Grieving for what might have been
The only memories 2-year-old Sage will have of her dad will be the ones her mother creates. Teresa Ramsey reports.
On Father’s Day, Auckland mother Janelle BruntonRennie helped her daughter Sage light a candle for her dad, Kurt Brunton.
The ritual is one way Brunton-Rennie keeps his memory alive for 2-year-old Sage, because she knows she won’t remember her father, who lost his battle with cancer when she was 16 months old.
Kurt Brunton was diagnosed with cancer when BruntonRennie was pregnant.
‘‘Father’s Day was very tough. Kurt had actually made us a video that I found on his phone [saying] if he didn’t make it, he asked us to practice a ritual for him every Father’s Day where we light candles, Sage and I, so he can see it from up in heaven,’’ Brunton-Rennie said.
‘‘This was the first Father’s Day that we did that and it was actually pretty tough. I imagine that over time it will become less tough and more special but it was certainly tough the first time around.’’
It saddens Brunton-Rennie their daughter won’t remember her dad, who died from diffuse large b-cell non-Hodgkin Lymphoma a year ago on January 7.
‘‘I think the memories that Sage will have of her dad are of me talking about her dad and the photos of her dad. I’m doing my best to create memories of her father in any way I can and that feels like it’s important to honour that.’’
She also grieves for what might have been, the influence Brunton would have had on their daughter.
‘‘Kurt was such a genuinely positive, happy, calming, grounded man and it saddens me that he won’t be able to pass on those qualities to her in person,’’ she said.
‘‘It saddens me – the loss of him is shaping her in her formative years as well. We all know that the first thousand days are the most important in terms of shaping who we are and our personalities. The loss of his earthly presence in shaping her personality is immense.
‘‘At least he was here for the first 16 months, but I’m often very sad about the loss of that impact that he would have in her life.’’
Brunton-Rennie keeps Brunton’s memory alive by keeping his photographs around the house. She also still has his ashes, and the photo that sat on his coffin now sits on his bedside table with his watch and wedding ring.
‘‘We talk about ‘Daddy’ all the time and yes, that can be very challenging but I think it’s very important.
‘‘Some people think that that will make it hard to move on, but I feel like for me, I’m just honouring what still feels good at the moment. I still wear my wedding ring and my engagement rings and it’s because I don’t quite feel ready to put them away yet.’’
Brunton-Rennie said she had always found motherhood tough, so raising a toddler on her own in the past year while running her public relations business and grieving her
‘‘Kurt was such a genuinely positive, happy, calming, grounded man and it saddens me that he won’t be able to pass on those qualities to Sage in person.’’
Janelle Brunton-Rennie
husband’s death had been challenging. ‘‘It’s been a baptism of fire for me and sometimes I feel very sad that I haven’t been in joy mode, I’ve been in survival mode,’’ she said.
‘‘So there’s a lot of sadness where a lot of people would be celebrating their baby’s firsts, like the first steps, in the back of my mind, there’s like a ‘Gosh, I wonder if Kurt’s going to make it?’ or ‘Gosh, I wish Kurt were here to see this’.’’
‘‘I feel like I’ve been in survival mode essentially for two-and-a-half years and all of a sudden I have to learn how to live again or how do I get from survival to trying to thrive again?’’
The past month has been a difficult one for ‘‘grief anniversaries’’. Brunton-Rennie marked January 15 as the first day of the New Year after battling through more than a month of anniversaries and celebrations without her husband for the first time.
On December 10 she celebrated her birthday without him, then it was their first Christmas since he died. On December 27, it had been a year since they found out his cancer was too aggressive and he wasn’t going to make it, January 7 was the anniversary of his death, followed by their wedding anniversary on January 10.
January 11 was the two-year anniversary of him finding the cancerous lump, his mother Sue Brunton celebrated her birthday on January 13 and the anniversary of his funeral was on January 14.
‘‘Everyone talks about the first year and the first lot of grief firsts being the hardest and I hope they’re right,’’ she said.
‘‘Yesterday [January 14] was the last of the grief anniversary firsts and I felt like this morning when I woke up I thought, well, that’s the first year officially done. I choose to start my new year today. That’s a really powerful decision in itself.’’