To describe Lowri, the life she lived and the joy she brought could never do her justice, for each memory that we have there are dozens more yet to reveal themselves.
Lowri was supposed to be born at home in late October 1998. We knew she was a girl, we already had a girl and a boy, so we had wanted to know who to prepare to share a bedroom with the new baby. We knew her name, that she sucked her thumb, and that she was BIG.
At 1.30am on 8th October she decided it was time to burst the bubble and begin her debut. Unfortunately for our plans the midwife was on holiday in the UK, the first backup midwife was already at the hospital delivering another child, and the third backup midwife was not allowed to do the delivery at home unsupported. So much for plans. Off to the hospital we went and the contractions promptly stopped, so Tim curled up on the bed provided (for Mum) and Harri paced the corridors. Things progressed, Harri danced, refused to get onto the bed, Sue arrived and was handed the video camera (for use at the front end only!!), and Lowri was delivered with Harri standing next to the bed. 9lb 3 oz at 37 weeks.
Over the following months Lowri slept, ate and behaved like any other child, but what she didn’t do was cry. She would wake up and just lie there waiting to be fed, or picked up or changed. She would suck her thumb and watch what was going on around her. She had to fit in to the routine of the household, and she never made that difficult. Naps had to fit in around school and kindy drop-off and pick-up times, around trips to the playground, playdates and after-school activities for Roosje and Liam. Her life stayed that way for 3 years, but she didn’t ever complain or make that difficult.
In the first few months of her life she was a bit of a party girl, Halloween, fortieths, a fiftieth some Christmas ones, New Year and then she flew to Australia with Mum to another fortieth – the parties she slept through you wouldn’t believe, often sleeping under the table in her carseat.
Lowri started everything early, Mainly Music at 2 weeks, Lollipops and Kids’nAction, Kindy, school and Toy library sessions, to the beach, into the park getting dragged along in the wake of her bigger sister and brother. “Not suitable for children under three” on Liam and Roosje’s toys didn’t seem to apply to Lowri, she was always into their toys and keeping us all on our toes with checking what she was up to and into. She got so fed up with having things taken off her that she learnt to stand her ground. So in group settings with other little meek children, she was not going to have toys taken off her. We always thought we needed to warn others, perhaps a Tee shirt with something like “Warning – I’m a third child, I fight back”
Food was an interesting issue with Lowri. She was started on vegetables as first foods, including having Brussels sprouts at 5 months old on advice from Grandma Tricker who had read it in the Daily Telegraph that 5 months was the “right’ age to introduce strong flavours, but she refused to eat starchy foods. Potatoes, kumara, rice, pasta and bread were all no-go areas for Lowri. It was incredibly hard to fill her up on the meat and non-starch vegetables that she would eat. Carrots and broccoli were her favourites – a LOT of broccoli. Her tastes totally changed after the start of chemotherapy when she started eating very little other than starch foods. Noodles, Noodles and Noodles were eventually her favourites for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with fish and chips as an alternative when the noodles had run out.
Lowri liked her dolls, she preferred the crying dolls over the laughing dolls – they needed more cuddles. When she was two she got a toy kitchen, which was popular with all our children. While Mum cooked in the big kitchen Lowri often dragged her kitchen in and cooked alongside. Dad drank more cups of delicious ‘air-tea’ than he can recall. Her tea-pot was truly bottomless. With the addition of a cash register the following year “Chez van der Werff café” was born, and most of the neighbourhood children got to dine or work in it.
We were proud of Lowri’s abilities and achievements, but being our third we were in no great hurry to see her pass from one stage to the next. However, by copying Roosje and Liam she mastered lots of things early. She taught herself to do jigsaws, and we had to buy new ones for her because she got bored with the pre-school ones we had. She was doing 60 piece puzzles by her 3rd birthday, and could do any jisgsaw she had done previously in seconds. She could also recognize her name in a page full of text, and so would look over our shoulder and say “You’re writing about me.”. Not surprisingly she picked up quite a large medical vocabulary this year and could give her dolls a thorough examination and diagnosis.
Lowri loved her trike, we remember her having to wait for her legs to grow so she could reach the pedals, finally finding one she could reach the pedals on – but only in straight lines so turning corners was a problem. She used to bomb around the backyard on her trike and even in her last months when walking was a strain she would take to her trike out visiting to get around.
Every father remembers the sheer joy on their child’s face when they return home from work in the evening, usually children start to tire of this unbridled exuberance by about three – not Lowri, she always gave Dad a real “hero’s” welcome, and even when she could no longer come to the door would transmit that glow when Tim came home.
Lowri’s last 9 months were different from most children’s lives. Whilst it would be more comfortable to overlook them in a celebration of her life, it would be very wrong. Whilst it felt like the bottom fell out of our world with the diagnosis of Wilm’s tumour, it certainly didn’t for Lowri. She had to give up most of the activities she most enjoyed, gym, weekly shopping trips to the Warehouse, time with her friends Scott and Isaac, Mainly music, and the long awaited starting Kindy. She endured the unpleasant and painful parts of her treatment, but always came out smiling, and rarely complained. Anybody who witnessed her racing up the hospital corridor scooting her drip stand will know how children learn to adjust. Lowri became the focus of attention, as she had previously been out of the spotlight. Centre stage was a place she was not very comfortable to begin with, but as all children will, she grew to love the attention. Starship hospital became her second home. She would skip in to play nurses at reception, and rushed to visit the playroom. Despite the surgery, the chemotherapy, the radiation, the nausea, the blood transfusions, the scans, and the indignities, she remained a happy and loving child.
One Christmas Nana and Granddad van der Werff gave her a backpack full of buckets and spades and sand moulds. Grandma and Granddad Tricker added little flags for the sandcastles, and the beach with her backpack became one of her favourite places. She loved the beach and she loved the sea. When you stand by the ocean, anywhere in the world, think of Lowri and how much joy she brought into the world, and send a smile to her.
We love you Lowri, “all the way to the moon and back", infinite times.