Timmy's light keeps on shining in mom's heart

One of the most important lesson mothers teach their children is how to persevere through loss and sorrow and how to trust that you will come out on the other side.

Two years ago, Anne and Marc Vachon, who live in Troy, lost their 7-year-old son, Timmy, when he was killed by a snowmobile driven by the ski patrol. Shortly afterward, I went to interview the bereaved parents to do a story on ski-slope safety laws.

Timmy was a twin brother to sister Mary Claire and younger brother to sister Charlotte, 12. Timmy was also the only boy out of 12 grandchildren on Anne's side. As if this loss could not have been more profound, Timmy Vachon was named after his uncle, Timothy Girardot, Anne's brother, who at age 20, was killed in a car accident in 1982.

Timmy represented a lot of firsts: first grandson, first nephew, first boy cousin, so many firsts that his dad and uncles converted the basement into a miniature sports arena named "Man Town." Because Timmy was a "man's man, but had a soft spot for the ladies," the girls -- his mom and sisters -- were allowed in by invitation only.

I will not get out of my head the vision Anne's sister described to me -- the sight of Anne lying next to her beloved boy and cradling him for the last time as the gurney wheeled them down the hospital corridor and surgeons prepped for organ donation.

Only a few weeks later, during the interview, this remarkable mother had the emotional command to find some rationale for her deep and penetrating grief. "My life has times of unbearable sorrow. But I can only feel that sorrow because I have loved completely and have been loved back completely," she said. "Our hearts are broken now, but they will mend."

I took that last statement as a vow, a pledge made by a mother for the sake of her daughters. She would will the pieces of her broken heart back together again because her girls deserved a whole mother -- not just the shell of someone who had merely survived. Children, we know, learn by example, and this mother was determined to exemplify the biggest life lesson of all.

A year after Timmy's death, at the Mass marking the anniversary of Timmy's death, the church was filled with those who came to comfort the Vachons. But Anne turned the tables on us.

She thanked everyone for coming and then said: "Before bed each night, Timmy would say, 'Can you come into my nest (that's what he called his bed) and sing me my song?' I would tuck him in and sing, 'This little guy of mine, I'm going to let him shine. This little guy of mine, I'm going to let him shine. Let him shine. Let him shine. Let him shine.'

"When Timmy left us, I promised myself and Timmy that we would continue to let his light shine."

Then she thanked all of us in whose hearts Timmy's light was surely shining. "God has not forsaken us," she said. "When he called Timmy home, he made sure we had plenty of angels on earth to watch out for us. Those angels are all of you."

As time went on, the grief did not let up. On anniversaries, birthdays, holidays and particularly the past two Mother's Days, she said she felt bitter and empty. She knew she was overprotective with the girls but couldn't help it. She'd see danger everywhere. When the girls rode their bikes, she worried someone wouldn't stop. Last summer, before swim season, she jokingly told Mary Claire she would have to wear a helmet in the pool.

"Mary looked at me with her big blue eyes and agreed," Anne says. "The sweet child thought I was serious. They understand our fears more than we have realized."

Fortunately, this Mother's Day will be upbeat. Providing counsel, other parents who had lost children told Anne and Marc to focus on what made them happy and pursue it.

"The most happiness I have ever experienced is from being a mother," Anne said. "The everyday ins and outs of caring for my children give more joy and satisfaction than anything in my life."

And so, this Sunday, if you see a cute blonde with a waistline the size of Idaho, that would be a very pregnant Anne Vachon. The baby is due this summer.

In her typical exquisite prose, Anne wrote in an e-mail: "Our baby will enter this life without the burden of healing our broken hearts, but as the ultimate sign of hope, resilience, faith and belief in our future. For us, having another child is the greatest ode to Timmy and our girls. Timmy's life and death have inspired us to embark on journeys we never thought possible."

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