Heatherina's Story: Forever Sydney’s Mom

I think I’m ready to tell my story/ I have had a past that one day I will share but, this is what has been really impacting me & led me to your Tribe! I love the Phoenix line & my story gives the why!

Her Pain became the Flames that set her soul on Fire   Phoenix III
The Fire inside me burns brighter than the Fire around Me    Phoenix IV
From the Ashes I Rise Phoenix V

Beautiful Disaster is a Tribe I can relate to in ways that may be different than most.
Life has always brought it’s struggles (story for another time), but in August 2014 on the 26th day early in the morning my world changed!  My beautiful 12yr old daughter (and my only child) passed away in my arms as her body lost its 5+month battle to a rare disease called Severe Aplastic Anemia.
Grieving the loss of my daughter, my Beautiful Sydney, turned my outlook on life, family, friends, society, absolutely everything upside down, inside out & then twist it on top of that and that is just the surface of where my emotions go on a mini by min basis. At times I have no hope and other times I strive with hope. But, it obviously goes from one extreme to the next, into the Fire of Grief and out again!
The Phoenix has always been my favorite mythical creature and has taken on a whole new meaning for me now!
My pain, my loss, this journey of grief is the flames and my daughter is the ashes that are helping me be reborn! They remind me to make the most of this life, to not take anything for granted! The memory of my Daughter gives me strength! In her ashes I am reborn like the Phoenix! I burn with determination to live the life I taught and instilled in her to live! To love unconditionally, to accept everyone and to never let anyone tell her she can’t do something. Don’t ever underestimate a determined woman, a Phoenix on Fire! For the flames won’t kill us, they’ll just make us stronger! The Phoenix also reminds me of an old Mexican Proverb, that has also taken on new meaning to me, “They tried to bury us but, they didn’t know we were seeds”.
Grief and the way people respond to me and treat me differently because of it, may slow me down at times during this new journey of moving through this new pain but, it will not stop me! I will continue to strive to make a difference in the lives of other’s, as I had taught my daughter to do! I have grief, it is a part of my life, my Journey but, it doesn’t have me!
I am a Beautiful Disaster and will not only accept it but, I will embrace it and run with it!
From the Ashes I will Rise and from my daughter’s ashes, I will conquer the day to day! Grief has been Disastrous to this Mother’s Heart but I will become Beautiful in My Daughter’s Honor! I will not let her Memory die!