Alexis has incredible friends, they're love for her is so strong that they each chose to honour her memory in the most wonderful way and so, there are now 4 beautiful children named after her. I feel so honoured that her friends would want their children to have Lex's name, it speaks to her kindness, her character, her beautiful self. All we have in life is our good name, nothing else matters in the end except how we treat each other, were we kind, considerate, giving, were we honest, a good friend, trustworthy. Alexis at such a young age already exhibited many if not all of these qualities, and she was loved for it. Ask yourself how will you be remembered, how do you want to be remembered, maybe the possibility that someone will think so highly of you that they will name their child for you is incentive enough to be a better person. Alexis's death is an even bigger tragedy for her inability to become the adult she was destined to be, but if this is her legacy, I am so proud.

5 Years

December 29, 2015 marked 5 years since we lost our Lex. So much has happened in those 5 years as we have been living our lives moving through time. While the years have passed we have continued to grieve and to miss Lex daily, sometimes hourly, surprisingly the sadness is still almost as intense as when she died. There are vivid memory flashes of the last few months of her life, these flashes are often of memories I wish I could forget. Anger sneaks up on me too, I am so angry that this happened to Lex and to my family, but, this anger is different, its tinged with helplessness and hopelessness. Guilt haunts me, yes I feel guilt, two different kinds of guilt. First, I still wonder if I missed something that could have saved her, I understand that this is unreasonable but I can't help how I feel and the responsibility of her life in my hands is overwhelming. The second kind of guilt addresses the life I continue to enjoy and all the people that I have befriended over the last 5 years all the things I have done, even my sweet dog Turtle none of which I would have if Lex had lived, which crushes me. I recently learned something, I learned to be gentle and kind with myself. All these feelings that live in my head weigh me down but those 2 simple words 'gentle and kind,' offer me relief and give me permission to feel how I feel to not pretend that I'm ok, they tell me to be gentle with myself to stop trying to reach for unreasonable standards of behaviour. I'm sad, I miss my daughter, and I always will I'm working on trying to live with this and it's a life long challenge, but I think that while the first step is to be gentle and kind with myself the second might be to forgive Lex for dying and to just love her for who she was.