Friday 21 September 2012

Supatra's 100 day anniversary of her passing

13 September marked the 100th day of Supatra's passing and it is a Buddhist tradition to mark this occasion with family's of the deceased attending their local temples.  Usually this is a big event that all family members and acquaintances of the family attend at their local Thai Buddhist temple where they make offerings to Buddha, the monks and to the deceased.  The Monks then conduct special chanting prayers with everyone as a means of offering merit and helping the deceased in heaven.  We would have liked to join our extended family in Thailand for this special occasion but work commitments would not allow this and so we held our own ceremony at a temple in Ottawa with a few dozen members of the Thai Buddhist faithful.  We also asked our friends and family members, where ever they were to do the same and so we had friends in England sending prayers to Supatra, in Victoria and Ottawa Canada and our extended family in Thailand all conducting ceremonies and remembering Supatra on the same day.  It was very heart warming for us to know that so many people were touched by Supatra in some way and that she is still thought about and remembered.  It is very important for me and Punny to know this and to see the wonderful pictures of people remembering Supatra in their own way.

We had my mom and sister releasing a balloon for Supatra and some of Supatra's best friends, Sam, Bella and Gracie releasing balloons in Milton Country Park in England.  It is also important to mention Oliver, another close friend of Supatra's who still thinks of her fondly and misses her very much.  Attached are some pictures of these moments. 

Both me and Punny are still in pain over losing Supatra to this cancer and we struggle to remain composed everyday.  Some days we just don't make it and the sorrow just washes over us like a tidal wave.  We miss our angel so much. 


Supatra's Grandfather in Thailand
Merit making by making offerings to the Monks
Gifts for the Monks
Pink dress for Supatra and toys
Supatra's Aunt and Uncle

Supatra would have loved these flowers!




Offering food to the Monks
Supatra loved wearing her tieras


Gifts for Supatra
Aunt Christine
Oma, Supatra's favourite person in the world after her mom
At the Ottawa Buddhist temple



Making our offerings to the Monks and Supatra
Supatra's mom preparing for the ceremony


Ottawa Buddhist temple

Michael and Gracie remembering
Supatra at her memorial Pink Blossom
Tree at her school in Milton, UK
 

Sam, Bella & Gracie

Sam, Bella & Gracie remembering Supatra with a
Balloon release
Hope you caught the balloon
Supatra...love you













I promised to update this blog with the donation link for Natalie's marathon run in Bristol this coming spring and so here it is:

 https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/nataliegunner1

Please support Nat in her endeavour as it is for a very good cause; now very much so dear to our hearts - raising money for DIPG research.  This is also Nat's first attempt at a marathon and we thank her so much for doing this in Supatra's name. 

I continue to mull over some thoughts on how we can keep Supatra's memory alive and would like to create another website in Canada (linked to this one of course) that could be used as the basis for starting a new chapter of Supatra's Fairy Fund in Canada and to facilitate donations in this country.  I also do not find this blog site to be very user friendly especially in arranging a better layout then we currently have.  To start, I am thinking of creating an annual "Supatra's Fairy Walk" fundraising to be held on or near the anniversary of her passing (5th June) and hold some sort of evening event in her Honor in the late fall of each year.  Of course, the idea would be to raise money specifically for DIPG tumour research.  Unfortunately, my current employment training will likely keep me from making this a reality this coming year but I do hope to move forward with this charity work with a possible future aim of registering Supatra's Fairy Fund as a charity within Canada.  If there is anyone that would like to consider helping me in making these yearly events a reality, please let me know by contacting me through: supatrasfairyfund@hotmail.ca

I would also like to let you know that my UK Just Giving page is still up with donations going directly to the Brain Tumour UK charity and any donations in Supatra's name (which all are when donated through this page) will be marked for DIPG research grants.

Once I have some time in the future I will also update this web page to reflect the change in our focus; however, Supatra's cancer fight and life story will always remain in case it might help other families going through this ordeal. 

Thank you to everyone who supported and continue to support us.

Jorg (Supatra's dad)

Miss you sweetie!

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Only Memories Now

Hello everyone,

For obvious reasons it has been some time since I last posted but felt I should say something now that the third month anniversary of Supatra's passing is upon us.  It is hard to believe that she is gone and that it now has been 3 months.  The horror of her decline over the last 48 hours of her life still haunt us and we continue to relive those hours almost everyday.  It is a loss like no other and I still don't know how I will be able to cope without her chattering, without her funny dancing and without her yelling at Jason to watch her do something silly.

A lot has happened since my last post like moving the family from the UK back to Canada.  This in itself was an emotional challenge as I felt that moving so soon after Supatra's death that we were abandoning her.  We had our own special ceremonies in the hopes that her spirit would follow us to Canada and her new home which she did not get to see.   We arrived in Canada on 16 July and spent about 3 weeks in a hotel until all our belongings arrived.  We are now in what I call our temporary home on a Canadian Forces base until such time we can save up some money to purchase a home.  We had deliberately chosen to stay on the base because of Supatra's and Punny's need for support that we had already worked to set-up in anticipation of our original move date of 25 Jun 12.  That need all but disappeared after Supatra passed but we had to stay with the accommodations we had arranged.  In the end I think it is working out for the better as Jason's nursery is only about 100m from our house and Punny still gets to use the support services on the base.  We both struggle day by day but Punny has been hit the hardest especially as her all day morning sickness kicked in.  That's right for those that may not know, Punny is pregnant and we are hoping for a baby girl! :)  We discussed having another child shortly after Supatra was diagnosed but never acted on it.  We also discussed it with Supatra because at one point we wanted to have another child in time for Supatra to meet her new sibling and Supatra was always keen to have a sister anyways.  But in the end we knew it would be too much to bear, especially for Punny, knowing that things might get much harder.  After starting Supatra on her Burzynski treatment we knew that the burden would be way too much and that it would just be one more thing taking our focus away from our priority, which was Supatra.  Punny and soon to be baby are doing fine and the expected due date is 26 March 2013!!  Only three days out from Supatra's birthdate of 29 March.  At one point we thought it would be really special if we were to have a baby girl born on the exact same day but after thinking about it we would rather that did not happen.  We feel that if our baby was born on the same day it would never be just about her special day but there would always be a sad cloud hanging over her special day. 

The morning sickness that Punny is experiencing is the worst of her three pregnancies and combined with the fresh loss of Supatra, our move to a city where we have no connections to, plus missing all our wonderful community of friends in the UK has really made this a difficult last 6 weeks.  Punny is starting to feel somewhat better but is still very tired, depressed and feeling the sickness for the time being.  But day by day she is getting stronger and getting around more. 

On top of the move and me missing the first 1.5 weeks of my French language course for various reasons I got into an accident with my car after having it on the road for only three weeks and just spending $1,500 on repairs.  I was OK but some guy was not paying attention to the red light I was stopped at and hit me from behind.  I thought the car would be repaired but the insurance company felt it was a right-off and so for a week instead of studying I was researching for a new vehicle and running around getting paperwork sorted out.  In the end we bought a used minivan but we are out about $5,000! :(  It has just been one thing after another and I hope that is the last problem we will have to deal with for some time.

I continue to think about a way forward for doing something special for Supatra so that her name and spirit will be remembered.  I know our good friends in Milton are still moving forward with plans to create a sitting area near the Milton community centre and a "Supatra's Fairy Walk" at the Milton Country Park.  My language studies are taking a priority right now but I am also thinking of creating one or two annual charity events here in Ottawa.  Maybe continuing the theme 'Supatra's Big Night Out' evening event and a 'Supatra Fairy Walk' on the anniversary of her passing.  The fairy walk would be good to develop into a family event that would see kids dress as fairies and walk for a set distance and have some entertainment at the finish/start line.  We also may have an opportunity to create a tranquil garden space in honour of Supatra at the local Buddhist temple which has a large undeveloped property.  But these are all long term plans/projects and I will have to see if I can make them work.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and trying to help us get through our grief.  I should also mention that Natalie Gunner is going to run the Brighton Marathon to help raise money for Brain Tumour UK which is supporting us in earmarking all funds raised in Supatra's name towards DIPG research projects.  I will try to get a link to Natalie's fundraising page in the coming days.

Here's the link to Nat's fundraising page!
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/nataliegunner1

All the best
Supatra's Dad