Allistaire Kieron Anderson | Conglomeration of Joy

(All are welcome to attend either or both services)

Memorial Worship Service

(For the purpose of worshiping and submitting our lives to Jesus Christ as Lord)

Saturday, June 11th @ 10:30am

Petra Academy (4720 Classical Way, Bozeman, MT 59718)*Seating is limited. If you’re coming from out-of-town, please be sure to arrive early to ensure a seat. The service will be recorded and a link to the recording will be provided at some future point. There is no child care provided.

*For those who don’t wish to attend this morning Memorial Worship Service, you are welcome to join Sten on a hike up the “M” trail. Meet at the trailhead @9:30am. (Directions: Follow Rouse Ave. north (becomes Bridger Canyon Rd.).Turn left into the signed trailhead parking lot on left)

Celebration of Life Service

(A time to focus on Allistaire’s life)

Saturday, June 11th @ 6:30pm (MST)

The Commons (1794 Baxter Ln E, Bozeman, MT 59718)

A dessert reception (cupcakes, ice cream sandwiches and coffee) will follow the service
Childcare for all ages WILL be available, including a live video feed into the childcare rooms for parents who want to stay with their children
Watch the Service LIVE, go to this LIVE STEAM LINK. You will need to register for a Free Live Stream Account ahead of time to watch (we recommend signing up Friday or Saturday morning so you won’t be delayed in watching the 6:30 service)

Feel free to wear whatever you feel comfortable wearing, though our one request is that if possible, please weary cheery colors. Allistaire was a girl who delighted in the full spectrum of the rainbow and it would be fun for our many bodies to reflect that joy as we gather together in honor of her life. Here are a few examples, the first being an outfit designed by Allistaire on her Toca Boca Tailor App (you don’t have to go quite this wild, but you get the picture):

Awesome Gift Basket Raffle

Sten, Solveig and I have pulled together a whole load of happy (new) items that were things that brought Allistaire delight. We are putting these together in a super fun gift basket which will be raffled off at the reception. Raffle tickets are $1 each (so bring your cash) and all proceeds will go to The Bozeman 3.

The Bozeman 3 is a local non-profit that supports families in Gallatin County whose child has been diagnosed with cancer. The Bozeman 3 arose out of a unique bond between three families forged in their shared experience of fighting for the lives of their children diagnosed with pediatric cancer, far from the support and beauty of their homes in the Gallatin Valley of Montana. They met in the hallways of Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Oncology Unit in early 2012. While each child faced a different form of cancer, these children, along with their parents, possessed a resolve to fight. (Our family is one of these original three, along with those of Stellablue Woods and Caden Shrauger pictured above with Allistaire)

The Bozeman 3 financially supports local families whose child has cancer, provides peer support and helps fund cancer research.

Many of the items included in the gift basket (totalling over $200) are pictured below:

We Could Use Your Help!

We have been absolutely overwhelmed with an outpouring of love and support, not only in the past four and a half years, but again in this exceptionally hard time in the wake of actually losing Allistaire. For those who are still yearning to help, below are a number of key ways we would graciously appreciate assistance:

We asked for 300 cupcakes and have had far more offered – thank you again for your outpouring of kindness and love. At this point we no longer need any additional cupcakes. For those who have already offered, keep Rhonda Mattson’s contact handy if you have any questions (rhondamattson33@yahoo.com (406) 451-6571). And remember, ideally, we would like you to deliver your cupcakes to the main central doors at The Commons by 6:15pm on the day of the Celebration of Life Service, June 11th. A volunteer will greet you at the door to receive your cupcakes. (Below is an example of the look for the cupcakes we’re going for)

We have created a “Wish List” on Amazon of items we could use help purchasing including plates, cups, napkins and sprinkles (to be applied to the ice cream sandwiches). WOW!!!! All the needed items have already been purchased less than 12 hours after posting the Amazon Link, so I have now removed it. Thank you folks!!!!!

The meal sign-up has been updated to reflect request for group dinners for a few days prior and after the memorial services. Provision of meals has been an incredible help and we so appreciate all the tasty food!!! To sign up to bring meals click HERE.

***A note to out-of-town folks: The weather in Bozeman can vary wildly with temperatures down into the 30s at night, potentially, all the way up into the 80s some days. I would highly advise paying attention to weather as you pack and always bring a warm coat.

Thank you to so many folks who have shown their love to me personally and to our family in this past month plus. Thank you for your cards and messages of condolence and how knowing Allistaire has impacted your life, for texts and phone calls, gifts, meals, offers to help and prayers. Please know that all of these have been gratefully received though my ability to thank you is radically diminished and delayed.

The truth is this past near month since Allistaire died, has been a strange, mixed time which I hope to write in reflection upon more down the road. Part of our reality is that I have been very busy with my trip back to Seattle to clear out our Ron Don apartment and say thank you and goodbye to folks and all of the work necessary to put together these two memorial services in honor of Allistaire. In the midst of this I have two dear friends whose children have received the most awful of news – that like Allistaire, their disease has returned and grown and there is now no more treatment available to them. I have a third friend whose child could soon be in the same position, not to mention my two friends who have recently lost their sweet girls. My heart is still very much with these friends and if I have to prioritize my limited time and energy, it will go toward them, despite my inability to give to them in nearly the degree I desire. I have also been able to spend time cleaning and organizing spaces in our home long neglected in my absence and enjoying being outside doing refreshing physical labor like mowing the lawn and hauling limbs that came crashing down under the weight of the fantastic snow storm a few weeks ago.

Mostly I have loved the quiet. There are few sounds but that of bird chatter and wind in the fir and aspen trees. With my brother-in-law, Jens’, idea of his spirit animal being a grizzly bear in mind, we have chosen the Mountain Blue Bird to be a tangible reminder of our bright blue-eyed little girl. Mountain blue birds abound here and a family has taken up residence in the bird house across our driveway. Throughout the morning and day, I can often look out my kitchen window and see the bright blue of sky in the form of bird sitting on the fence rail. I of course don’t actually need a reminder of Allistaire to remember her – she is ever on my heart, in my thoughts and scattered throughout my dreams at night, but it is uniquely lovely to observe a creature of such beauty and loft – a creature that can flit about and sail up into the sky. It helps my heart to not only grieve the loss of Allistaire in my life, but imagine in the smallest way, the joy of the life she now lives.

I look forward, with joy, to seeing many of your faces old and new, who have so loved our Allistaire and cared for our family.

I cannot count the hours I have laid next to Allistaire with this quiet music playing. Putting her to bed for a nap, closing the curtain to her hospital room and posting the sign telling the world to stay away, Allistaire is sleeping. Laying next to her in Ron Don, going through our night-time rituals.

The music plays on but she is gone. Gone. The bed is empty.

After four and a half years of fighting her great foe, Acute Myeloid Leukemia…after two long grueling weeks since Sten and I made the brutal decision to no longer attempt to thwart her disease, an aggressive, relentless, mindless onslaught…after over three hours, as her body continued to fight, to grasp for life, lungs pulling for air, and a heart, oh her heart, far stronger than we could have ever imagined, that heart so determined, so fierce, it pumped on and on and still her mouth gulped for air when her chest no longer rose and there was not one flex of her heart muscle left…

And then stillness. Only the soft rushing sound of the oxygen still trying to sustain life.

Quiet

Utter stillness

How very strange to come to the end. To have this child between us, this longed for child that together we had conceived, this little bright vibrancy now extinguished, pale, still.

We love you little sweets, beyond words and time, you are so very dear to us.

Allistaire Kieron Anderson died early this morning at 1:33am, April 30th 2016

My deep and fervent desire has been that these most vicious versions of Allistaire’s cancer cells would be able to be studied and contribute to the understanding of AML, in honor of all that Allistaire went through and in blessing to those who will be forced to come behind her. Dr. Soheil Meshinchi, one of our spectacular, brilliant and tender-hearted Bone Marrow Transplant doctors at Fred Hutch, made a way for this final offering. Soheil is the COG (Children’s Oncology Group) AML Biology chair and oversees the largest pediatric AML tissue bank in the nation. Along with other doctors/researchers dear to our hearts (Dr. Katherine Tarlock, Dr. Marie Bleakley, Dr. Phil Greenberg, Dr. Todd Cooper), he is tireless in his pursuit of understanding AML and finding ways to thwart its stranglehold on so many sweet children.

These are the words of Dr. Soheil Meshinchi to me:

“I will do everything I can to learn all we can about Allistaire’s leukemia. Her diagnostic sample is being sequenced now and we will sequence specimens that you send us…Please feel free to call me anytime you want to talk.”

“My prayers are with Allistaire and your family. We will care for these precious cells of Allistaire. Please call me if there is anything I can do.”

And this comes from him this very morning, “Dear Jai, I wanted to give you an update on Allistaire’s cells. We received them in great condition. They were processed and a fraction was used for extracting RNA and DNA. We purified leukemic cells from another subset and banked several vials. We are waiting for the result of the foundation medicine testing with plans to sequence her recent cells as well. I’m available to talk anytime you need to. Best, Soheil.”

Allistaire’s life was strangled out by cancer and while I look in hope for her to have a new body, one incorruptible, I also strive after life here and now.

Please considering honoring Allistaire’s life and tremendous fight by supporting cancer research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. You can join our team Baldy Tops or give financially to Obliteride HERE.

*We will be planning some means of memorial in the future, but have no plans as of yet.

**Allistaire is alive in all of these pictures (with the exception of the very last picture of her toes), though they are either days or even only several hours before she died. Some may find these very difficult to see.