One special day

This time five years ago, I was in our western most state, visiting friends and family on one last holiday before the baby arrived. Safely in to the second trimester I had not a worry in the world, well apart from how I was going to cope with labour and in my role as a new mum, but nothing out of the ordinary. Life was good.

At the same time in the same state lived a lovely young mother by the name of Carly, nursing her brand new rainbow baby. A term I hadn't yet come to know, a term I wish I never had to know. Just over a year from the devastating death of her son, this special mum was just starting to breath again and learning to put one foot in front of the other. She'd survived the unthinkable and in the mean time had also brought a new life in to the world. I had no idea who she was or that in just a few short months, our lives would spectacularly collide.

Fast forward to August of that same year. 2008. I don't need to repeat the story here. What happened to that young mum in early 2007 had now happened to me. Her baby died, and mine had too.

A few weeks after that tragic event, the reason for this very blog, I was floating around online when I came across Carly's blog. I've told the story about how the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read her post titled Tuesday's Hope. Which was the post that brought about her amazing project, To Write Their Names in the Sand. That's how all this started, that's why I'm here and that's why I blog about my baby who died. Because Carly inspired me (even though I don't write here nearly enough as I should).

From very early on in my relationship with Carly, I knew one thing: I would one day visit Christian's beach with her. This was a sure thing. A few years after we met online, we were lucky enough to meet in person when she travelled to my state and came to Angus' first birthday, then again a few months later but just last weekend, almost five years to the day since the last time I was in her part of the world, our dreams came true, and I visited the beautiful Western Australian beach with her at sunset and watched her at work, doing her amazing, beautiful, important and meaningful thing.

I knew for a long time this trip was coming, as we had a family wedding to attend in Perth. I'd be lying if I said I was more looking forward to the wedding. I wasn't. I was desperate to catch up with Carly and get to that beach with her. To feel the sand beneath my toes, then to dip them quickly in to the water. This beach, Christian's beach, is just about known around the world as Babyloss Mecca. Thousands upon thousands of grieving parents have landed on Carly's page after their baby has died, just like I did, and become part of her community. They look to her for guidance and healing as they embark on their journeys as bereaved parents. Now here I was with her, in her home. Being with Carly and her family is like being with royalty, and they in turn treated us the same way.

Carly is an angel on this earth, I am sure of that. You know I don't know if I even believe in angels, but I believe Carly is one regardless. She picked us up from the airport early on the Friday morning and then went out of her way for the next 24 hours to make our time with her precious, memorable and comfortable. Nothing was ever too much to ask and her laid back nature, typical of the folk in the west is charming and endearing. The world needs more people like Carly.

People probably have a lot of ideas about the life Carly and her family lead, but in reality it is a regular suburban kind of life with small children, it is just that it is dusted with magic. They have a lovely, comfortable yet modest home in the outer suburbs of Perth but it is so gorgeously decorated with her stunning photographs, items from the beach and numerous other elegant trinkets. The first room you walk in to in the house is Carly's office and hub of her babyloss empire. There is a huge fish tank on the wall which sets the mood of the room. Calm and peaceful, but you also know from looking at this space she's incredibly busy and working really hard when she's here.

But like any house where three small children reside, there will only ever be so much calm and peace. Chaos also abounds. Lunches have to be made, two out of three children have to be ferried off and out the door to school. The three year old buzzes around, asking for sandwiches and for her favourite movie to be played, over and over again. We were desperately missing our own kids at home so it comforted us to see other kids doing regular "kid" things just like ours. Carly is busy with her work, but she's certainly a lot busier looking after her kids.

Carly goes to the beach most nights, but is guided by the weather and the clouds. I could sense she was nervous on our one night with her, fearing that Mother Nature would mess with our grand plans which had been the best part of five years in the making. She went outside numerous times in the afternoon to gaze up at the sky to see what might be in store for us. "Looks like it will be a good one Sam, awesome clouds," she'd holler to us back inside.

The kids don't go to the beach with her every night, but on this particular night they were coming with us as the adult to kid ratio was not out of whack with her husband Sam, Simon and myself all tagging along. Sometimes Carly's parents go too to help lighten her load.

Getting kids ready and out the door to go anywhere for anything is never easy. But when it was time to go, in a flash shoes were found, appropriate clothing was put on, a little bag was packed and off we went. Carly had her trusty note pad and pen and of course her camera and we piled in to the cars and left.

Carly's three girls all seem to get different things out of their time at the beach. The eldest, Scarlett is a quiet thinking type of kid. She put a lot of thought in to the particular items she packed for the beach including a cushion to sit on, towel, umbrella to shade her from the sun and/or rain and her shell collection, which she of course she lovingly added to throughout the night. Middle child and precious rainbow River was in the water. The whole time. Pounded countless times by wave after wave, she emerged every single time with a big fat smile on her face. This is a kid with real spunk. Of course she's too little to be left totally unsupervised in the water, but damn this is also a kid who can swim. She's clearly grown up in the water and she had an absolute ball splashing around the entire time she was there. She gleefully told us about all of the sand she had stuck in certain places when we left. And little Ocea, the same age as my Angus and just a barrel of laughs, spent the entire time running up and down the sand dunes. She must have covered three kilometres in the hour or so we were there. She did not stop, and she'd even skipped her afternoon nap. A few times someone had to chase after her, but mostly she just ran. And ran and ran and ran. So in their own way, all of the girls made their own fun at this magical place.

I was cautious of the fact that Carly's time at the beach is precious. As much as I just wanted to soak it in, chat to her and watch the sun go down, Carly was there with a job to do, as she is every night she goes. For all the chaos and and busyness at her home, at the beach she totally goes in to her zone. She diligently wrote the list of names out, then immediately got to it. First she drew butterflies. About a dozen of them, maybe more, I lost count I was so in awe of what she was doing. Each exquisite and each done with love. Though they were done so much faster than I could have ever imagined. Absolute works of art, that's she's turned in to such a finely honed skill. Carly knows this beach probably better than any other person on earth and I watched her as she studied the surf and the tide before deciding where to begin to draw next. Very rarely was her work wiped out before she had a chance to photograph it. It is an amazing skill she posses. She works in harmony with the water and it is a beautiful thing to see. If she does lose a drawing, she certainly doesn't get upset about it, that's all part and parcel of what she does.

On to the names. She can't start taking photos too early while the sun is too high in the sky, or the light wont be quite right, but once the sun gets to a particular spot on the horizon, it is go, go, go. Name after name after name. And she has to work fast, because at this point, the sun starts to drop very quickly. Even if she has hundreds of names on her wait list, which she so often does, there are only so many names she can get done at a time while the weather gods are smiling on her.

About half way through the sunset, I'm lost for words. The light totally changes. From orange and yellow hues, the sky begins to glow with gorgeous pink and aqua tones. It is like nothing I have ever seen before, too beautiful for a stupid Iphone to properly capture. I'm sure if you listen carefully, you can hear the beach humming with it's amazing and healing energy. Carly tells me this always happens, it is just part of the magic of this place. Dozens gather to watch sunsets here each night, and it is no wonder why. Carly cusses at the people who live in the huge houses behind the beach with magnificent ocean views - "why aren't they out there watching the sunset, I'd be out there every night if that was my bloody house". So would I Carly, so would I.

Of course, Carly writes Hope's name for us. This moment we've waited so long for. She writes her name, she draws a butterfly and she assures me the photos are gorgeous. I snap a few shots on my phone, share them with my friends online, look over to catch Simon's gaze, then just like that it is gone, washed away like all the other thousands and thousands of names she has written. Isaac, Kayla, Lily, Thomas, Stephanie, Robert.... all beautiful names. So many names. Too many babies gone too soon.

Before long the sun has set, time for writing names and taking photos is done. Carly tells me she could keep going as the light is still lovely, but she promises people sunset photos, and if she takes a photo after sunset, then she's not giving them what they've asked for. However I gasp, I notice she hasn't written Christian's name, and she had earlier told me she writes his name every night she's at the beach. She said she had thousands of photos of his name, to which I told her she should make a book of all those photos. But I was wrong, she had written his name. A fleeting moment I had somehow missed, but all moments at this beach are fleeting. All are beautiful, but all slip away as quick as the waves roll in and out again. The ocean of course stops for no one. Carly shows me the photo of his name on the back of her camera, yet another gorgeous image to add to her ever growing collection. I'm so thankful Mother Nature played nice for us tonight, as we haven't always been on great terms, obviously.

Light then soon begins to fade. People leave the beach. We round the kids up and Scarlett packs up her things. We head home via Carly's parents house who live just a few minutes from the beach. Carly's girls get cool drinks from their doting nanna and take showers to get the sand of their little bodies. We chat to her family who are as warm, lovely and welcoming as Carly. It is like we've known them our whole lives and in the half an hour we're there, they make us feel at home. Like royalty again. It is not hard to see where Carly gets her nurturing nature from. The apple certainly didn't fall far from the tree.

I think I spent most of the 20 minute drive (yes 20 minute, Carly doesn't live on the beach's doorstep like I'm sure many assume) back to Carly's house in silence. I couldn't believe the beauty I had just witnessed and that after four and a half years, I had finally made it to the beach with her. So many chats and emails were spent talking about this day, and now it had been and gone.

Our bodies, weary from the three hour time difference fell in to the freshly made beds Carly had prepared for us. And though I was exhausted beyond measure, I laid there for what seemed like hours thinking about my night with Carly at the beach, and how very special it was. I wish I had no reason to know Carly, but I'm so lucky to have met her at the same time.

We awoke early, far too early for the rest of the Dudley household on a weekend morning, but when everyone else in the house finally did rouse, we were treated to Carly's famous pancakes, because that's just the kind of girl she is. She then spent the morning running around after us as we got ready for our wedding, even loaning us her car so we could make the hour and a half trip to other side of the city. And the next day, her hospitality continued as she made sure we got to where we needed to be, all the while taking care of little Ocea who had earlier that day fallen and broken her arm in two places!

It took me much longer than I'd wanted write this post, but that's how it is in a house where small children reside - I've had a very busy and stressful week getting back to reality since our trip. Which makes it all the more remarkable to me that Carly keeps producing the amazing work she does, day after day. It takes so much time, dedication and commitment and everything she does is done with absolute love, that's a sure thing. I know there haven't been many, but over the years I've seen the odd person questioning or doubting the authenticity of her work and to that I can only say one thing - you're all wrong. Of course I never doubted Carly for a split second, but I've seen it with my own two eyes now. Carly is a loving mother, wife, daughter and sister but she's also absolutely devoted to her role within our community to bringing healing and happiness to those hurting the most with her generosity and beauty. And there is beauty in every single thing she does, even the pancakes she churns out in bulk on a Saturday morning.

So it didn't matter that this post was a week in the making, because some memories will last a life time, and this one certainly will.