Our Home On Wheels

On March 27, 2024, one day after Raffa was born into Heaven, Jenna and I arrived home from the hospital without our son. Sunny, came to greet us at the door, his tail gently wagging while his soft eyes searched our broken faces. That moment was a marker in time, another thick spear entering our hearts. It was unfathomable to think just 24 hours prior, in that very mud room, I was frantically rushing to grab our hospital “go” bag, while yanking a random jacket out of the closet, and helping Jenna into the car between contractions. Sunny anxiously tried to follow us out the door, panting and smiling as we left our home as a family for the last time, fully intact. Gratefully, I had enough composure to savour that final moment where we left our house. I had an unshakeable confidence that when we returned, we would be parents. I saw the moment, re-entering our house with our our son in his baby carrier, gently placing him on the floor where Sunny could give his first sniff hello to his baby brother. I saw our house filled with new family, new experiences, new sounds and smells. I felt bubbling anticipation of new life sprouting forth. In just one short day, it was all gone. The stark contrast of two worlds colliding, one flooded with light and the other complete darkness, it became clear that we could not exist in that house for very long. 

Life before March 26th, you could say was generally normal and as expected. After March 26th, it was like we had inadvertently stepped through a passageway straight into hell. The door slammed shut and locked behind us. Trapped in this new horrific reality, with Jenna postpartum and in pieces, the only way out was to find something to carry us forward through the fire. 

Ten days later, after speaking with my cousin Shawn, I shared with him that once Jenna was feeling physically up for it, we would take a road trip and just head into nature. On a whim, he threw out the idea that we buy a trailer and live in it while we bomb around America. At first, the idea was seemingly irrational, but still rather tempting. It was the kind of idea that most people just joke about. For us, we were living on a large idyllic property. I had built an expansive music studio that I kept busy on. We had a lovely garden and friendly neighbors we cherished. Swapping our house for a trailer, seemed at first unattainable, then plausible, and then once we pictured it, the only version of life that seemed possible. Through the stinging fog of grief, I knew this decision would radically shape the next year of our tender lives. 

That night, I did a deep dive on the internet. I had a new purpose and I was a dog on a bone, desperate to find some sort of solution to an unsolvable problem. I had to find a trailer we could realistically travel and live comfortably in. The research was a welcomed distraction from the day-to-day torment. I settled on a curious looking trailer called a Living Vehicle. Essentially, an off-grid tiny home on wheels. The salesman warned me, “wherever you go, no matter which campsite or RV park you arrive at, you will have people stopping you and asking questions about your trailer.” Spoiler alert: his sales pitch did not disappoint. With a girthy list of survival features, came the obvious reality of weight, and what it takes to tow such a beast. Sixteen tons is a lot, especially for a guy who has never towed anything in his whole life. It also meant finding a large one ton truck that could feasibly haul that kind of weight. Several people warned me of the challenges of such an undertaking. You might think I was intimated, but in all honesty, when the obstacle of grief feels like a planet weighing you down, what’s a few more tons? So we bought the trailer. 

Within a week of purchase, we left our home in Victoria forever, never to return as a family. But we didn’t leave empty handed. We carried what we could, and what we thought would fit in our eventual, future mini version of a home. A suitcase with a small wardrobe, a few guitars, a bin of dog food. We carried some pots and pans, our pillow, our prayer books. We carried seeds of wildflowers, and pictures of our son. We carried his stuffed rabbit his Auntie bought for him, we carried children’s books from our childhood. We carried what remained of broken dreams, like shards of glass. We carried the remaining slivers of hope and the blind faith to step into an unknown, foreign, terrifying world. We carried the weight of each other and the shudder in our eye, every time we looked in the mirror, in disbelief for what our lives had become.

In the days after Raffael’s arrival, each morning we woke, we felt life leaving our bodies, unable to breath or balance our feet. Somewhere in the near or distant future was the arrival of this reassuring trailer and the uncharted possibilities that lay ahead. That is what the trailer became. A small symbol of hope. Through the black ashes of our stolen dreams, we would discover a way to ride on new roads, and discover a new way of living. 

G-d was calling us on a journey, and it began with Raffa…