It is with great sadness to hear that Vanessa has passed away.
A beautiful poem written by one of her peers that was shared at Vanessa’s celebration of life service.
For Vanessa
Vanessa – June 20, 1977 – January 24, 2020
For those of us who remain
Our hearts are filled with sorrow
We feel anger because to us, you were cheated.
In our grief we grasp for answers
That just aren’t there;
Trying to make sense of the senseless
To Justify the injustice of losing you
Today, we pray that you are at peace
We cannot see you, we cannot hear you
But you will never be forgotten.
When we stand in the garden
We will remember you,
When we see a beautiful flower
We will see your smile
We will remember you in our hearts,
And in the memories we shared.
Times we fought, times we cried
All the times we laughed and loved
When we think of you, you will never be gone
For in those moments, in those memories
You will live on forever.
Fly Free Vanessa
My name is Vanessa Kift. I got a brain injury from being a pedestrian hit by a motorhome in November of 2014. I was crossing the street in downtown Vancouver and from nowhere an RV turned the corner and hit me.
It took a few days for the doctors to diagnose a concussion and subsequent brain injury. The symptoms were so confusing and I was lost. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face staring back at me.
I had been a promising designer and was working on getting back to school when the incident happened. I wandered kind of aimlessly and hopelessly until I ended up in Powell River and came to the Powell River Brain Injury Society. That is where I met my new found family.
I was still lost in emotion, living inside a self that I no longer knew. Debbie Dee offered me a job working in the garden which is partially funded by the Brain Injury Alliance. What a life changing experience for me. I had always loved the look of an herb garden and asked if I could take charge of one of the garden beds to build an herb garden.
Debbie gave me carte blanche to build it, and a budget for seeds and seedling plants. She allowed me to express myself though this garden, and something happened that I was not expecting. My creativity came back! So much so that I began to think that other areas of my creativity could awaken again, and they did!
We had been given a bunch of old garden gnomes, and they were broken and faded. I have been working on them all year now and they look so good! I get many compliments on the work I have done. We have a sign post in our garden, and we got a wood burning kit. I am making signs for the post, and they really turned out nice.
Debbie made sure to support me in every step of the way, giving me encouragement and direction when I stumbled, and much needed ego boosting praise for the work I was doing. I really had been shattered inside, and didn’t know or understand any of it. Even though I still doubted myself and asked every question under the sun, they were all met with a calm compassion that really made me feel so much better about myself. I was beginning to recognize that woman in the mirror.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t perfect by any means! I am still an emotional wreck who needs constant monitoring, but my brain injury family here makes sure if I stumble, I don’t fall, and if I fall, they give me the tools and help me to get back up!
Another thing that happened was some funding from the Brain Injury Alliance to create a business plan for a program designed to get us all back to work and only work as much as we can. This has been such a great project. Debbie asked me to help her research for the business plan. It was an amazing experience.
I had not been able to navigate around the internet since being hit. Everything was so confusing. We worked slowly and in little steps until I could understand what was being asked of me. While I was doing this research, I thought to myself, maybe I can get back into the designing, and you know what? I did it!
I stumbled and fell a lot while doing it, thinking that it all had to be perfect and that I had to do it all myself, just like I did before. And it was very emotional for all around me! But again, the support and guidance I received while working through this has been amazing. I am now on the journey to be the lead designer of leather purses, bags and accessories in the Powell River Brain Injury Society business plan. It is called Alternatives to Traditional Employment.
I really can see the potential of that woman in the mirror now. She is getting her strength back, she can now “see” herself. Looking forward to life living with a brain injury is not anything I could have ever dreamed about in the wildest of my dreams. But now I can see that the future is not going to be a bleak wandering of lost emotional confusion. Together we can do it!
This wouldn’t have happened without so many people in our brain injury community helping each other to succeed. From the ideas, to the support, to the funding, and to all the wonderful people who really do care. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
