Our dear friends at St Bede’s put together a dedication of two tulip magnolias and two gorgeous pieces of butterfly-themed art on March 1st, 2015, exactly one year following the memorial service for Laine on March 1st, 2014.  Jeanne Cooper’s husband Ian filmed the dedication.

Click on the youtube link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI-085ctpik

Carol put together a leaflet for the service

I (Mathai) said a few words:

Dearest friends – It was a year ago to the day that we stood here at St Bede’s in remembrance of our dearest Laine. The clouds had burst as we stood in Jarrow Garden, and the afternoon had culminated in a gorgeous double rainbow from Laine. She had painted the sky with rainbows that entire week.

We recognize that both our daughters Mia and Laine lead extraordinary lives. While here, they covered their small part of the universe in color, song and truth. Mia’s life was a struggle, but one that revealed strength and courage in her, and in those that loved her. Her good bye was a long one. Laine’s life was sparkly, joyous and warm. But her good bye was abrupt – she left us without warning. Mia died at six years old on June 24, 2010, and Laine died also at six years old on Feb 24, 2014. We believe they were connected in life, and we believe they are connected sill. We believe that they were and remain entangled spirits. 

Mia was born on July 11, 2004, bouncy and beautiful. At six months old, her health began slipping. We worked hard to keep it together, not freak out, and give her the best possible life, and Mia worked hard to live the best possible life.

We came to St Bede’s in August of 2005 because of Mia. As we sampled churches, new to Menlo Park, it was so obvious that St Bede’s was for us. Mia absolutely loved the choir and organ of St Bede’s. Mia’s eyes lit up as she heard the singing, and we believe she sang inside. We held her in our arms almost every Sunday morning for service for five years. She was Baby Jesus at the Christmas pageant during our first year here. She died at 1AM on June 24 2010, and Rev Kitty from St Bede’s was there by 2AM to pray for her.

Backing up three years to 2007, Laine was born on August 17^th. Sometimes its hard to believe that we had a baby in the middle of all the chaos at home, which now included four baby chickens.  August 17^th was definitely a nutty day – Anna went into labor at exactly the same time as Mia was being admitted just upstairs at Stanford’s Lucille Packard with an infection of her central line. Total chaos. Laine had such an amazing personality from the first breath she took.   Laine was full of spunk, full of energy, and full of love.   She was full of style and personality. She moved in a way that made it difficult to not stare at her and marvel.   Her chief trait was empathy coupled with a spectacular EQ that went well beyond her years.  Her life was filled to the brim – she molded through her strength of character a community inside St Bede’s, inside Phillips Brooks, with her family, our dear Vijay, Uncle, and as she simply walked through life. You knew when Laine was around – she was where the action was.  I remember often taking her with Mathew and me to Simpson’s barber shop on El Camino where Mathew and would get haircuts. One time when she was not even 5 years old, we were in there and she noticed that they had removed the toy area and replaced it with a green chair. Everyone in the shop, customers included, knew Laine. She normally stands on one of the chairs on entering and just speaks. Addressing her people. She would regale them with stories. But this day she just stood there, staring at the green chair, the green chair that should have been a toy shelf. The customers and employees paused from conversation and looked at her, to see what she would do. She extends her arms like this, and says suddenly “what the hell is this”. I ran over to grab her before she could go on, mumbling something about her mother. As many of you know, she believed she had children, nine fake children, some of them delivered comfortably through the magic of a fake epidural, which somehow she knew all about. But her love for each one of them was genuine, not fake.  All in all Laine lived life with moxie, a certain flare, pizzazz. Laine was a presence at St Bede’s – she made herself known as she sang loudly, as she actively participated in Sunday school and church retreats, as she helped carry the basket of food to be blessed, and as she struggled to hold the large wooden cross on her own as she marched up the center aisle, as she crossed her arms for communion. Every night, Laine prayed. She would pray for her family and her community, and she would pray that they had health and happiness.

[Laine died on Feb 24^th of last year of an appendicitis that was missed through three ER visits. But it was a difficult appendicitis and almost impossible to detect.   Mathew rationalized in the weeks following Laine’s death last year that if God needed Laine back, and Laine needed to go to her sister Mia, it was something like this illness that was needed, as anything simpler would have been caught and we would have saved her, and anything more complex would either have been too painful or caused guilt and collateral damage. Perhaps that is so.]  

Laine arrived three years after Mia arrived, and left three years after Mia left. Laine spoke of Mia constantly after Mia died: she would say “let’s go pick up Mia! Right NOW!!”. She would say, at random to us, “I have a sister Mia. She died, and she is in heaven” and “I miss Mia”. When in the car, Laine would often grab Mia’s hand and simply hold it while driving. When I would take Laine and Mathew to a park in the years following Mia’s death, someone would invariably ask me about children, specifically how many we had. I never knew now to respond. Laine, if within earshot, certainly did. She would bounce over and say “I have a brother, Mathew. He’s 11.   I have a sister Mia, but she died and she’s in heaven. I don’t have any more brothers or sisters because my mummy doesn’t like to wipe butts.” The other mother or father would rarely know how to respond. Should I laugh or cry? Most of the time they would just back away very slowly…. Laine slept with Mia every single night for the first three years of her life, until Mia died.  She would hug Mia at night, and ease Mia’s pain, allowing Mia to sleep better at night than before Laine came. The spot where Mia slept was sacred in the years following Mia’s death. Laine never slept there, but kept there two large pillows piled on top of each other, and she would protect their position. If a pillow fell, she would go get it in the middle of the night, or more annoyingly ask Anna or to fetch it. If Anna or I tried to lie on top of these two pillows to say good night, she would immediately ask us to move to the other side. Every Sunday Laine would bring a flower to place in Jarrow Garden in memory of Mia. The girls were connected. Laine and Mia were entangled spirits. They could not be separated. Laine had a healthy body, and Mia did not, but they shared a spirit somehow.

Mia and Laine are together now, in the light, as they deserve to be. We will live our lives in honor of them, extending the lessons that they taught us. Persistence, courage, love, connection, positive impact, warmth all built on a foundation of empathy.    Anna and I thank you all again for coming this afternoon. 

[I would like to thank Alexandra Spath for her leadership among the children in helping put together ideas and drawings for the beautiful pair of sister butterflies, and David Bryant, a talented artist who was able to reflect the spirits of Mia and Laine in color and content. Thank you to Vicki Blayney, who so warmly and thoughtfully put together the pair of tulip magnolias, whose colors reflect our daughters. We would like finally to thank Rev Gia, Linda Wenstrand, Diana Spath and everyone that made today possible.]

And Mathew said a few words, reading an essay he had written for school:

Hi everyone. I’m glad that all of you have taken the time to gather here once again. It’s been about six months since we dedicated Laine’s garden over at the Phillips Brooks School. We have all gone our separate ways since then, dealing with life as it comes, such as school, work, and home. I’m quite grateful that everyone here has made the time to come together to focus their energy and love towards Laine and Mia.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full year since Laine died. It’s even harder to believe that we have all lasted a year without Laine. As they say, time waits for no one, not even Laine. As such, I’d like to read you all an essay I wrote for school a few months ago. It’s an essay about moving forward. It’s title is “The Driving Power of Hope”

Over the past year, the very foundation of my life has been shaken. With that earthquake in my life, I became enlightened on the meaning and importance of hope and how it can help me live a full and proper life. Five years ago, I thought of hope as nothing more than a superficial attribute that some people possess. Hope did not give anything real or lasting. All it would do is fill people with an empty and temporary happiness that would soon fade away. Now, I feel like hope is fundamental to all humans, and it is the driving force for why we live our lives in a world that can often be quite unfair. My story starts about five years ago.

At nine years old, I had nothing to fear, nothing to bring me down, and no responsibilities to burden my shoulders. I was the happiest boy to ever live, possessing two loving parents and two wonderful younger sisters. Then, my entire life changed. On June 24, 2010, my six-year-old sister Mia died from a life long illness. My mother and father were horrified. My littlest sister Laine, who was almost three then, had a vague idea about the circumstance, only partially understanding what was happening. For me, it was the most crushing experience I had ever gone through. However, as a nine-year-old, I was not old enough to take the full force of a tragedy like this. I was thankfully too young to fully comprehend something as great as death. Nevertheless, this shock and despair was a new and horrible feeling to me, lasting for months upon months. I could not figure out why I was so upset and distraught even when I was not thinking about Mia. Not wanting to do anything, I just couldn’t see that tomorrow would be any better, because the fact was that my sister Mia would always be dead.

Gradually, as time passed, I began to accept Mia’s death and moved forward. After all, I had my littlest sister Laine, right? Well at the time, the answer was yes. Playing with and caring for my sister, we shared many great times together. I felt like I had been blessed with a companion that would be with me through my entire life. Possessing genuine happiness, I could almost forget the pain of losing Mia.

That is, until I had to experience the horror of losing a family member for the second time, and this time, unlike my experience as a nine-year-old, I took the full force of tragedy. On February 24, 2014, Laine died from appendicitis. She died when she was six years old, just like Mia. I could not comprehend the overwhelming grief and sadness. Life had dropped not one, but two atomic bombs. Gradually, my senses came back, but that sense of life being pointless would not cease. I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I started questioning life altogether. Is life worth living? Why should I live just to go through all of this? What has happened to me as to even be asking these questions?

Slowly but surely, some answers came. I could never change the fact that I lost both of my sisters at such young ages. However, I realized that all I needed was simply one thing: hope. Hope was a trait I had seriously devalued, and I realized I needed it in order to keep going on in life.

Everyone has hope. They just don’t realize that. If a student has a very stressful day, there is a hope that tomorrow will be better. Hope gives people the power to push on even when times are dark. Life for most people in this modern world is filled with more negative times than positive times. Combined with school, work, relationships, death, and much more, many people would find it hard to live without the hope that good times will soon come around. As for me, I hope that my future will be brighter, I hope that I will be happier, and most of all, I hope that I will see my sisters again, somehow.