Rachael Casella - Mackenzies Mission: How one family turned tragedy into hope and love

Life is not what you expected it to be.

Lauren Bacall

I am sorryshe is gone.

Those words still echo in my head.

I can still hear the doctors voice, his tone. I can remember the look on his face. The sadness in his eyes. I remember the stillness of the room, like there was no air moving despite the click of the air conditioning, the only sound we could hear. I can still smell what remained of her scent mixed with the sterility of the hospital.

It is now over two years since I heard those words and I still struggle to understand them. Gone where? Where do we go? When will I see her again? How can she be gone? She was just here; I could still feel the warmth in her skin and the smell of my milk on her breath.

Mackenzie, our daughter, took her last breath on the morning of Sunday, 22 October 2017, at Sydney Childrens Hospital, as she lay on a bed between me and my husband, Jonathan. I saw the fall of her chest, but I never saw it rise again. The doctor stepped towards us with his stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat. It felt like he searched for hours, but really it was probably only a couple of minutes. For just a second I let myself think that maybe she was still with us and this had all been a mistake. But then he said those words: I am sorryshe is gone.

Despite seeing her no longer living, feeling her slowly becoming cold in our arms and living through the last two years without her, I still cant comprehend what happened to her. It shocks me every day. I am a mother without a child.

My child died.

Mackenzie is dead.

I hate that word, dead. I do everything I can to avoid using it. I tell people we lost her, or she passed away. Anything but that word.

I have always been drawn to reading biographies, specifically books about regular people overcoming the adversity they had been thrown in life. I admire their resilience, their persistence, their authenticity and their raw honesty. I always felt a need to understand the pain and courage of real lives. I never really wanted to read fantasy, though I can understand wanting to be whisked away to a foreign place; for me, everyday life held more incredible stories than could ever be made up.

Despite this, I never thought I would be sitting here at 36 years old writing a book about the tragedy that has become my life.

Understandably, most people turn away from tragedy. They are too scared to look, worried that if they get too close something might happen to them too, like tragedy could be contagious. Life is easier to comprehend and compartmentalise when sadness doesnt exist. Since we became tragedy people ourselves we have experienced this firsthand, but you can never predict who will walk away and who will come closer.

What the ones who walk away dont realise is that while the heartache around tragedy is overwhelming and can be beyond comprehension at times, beauty can also follow tragedy if you are strong enough to stay around it. If you are able to sit, watch and listen to a persons tragedy, then your life can be injected with a perspective that brings fulfilment at a level you didnt know before. Life will seem like you have opened both eyes instead of looking at the world through one blurry eye. You will see and experience personal post-traumatic growth, perspective, kindness, compassion and friendship like never before.

When I was a little girl I told people that I wanted to be a criminal lawyer by day and a rock star by night. As I got older I used to smile to myself when I remembered this, but recently I realised it was me and my beliefs shining through at a young age.

As a criminal lawyer I wanted to protect the victims of the world, making things right and putting things in an understandable order. The world was supposed to be fair; good things happened to good people and bad things happened to bad people.

As a rock star I wanted to change the world, to be creative and influence others through my words. Plus, being famous, rich and glamorous looked like a recipe for a good life, like money could create happiness.

This isnt exactly how my life ended up, but I can see some parallels in what the young me was aiming for.

Instead of being a criminal lawyer I am a police officeran investigator, to be preciseso I suppose my strong moral compass and desire to right wrongs did manifest itself in the end.

I am nowhere close to being a rock star, however: I have zero musical abilities and I hate direct attention, so being on stage sounds like a nightmare. But I have found a passion and a release in writing and it has become a part of my every day, although I have no formal training. Maybe writing to express myself is my adult version of being a rock star.

When picturing my future as I child, I never once thought I would be a grieving mother. I never thought I would be a 36-year-old woman who has been pregnant at least four times, but who is writing a book on her couch with no babies climbing all over her. But we have tried hard to make sure that our daughters life and memory is not just another sad story, even though it isnt the first tragedy in the world and it wont be the last. Instead, we have begun spending our lives honouring her name, celebrating her, creating a legacy that will hopefully spare others the pain we have felt and making sure that we experience post-traumatic growth.

Our family, our daughter and her message are more than a sad story.

Work on being in love with the person in the mirror who has been through so much but is still standing.

Unknown

Trying to summarise a life is a daunting task. In fact, the idea of writing a book at all feels scary and quite self-indulgent. I am also suffering severe imposter syndrome: do I have something important enough to say that others will want to listen to?

I guess time will tell, but where to begin?

There are two of me: there is the me before my daughter Mackenzie was born and the me after. Most parents say that their life changed when they had children and I dont doubt them, but I know in my case this change was extreme and not the normal family story.

My life before Mackenzie was simple, happy and carefree. It was not better back then, not by any means, it was just very different. Looking back, it was like I was living at half my capacity, with one eye closed. At the time I thought I knew it all. I thought I knew what stress was. Nave does not even come close to an adequate description.

I was born in Nambour, Queensland, to a Canadian mother, Wendy, and an English dad, David. My parents both came to Australia in their late teens, although in very different ways. Dad first arrived in Australia in the 1970s when his merchant navy ship docked. He was still a young boy, but he had already experienced so much, including a stint in the British army. He jumped ship chasing some woman (not my mum), but when that fizzled he returned aboard with his tail between his legsonly to jump ship again the next time it docked in Australia. This time he stayed for good.

My mum was dragged here by her parents, who were looking for a warmer life than Canada could give, prompted by the ailing health of my grandmother. Mum was seventeen and not happy about being taken away from her life in Canada and from her brother, who remained in Canada, but eventually she adjusted and learned to love what Australia could offer her.