with us; his wisdom, personality, intelligence, sweetness and love. I miss it every day. I know you do to.

Alison

Poem For Daniel

Two months after Daniel had died I was lost in a strange city, without a home, too broken to find my way, too sad to care about life and that is how my wonderful foster family found me. We had lost contact 16 years before but when I contacted the youngest of the 3 sisters Helé through Facebook they opened their house and their hearts to me, without doubt or hesitation.

I was welcomed into their world as part of the family and they cried with me holding my hand through the darkest of times. I am still living with them and think that they are a family of angels, beyond special. They never had a chance to meet Daniel in person and this poem was written for him by Helé...my beautiful youngest sister.

For the one I never got to meet :

When you left me – my heart lay awaken by unsaid things

I want to tell you that I’ll miss you

I want to tell you how much I care

I want to hold you in my arms

Feel you near

I want to tell you how much I’ll miss your smile

The way you make me feel

They way you lifted up a room

By just being you

I want to show the world just how much I care

I want you to know I’ll always be there

Even if you are not here any more

I will always love you even more

Mike

Mike was the first one of my friends that I called to tell the dreaded news that Daniel had died.

He was one of Daniel’s most favourite persons outside our family and Daniel could never get enough of talking to Mike on the phone. About Barney, amongst things, I understand.

Danny died in Johannesburg, same city as where Mike lives. The letter below is from Mike, who is a Civil Engineer, following a press release by the Johannesburg City Council asking for public submission regarding proposed new swimming pool regulations.

To: The City of Johannesburg

I am pleased that the Johannesburg Council is considering amending the by laws and increasing the safety so far as swimming pools are concerned. I have for some time now been listening to the well publicised incidence of drowning on radio 94.7 This public awareness campaign in conjunction with Netcare 911 seems to have emphasized the extreme risk that toddlers are exposed to. All too often the victims were the children of domestic servants ending in pools where the house owners had not secured the pool against children falling in. With each reported tragedy I felt more strongly that these needless deaths can and should be prevented. However being removed and not affected directly one tends to forget the feeling not long after the news bulletin.

On the sixth of January this year a dear little friend of mine fell into the unprotected pool at his father’s house. Daniel Starbuck’s life was cut short two months before his fourth birthday. His mother accepted a request that he spend the last days of the holiday’s with his father in Johannesburg. The parents stayed apart and Daniel lived with his mother Alison.

I have now seen first hand how these senseless deaths rip family’s hearts apart. His mother, sister and brother are broken people and I am not sure they will ever recover. The little man is dearly missed by all who know the family. May he rest in peace.

I write thus for Daniel and all the other little lives lost to the inability of home owners to take simple steps to secure swimming pools. Precautions along the lines of fences, sprung gates, nets and alarms are not expensive when compared even to the upfront or running costs of a pool. These precautions are however priceless when just one toddler is saved.

Unfortunately most South Africans don’t value lives sufficiently to voluntarily install foolproof safety equipment. The proposed permit should thus increase home owner’s awareness of this issue and I hope stiff penalties await people who flout the proposed regulations. This legislation could also open the door to more successful criminal and civil lawsuits when deaths occur after owners have not taken all precautions.

I recommend that at least two independent safety systems be installed. A combination of fence/gate & alarm, fence/gate & net or net & alarm.

Yours faithfully.
Mike Hull Pr.Eng.

This blog was started with an unspoken wish to carry a message strong enough to possibly prevent another toddler from drowning.
If you are a parent with small children, please don’t let your baby become the next statistic. Remember Daniel and let him help you never to look away. Not even for a second.

Heaven And Angels

Daniel is part of me, of who I am and when he died he took that piece of my being that was his time on earth. I was left with a deep wound that will never heal completely unless the hole can be filled. That is sadly impossible because it is a unique space, custom made by the love shared between me and my child.

The only person that would ever be able to make me complete again is a little boy lost to life. He was beyond precious and irreplaceable. I named him Daniel Hugo Starbuck.

I know I say the words "thank you" over and over but it is so important to me that you know how much it means to me that you are here. You are one of my angels and you bring soothing ointment to drip onto this cut in my soul. You help to ease my pain.

You give me:

Love
Energy
Prayers
Thoughts
Compassion
Understanding

I also receive special gifts from my angel child, to dry my tears and make me smile.

Daniel gives to me:

Sweet happy memories
His whisper in the wind
Dreams of him still being alive
Imaginations of how it was to hold him

Oh, how much I think of a blissful happy reunion in the after life but I honestly don't know.

I have always been driven by equal portions of realism and religion. I see our insight and knowledge of what really happen when we die as earthly and limited.

How much of what we like to believe about heaven has been created by our human selves?

Would a mother survive her child's death without the idea that death isn't final? Would a grieving mother be able to cope without the belief that the heart wrecking separation is only temporary? I say no, she wouldn't.

I live to die, clinging desperately to the hope that I will one day, one life from here, find my lost child.

My heart holds no cynicism. Only love.

Owen's Mom

After Daniel had died, I searched the internet for blogs about parent's like me. Parents who lost children. I wrote to them and they responded to me with love and kindness.

Thank you so much to Linda and her precious Owen, Daniel and Kim (Elena's parents), Alice who lost her own little Daniel, Erin who had to say good bye to Charlotte. Your emails, comments, thoughts, prayers, encouragement mean so much to me and have brought light to help me through some of my heavy, darker moments. You are indeed special parents and special people.

The email below was sent to me by Linda - Owen's mom.

Oh, my dear friend halfway around the world, we are connected by loss. What misfortune deems this possible? We were not friends before our children died. We are friends now. We are friends in grief, and therefore, friends for life.

I cry as I write this, for I know your loss, your agony, your sleepless nights, your screaming days. Thank you for the email you sent today. We're connected now. It makes no difference that we live on different continents. Our sameness, is that we are mothers who miss our boys more than we would miss our own breath, if it were taken from us.In most of our waking hours, it feels as though breath, indeed, has been taken, by an entity we cannot fully describe, nor want to.

If I may, let me breathe your next breath for you. If I may, let me scream your next scream. If I may, let me sleep for you when you are fitful in the night (and there will be many of those nights). If I only could, my friend, I truly would. I've spent so many of those nights, they would not come to me without warning - and I would take them from you, if only I could...

These are the early days of loss. They will become the later days, and then...the later days again. You will not forget Daniel, your Danny Boy. You will remember him as the light, the love, the precious gift, your very own special boy. And, those of us who are out here remembering the early days of our childrens' losses, will hold you in our arms when your body shakes, and your voice finally goes quiet from the crying.

We will hold you up, as others have held us. We are here, and you are in our arms, breathing you into the future, your future. We are carrying you when you cannot walk...and when you can barely stand another sunrise, we will be here holding you up. You will always be Danny's mother. That will never change. Yours is not an easy path. Nor are any of ours. And, that is why we hold hands and walk together on this rugged road. No one can do it alone.

Love to you on this journey,
Linda Owen's mom

Time Now

Time scares me….

… because every second contributes to a growing distance between now and when I still had Daniel. A new day is one day further away from when I last saw him. It is already a bit more than 2 months. Soon it will late be a year. Then two years and ten and twenty. I don’t want that Daniel to become something that happened long ago – I want him to stay part of my recent past.

… because I will get older every year but Daniel will always be only 3 years and 10 months old.

… because it makes me more and more aware of the reality that my child has really died. My mind has clinically accept the knowledge the moment I was told that Daniel had drowned but I have this subtle irrational feeling in my heart that this cannot be true. It makes me feel detached and blissfully numb; but I can feel how time allows reality to filter through my defense of this just being a very bad dream and with these moments of emotional realisation comes the most unbearable pain, an agony that words cannot describe.

… because we can never turn back the clock. If only we could.

Dear Lee
Thank you so much for this photo and also for all the other photos that you have taken with so much love. They are priceless treasures.
Thank for being a good person in Daniel's life and for loving "our little Dan the Man" as if he was your own child. I will never forget the laughs and special moments shared between the 3 of us.
Love
Alls Bells