Young mother of three leaves legacy of love and faith

On September 8, a determined Lauren Barnes lifted her young, cancer-riddled body out of bed and drove her eldest daughter to Brantford Christian School for her first day of Grade One. The following day, the 32-year-old mother of Everly, Maielle and Eden, passed away at Stedman Community Hospice with her children, husband and parents by her side. 

 

While it may surprise most of us to imagine that scenario, it did not surprise Lauren’s husband, Russ. Diagnosed in October of 2019 with rectal cancer that had spread to her liver, the beautiful young mom was given just months to live. And live, she did, creating beautiful memories for her children and husband, immortalized in dozens of photos and videos. 

 

"She didn’t just start making the most of every moment when she received the cancer diagnosis – she had always been that way,” says Russ. 

 

"She always cherished every moment. That’s who she was.”

Prior to her cancer diagnosis, Lauren had been in pain for several weeks. She was six months pregnant when she began to feel pain in her shoulder which was resonating through her body. Russ says that Lauren had expressed that it was the worst pain she had ever felt.

 

"That was telling in itself,” says Russ. 

 

"Here’s a woman who had given birth to two kids without an epidural telling me this was the worst pain ever, so I knew it was intense,” he says.

 

After a full day of not being able to relieve the pain through massage and heat packs, Lauren’s father, Guido Groeliker, took his daughter to the hospital, where they ruled out a blood clot.

The pain continued. For a month, Lauren tried to treat the pain with massage therapy, cannabis oil and other holistic avenues, trying hard to avoid pain medicine because of her pregnancy. Nothing was helping. 

 

Russ had been working 10 to 11 hours a day at his job at Zamboni, and when finished he would go to Brantford Christian School to perform Lauren’s duties as a custodian. 

 

Finally, exhausted and concerned about his wife, Russ broke down in front of his boss at Zamboni, confiding that he was sure something was terribly wrong. 

 

With his boss’s approval, on October 22,  Russ left work and went home, helped his wife into the car and drove her to McMaster Children’s Hospital, where he pleaded with the office assistant to take him at his word.

 

Lauren underwent three days of testing at McMaster and on October 25 it was determined that Lauren had a rectal tumor that had metastasized to her liver, and she had just months to live.

 

Lauren was seven months pregnant at the time of her cancer diagnosis. On October 27, 2019, two days after receiving devastating news, Lauren went into labour while at the hospital for treatment, and gave birth prematurely to a little girl they named Eden. 

 

On October 31^st, mom and baby came home to Brantford – Lauren to her home and Eden to Brantford General Hospital’s neonatal unit. While the family struggled to come to terms with Lauren’s terminal illness, Lauren began chemotherapy. Eden spent five weeks in the hospital before coming home healthy and happy on December 5.  

 

Lauren and Russ were together for 10 years, after first meeting on an online dating site.

Having just completed university on a golf scholarship, Russ suggested Northfield Driving Range as the location of their first date, thinking it would be a good opportunity to show off his golf skills, but says it was he who was blown away. 

 

"I remember telling Lauren on that first date that I had friends in the NHL and friends who were semi-professional golfers, but that I didn’t envy them at all because none of them had what I wanted.”

 

As it turned out, Lauren wanted the same things Russ did – to marry her best friend and raise a family to the best of her ability.  She later shared with Russ that the hopes and dreams he conveyed to her on their first date resonated loudly with her because they matched her own.

 

"She captured my heart that day. Although I had not grown up with faith the way Lauren had, I truly felt God’s presence. I knew this was no ordinary encounter”, says Russ.

 

"When I think of the jobs we’ve had that paid really good money, but were putting us on a path we didn’t want to be on, we both felt so strongly that we would be happier with less if it meant we could be at home raising our children and being together. That was really important to us. Lauren was the smartest person I ever met, and could have done anything she wanted, but being the mom was the best part of her, the part she took the most pride in, and frankly, the part she was best at,” Russ shared.

 

"She took the job as the custodian of Brantford Christian School so she could be more involved in family life. I went to work at Zamboni here in Brantford for the same reason.”

 

Church and faith was a very important part of Lauren’s upbringing and Russ was eager and happy to embrace a life of faith when he married Lauren in August, 2011. 

 

"Faith and great support from friends are the reasons I am able to get through this.” 

 

"Wes Coburn, the Spiritual Care Coordinator at Stedman Community Hospice is someone I have leaned on through all of this. He’s a big reason that I am able to keep it together.”

 

As part of the Hospice’s Grief & Bereavement Program, grief support is available to family members from the moment a life-limiting illness has been diagnosed in a loved one. 

 

"I’ve always been a sensitive sort,” Russ shared, through tears.

"Wes was someone who validated and encouraged my need to express my grief openly. I’m strongest when I can cry. As men, society often teaches us that it’s not okay for a man to cry, that to hold it in was to be a man. I never felt that was true. I think it takes more courage to cry, to be vulnerable. It has been extremely helpful to have someone older and wiser than me tell me that it’s exactly what I need to do to heal.” 

 

During the COVID 19 pandemic, Stedman Community Hospice saw the number of patients receiving outpatient care increase significantly, largely due to the fact that limits had been set by the Ministry of Health on how many visitors a patient in a health care facility like a residential hospice could have. Receiving hospice care in their own home allowed the Barnes family to stay together until the last possible moment. 

 

Dr. Bernie McNeil and other members of the Hospice management team, recognizing that Lauren would eventually need the 24-hour care that residential hospice provides, devised a plan that would enable Hospice staff to observe government mandated social distancing rules and still keep the family together during Lauren’s final days. To address their special circumstances, a  large room off the Hospice kitchen, normally used as a child-centred family room was fully disinfected and set up as a patient room, with sleeping accommodations for loved ones. A separate entrance was made available that would allow loved ones to come and go without entering the common areas of the Hospice. 

 

Determined to stay home long enough to see her child off to her first day of school, Lauren spent just a short time in the room before passing away.

 

"The good news is that going forward, we now have this room available for young families, making it possible for children to be with their mom or dad until the end,” says Elaine Calvert, Manager of Stedman Community Hospice.

 

Even though we didn’t spend much time in this room, we were so grateful to the Hospice team for coming up with a perfect solution for our family. 

 

"Lauren resisted leaving her home until the very end, even when it had become obvious in her physical appearance that the cancer was taking its toll,” her husband shared. 

 

"We did a movie night fundraiser during that period of the pandemic when you could have 100 people in your backyard. I posted an open invitation to our friends on Facebook that morning and 80 people came that evening. We gave all the money to Cancer Research. This was the first time that her friends could see that the cancer was taking its toll on her.”

 

"She still found the energy. Even through her treatments, she poured so much into her kids every day – artwork, photos, videos. Over the last year I took a lot of videos of all those special moments she spent with the girls. I was documenting how she wanted her legacy to go, which was her just giving everything she had to her kids.  I also knew that years down the road, I needed my kids to fully understand who their mom was.” 

 

Through her illness, Lauren put notes for her husband and children into a journal. 

 

"She expressed in her writings that one of the things that gave her the most peace was seeing what a great dad I was, and it was important to her that I never lose sight of that because she wanted her children to know what a good man looked like, so they would know to choose someone like me when they grew up,” shared Russ. 

 

"The morning after she passed was the hardest day. I remember lying in bed and seeing the sun come up, and asking God "How is this possible?” because I really didn’t think it could be, but it was.”

 

I remember thinking about what I could do for the kids when they get up, because this would be the first time they’d come into our bedroom and their mom not be there.  So I put on a video of her and we watched it for a long time, until hunger took over and we had breakfast.”

 

"Even though right now I am consumed with her loss, one thing is very clear to me –

 we need to remember this beautiful creation and honour her in every way. She touched so many lives. She had a wonderful way of communicating with people. She was genuinely interested in hearing about their lives, their troubles, and could readily offer up words that comforted them. Some people could live 90 years and not have an impact. She wasn’t one of them. I was blessed to have known her, and I thank God for that every day.”  

 

Stedman Community Hospice provides compassionate care to end-of-life patients, as well as grief and bereavement support to patients' loved ones. If you would like to make a donation, please click here for our online donations page.