Juanita Bartsch – Mother of Cpl C​ole D. Bartsch

My name is Juanita Bartsch; I lost my beloved son in July 2007. Cole was killed in Afghanistan while serving in the Canadian military. There will never come a day that I will stop loving or thinking about my son. I needed someone to talk to, someone that understood my pain and what I was going through. The impact is for a lifetime. It never goes away; the loss of Cole left a huge hole in our family that will never be gone. I will always remember that first phone call I received from a HOPE mother. I realized that I wasn’t alone in my suffering and that I wanted to help those in the same situation; literally this phone call saved my life. My peer was able to see me through my grief; she called me every week to make sure I was getting out of bed. She was there to listen to me, not judge or pressure me. She kept calling and let me know that she was there. 
 
I am so blessed to have had the HOPE program in my life, so in return, I have decided to give back and became a peer helper to help other families who have lost a loved one. Connecting with this big family made me realize that we can survive the loss of a child. Life truly does go on. It doesn’t always feel like it, and there will be moments when it feels as though your loss was yesterday. It does though, and it’s hard to move on without that person in your life, especially a child. But if you take with you the memories you had together and the amazing life they led, it starts to feel as though you can get up out of bed, and perhaps you can start to smile again. The pain and loss never go away, but day by day, it does start to heal. Thank you to the HOPE program to have called and reached out to help.

Juanita Bartsch – Mother of Corporal Cole D. Bartsch