DRAYTON – Baking has always been an activity filled with nostalgia and precious memories for Amelia Camilo.
Now she bakes gingerbread cookies in honour of her late son Lennox, who died three years ago, to assuage her grief during the holiday season.
“He had a very short life in the hospital before he passed away,” Camilo told the Advertiser.
She now lives in Drayton with her husband and three young daughters.
Prior to Lennox’s birth, the couple held a gingerbread-themed gender reveal party to celebrate the pending arrival of their first son.
“He was born peacefully and he died shortly after his birth,” Camilo said.
The idea of baking gingerbread cookies every Christmas season to share with family and friends stemmed from the fact that no one besides Camilo and her husband got to meet Lennox.
“It’s a way of us bringing him with us into special moments of our family while carrying on certain traditions,” she explained.
“This allows our friends and family to be part of his memory.”
Camilo noted the baking is a way for her to use her pain at Christmas time and transform it into something positive.
“Not everyone is happy at Christmas time … and if one person reads this and thinks, ‘I can get through my grief,’ then it would be worth me sharing what we went through,” Camilo said.
For the last three years she has baked the cookies and will continue to do so as she raises her daughters.
“I include them now in making the gingerbread and it’s a bit of a chaos but it’s a special way to make that memory known to a child too,” Camilo said.
The gingerbread cookies Amelia Camilo makes during the holiday season. Submitted photo
She noted the difficulty in explaining the missing part of her family to her children, but baking helps, as “it feels like he’s close without it being a complicated thing to explain.”
Asked what she would say to a parent in a similar situation, Camilo said, “There’s no magic moment where your heart is ever going to heal completely.
“We’re very much still in a grieving process three years in.
“There are ways you can include your child in your life that makes them feel close, even when they’re not there,” she added.
“It may feel like other people have forgotten but it’s okay that you haven’t.”
Camilo noted that wanting to celebrate and not wanting to are feelings that can coexist – “That was a really hard thing to let those moments coexist.”
Telling her story is an emotional experience for Camilo, but, “It also feels really good to know I can participate in community.
“That’s what community is really all about,” she added.
“Telling our stories to each other and holding each other up when we should celebrate and mourn when we should mourn.”
