Están íntimamente ligados- There is a Strong Connection

Lost love is still love. It just takes a different form, that's all. You can't hold their hand... You can't tousle their hair... But when those senses weaken another one comes to life... Memory... Memory becomes your partner. You hold it... you dance with it... Life has to end... Love doesn't. ~ Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Over the course of time passing, I have come to acknowledge and submit to the idea the pebbles released, have chosen me to be their voice. In doing so, I have no bias as to what hands touch them as much as I do not know where their own final destination will be. The size, colour or shape have evolved through a cathartic process of letting go that I as a bereaved mother, whole-heartily embrace. 

In the movement I created, my life has been encompassed by moments of serendipity; where the ripples of a pebble come echoing back, full circle to me. I do not question the inner calm that grows inside of my soul nor do I wrestle with the truth nesting in my mind of lateral thinking. When at the moment of everything aligning together comes to exist, much like an opening lotus revealing simple beauty, I am delighted. For me- the very notion of rejecting traditional methods of explaining the unknown- is to allow the mysteries to wash over me… like a submerged obsidian river stone. 

 Six years ago, Shayla joined her family in celebrating her stepsister Kimberly’s wedding, in Mexico. Their travels took them to a variety of areas in Puerto Vallarta. As I was not there, I made a special request for my daughter to take pictures and videos of everything she could and we would share in her adventures at a later date. Unknown at the time was how the camera would play a part in the tendrils of fate connecting the past to the present. 

Shayla and Kimberly

One of the adventures Shayla took part in was an all-girls night trip on an ocean cruise across Banderas Bay to the secluded cove of Las Caletas for “Rhythms of the Nights.” Amongst the orange reflections of the setting sun off the Pacific Ocean, the group of ladies were lavished with spectacular views. Underneath a veil of stars that blanketed the retreat of Las Caletas, were rows of torches lighted along the way to a buffet of tropical delicacies. I was told how my daughter danced the night away and during her exploring, playfully smiled for the camera with the locals. 

At some point- my daughter who in the midst of her vacation- took the time to write in the sand something we have always shared since she was a little girl. On the beach, she scrawled the words that were an act of compassion for her momma…"I Love You Shoobie Dobbie Do."

It was shortly after Shayla died, that I would find the camera she thought she had lost. Intact were hundreds of pictures and countless videos of her time in Mexico. Watching them was bittersweet as my daughter was not by my side with me…or so I thought. 

In the recent months, I have been scrapbooking our lives together, cutting out numerous quotes such as ‘sadness flies away on the wings of time.’  As it nears the three year anniversary of her sudden passing, I no longer winch when I read of such notions. A pivotal moment of change has occurred…one in which I do not hold onto questioning why so many people before Shayla had car accidents on McKinley, but all survived. My focus of grieving has shifted to accepting that it was my only child who would be the one who brought safety changes. My journals mirror this recognition in the following that now is imprinted amongst the pages of my words, in understanding this:  It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. ~ Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

I am quoting from this movie I watched yesterday as the words have a significant role in the most recent pebble release and are weaved into the past.  As I viewed this film, sudden images stood out and I was intrigued as to where the locations were. After watching this profound movie which explores our individual journeys and how we impact one another in life and after death, I looked through the movie credits. I discovered parts of it were filmed in areas around Vancouver, British Columbia. I lived on the Lower mainland for six years and hiked with Shayla all over the coastal mountains. There is a poignant scene at a river and it struck me as being familiar. After much research, I found an email for the location manager and sent him a message. Mr. Bruce Brownstein promptly replied by saying: We filmed that scene on the Seymour River in North Vancouver at the 9 km marker in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.  The significance of this is that Shayla hiked this area in the North Shore and later after her passing; a pebble would be released, which began The Heart Pebble Movement. 

Shayla enjoyed hiking all over!

Later, upon receiving my mail, I opened a card with several pictures and a postcard from my high school friend Michelle and her husband, Chris Wells. They had embarked on a vacation to Mexico and honoured Shayla, a second time, with the release of a granite pebble they had found on a secluded haven in Puerto Vallarta. My first reaction was a cascade of tears, as they had taken the time amongst their own adventures to pay tribute to my babygirl. I really liked the snapshots they took; especially of the one where Michelle had written in the sand: 4 U Shayla 2014. 

I glanced at the postcard they had included and I was overwhelmed with déjà vu. It seemed as if I had known of this pristine coastline.

I began to make calls to those who went on the trip with Shayla, to México. I was at the end of my contact list with no concrete answers, with only one last number I could not find, I decided to search for it later. 

Having scrap-booked for a part of the day, I saw the box that contained all of Shayla’s stuff she had used for her own scrapbooks. I recalled she had a folder full of stickers and memorabilia for Mexico. She had started a page, but never finished it. I decided to look through it, after all the time that has passed; I felt it was a good idea to complete the page with her mementos. Tucked inside was a brochure. As I gently unfolded it, I saw a name and picture of the beach Shayla had went to in 2009. It was Las Caletas…then I grabbed the postcard once again and flipped it over to read Michelle’s words: “This is the special, beautiful beach we decided to release Shayla’s pebble- Las Caletas, the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. Seemed like the perfect place, we even found a granite pebble! Sending you lots of Love Xox” 

I began to sift through the rest of my daughter’s scrapbook materials and scrawled on a page in Shayla’s hand-writing was a name and number I had been looking for, to the last person I was going to call to ask about Mexico! I called Faye and told her what I had found and how her phone number was on a paper for the past 3 years, tucked away…waiting to be discovered! In a few sentences, Faye confirmed back in 2009, at Kimberly’s wedding they had went to Las Caletas for an all-girls celebration. My heart pounded as I came to fully comprehend that on the very sand Shayla had once strolled along and wrote a message for me, the past was intertwined with the present. For Michelle and Chris took part in the movement dedicated to my daughter and the touching message they had wrote for Shayla was on the same beach! 

I have always believed in the infinite possibility that we are all connected…from the voyage of Shayla, Michelle and Chris on a boat in Puerto Vallarta- separated by time-to their footprints on the sands of Las Caletas, and pebbles in a stream we once hiked, Mitch Albom sums it up best when he shares: No story sits by itself, Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.

By T.L. Alton