If you are finding this story for the first time, I recommend starting at part one, followed by part two and then returning here... I have to warn you though that this one is an emotional and rather poignant story today...
This is the third Sunday Story about my sister in law, Shellie... who as you may recall I was friends with before I knew her connection to my dear sweet hubby... and grew to love like a sister in more ways than one...
As we left off last week, Shellie had just debuted her daughter Robyn to all of our family and friends at the wedding... She joked constantly that Robyn came early just so she could be at her favourite Aunt and Uncle's wedding...
A few weeks later, I dragged her back to Toronto on one pretense or another ... and she came kicking and screaming... (well no, not really but it sounds better don't you think...) to give her a surprise baby shower. Robyn was still so tiny... especially compared to her second cousin who had been born the weekend of my wedding to Shellie's cousin Julie... a ten pound, strapping young man.
As we feasted on cake and goodies and watched her unwrap the mountain of gifts, Shellie laughed all the way through the party! Robyn was the belle of the ball again! Me, on the other hand was chastised considerably after the party... since Shellie hadn't wanted a big fuss... and since I'd had so much practice with planning my own wedding, I'd rented a church hall, invited over 75 people (cause I had their addresses ;) and made it a huge deal ... which wasn't really in Shellie's nature...
That August, Wayne and I packed up the wedding gifts and our belongings (after living with Wayne's parents for the summer to save some money and stay in Toronto where we both kept our Summer jobs) and headed, not to the States like we had thought... but to Kitchener-Waterloo - about half way between Toronto and St. Thomas, where Shellie was living now... so that he could start his Masters degree work at the University of Waterloo.
We fell back into the same routine we'd had before Robyn was born... although with such a cute draw, I was visiting St. Thomas way more frequently and took my Auntie babysitting responsibilities seriously...
After six months of maternity leave, Shellie headed back to work at the property she managed, and life got way more hectic... visits became phone calls, and emails with tons of pictures of Robyn... but we'd talk and compare movies we'd seen, books we'd read and get regular updates about Miss Robyn's development...
Robyn's first Christmas was a sight to behold... held at Shellie and Rob's, there were no less than four Christmas Stockings for her and it took 3 days to unwrap all of Little Miss' gifts... Shellie got a new camera for taking more pictures of the cutie... and the rest of us as we clowned around...
It wasn't any better when we met up for her first birthday or second Christmas - it was true... that child was Spoiled - but still so sweet, and becoming more and more like her mother every day ... by her second birthday Robyn had developed into a little mini-me of her mother... with a sharp wit, grasp of sarcasm and the ability to deliver 'the look' ... you know the one that can set someone back in their chair... and all by 20 months old... man was she a handful for her mom...
Shellie was having other difficulties too, her relationship with Rob was souring...he had moved back in with his mother, and some of the health problems she had with her heart were coming back... but the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on... she was fatigued, just getting up for work in the morning was a struggle... by May of 2000, Shellie was off work and trying to build up her strength at home to be able to head to the hospital for scopes and tests... they found that there was a possibility that the pericardium (sac around the heart) was thickening - making it harder for her blood to pump through her body... so she started on a course of steroids...
The steroids seemed to perk Shellie up and she made it to the Banville Family Reunion at Mike's farm in Elora, everyone camping out in tents and spending time in the pool, eating yummy food, getting to see cousins from far and wide, playing horseshoes and more... She was still tired, but determined to be there and have a great time! Every time she was asked how she was doing .... her response was the same as it had always been 'Just Peachy'
By November, the doctors had decided that the steroids alone weren't doing enough to help Shellie, so they were going to go in and investigate again... So my mother in law took a leave of absence from work and went down to St. Thomas to help with Robyn while Shellie went to the hospital for more tests... and it was a good thing she did - they found a blood clot in her neck! That lead to further x-rays and probably the one thing that no one expected to hear...
Cancer
All this time, the doctors thought they'd been battling an know foe... her heart, but it turns out they'd missed the real culprit... a pervasive and spreading cancer in her blood - by the time they found it, it was in her lymphatic system and all throughout her body... They raced to start chemo, and did...just a week after her thirty-first birthday. A week later, they sent her home... on oxygen and faith... planning to have her return to the hospital in two weeks, the day after Christmas for her next treatment.
Christmas as a subdued affair that year, with Shellie only able to get out of bed for brief periods, and not able to eat... we all tried to be positive for Robyn and spend Christmas as a family... but it was tough... There were still mountains of gifts, but the sparkle was gone from the festivities... Shellie had been given less than a year.. and knew that when she went back for her second round of chemo, that she'd probably start losing her hair. But even as she sat in bed, with reindeer antlers on and reading stories with Robyn, we had hope that there would be some miracle... and that we'd have at least another Christmas with her...
We went back down to visit Shellie on New Year's Eve day and she was chipper, and 'just peachy'... joking with us, her doctor and nurses and explaining to everyone how her friend was going to sneak back in at midnight to toast the new year!
Wayne and I made the trek home after Shellie fell asleep, promising to be back the following weekend... we got home, and had a subdued New Year's eve, just sitting on the couch watching the ball drop... hoping that 2001 would be a better year for everyone...
The next morning, the phone rang early... six am... and I was expecting to hear someone wishing us a Happy New Year... unfortunately it wasn't that...
Shellie had gotten one of her wishes, she'd seen the new year come and the old year go, but had slipped away quietly in the night, passing away just before dawn on New Year's day.
Despite everything that had gone on in the year prior to her death, it was still a huge shock for everyone... no one expects anyone to die young... and a larger than life personality like Shellie least of all...
I am proud to have been able to call Shellie both my friend and my sister and I miss her every day. I am lucky however, that I have a living reminder, just as smart, sassy and sarcastic and just as wonderful, in my daughter of my heart, Robyn, who has become such a huge part of our lives since she came to live with us about a year after Shellie passed....
Thank you for reading my Sunday Family Stories and visiting my blog...
