Shannon and me in February 2006
That smile will be with me forever...
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself….
My Name is Erika and here is my story:
Well where do I start? I am a mature age student and I have one more year to go and I will be a Division 1 Nurse. I am happily married to John (poor man) and we have had 2 beautiful intelligent boys together... yes I did say intelligent…LOL.
Kevin is 18 and Shannon who will be 5 forever...
I also have two fantastic stepsons. I would love to claim them as my own but they have a Mum and she is fantastic.Besides I am not old enough to be Matt's Mum ....LMAO. He is 28 and married to Kate and they have made me a step-grandma which is way cool...when Lydia calls me Nanna I just melt...VBG
Then there is Dale 26, married to Zenobia and they also made me a step-grandma this year with Cooper...he doesn't call me anything yet...LOL but no doubt he will learn ... LOL.
Well - 2 years ago John and I joined a club - this club is so special that no-one wants to join it, but some of us have to and when you join you are there forever. Ah I see you wonder what this club is….well I am gonna tell you. It’s called the bereavement club for parents. Now you know why no one wants to join!
I lost my youngest son, to cancer in 2006 and it broke my heart and turned our world into something I don’t want it to be and there is no return from there…if you have lost a child you know what I mean. If you haven’t, I pray (and so should you) that you never find out. So, a few things changed that year including myself...my life...my future...my way of looking at life. I now know that we DON’T know when it is our time to go,so I live life to the fullest - well I have my limits…LOL.
Now I am not sure if I mentioned that I talk a lot as well…OK, so after Shannon passed away I had to return to the workforce. That’s another long story so I won't go into that right now. Anyhow from there I returned to study…..AND created a charity in Shan’s memory. Oh, in case I haven’t mentioned it earlier, my youngest son's name is Shannon.
Some people know that when kids stay in hospital long term, a few of the bigger companies come and donate gifts,toys, and other items to help cheer up the little ones while they are staying in hospital. In our case we wanted to keep Shannon at home with us as long as we could so we didn’t stay in hospital that long…and I thought bummer my boy deserves nice things too….so I started to think about what we can do for THOSE children.
Oh yes and here is the other reason we do what we do. During the time Shan was sick my friends from a couple of online groups sent me what are called Healing Hearts (HH)-hearts of hope, healing hands, etc. What are they, I hear you say? Well, they are quilt blocks 6 1/2 inches square and we applique/stitch/embroider - well any way you wish really ….a heart on the fabric and a little message on the square. So after they arrived, I made Shannon a HH quilt. It has his favourite cartoon characters on it and it was backed in his favourite colour, red ...he loved that beautiful quilt.Damn the tears again..anyhow, sooo ... I decided that: 1) I wanted to do something for those other kids that may or may not share Shannon’s fate (hopefully not) and 2) I needed to keep busy…. so we came up with the idea of Shannon’s Army.
To be continued….on the home page you will find out why we are called Shannon's Army....
The quilt that started it all:
This is the quilt I made for Shannon during the time he was sick.Please remember Shannon was only sick for a short period of time as the cancer had advanced too far already.It is single bed size. Trish my friend finished the border for me as we were in hospital with Shannon and I was worried he wouldn't get to see his quilt. It was completely hand quilted and he got to enjoy it for a number of weeks.The red border is Scooby Doo fabric and the outer blue Toy Story...both favourites of Shan's ....