This is a picture of our Niece, France-Anne Sweeny.An Unthinkable Twist Of Fate
On Monday evening, 16 year old France-Anne Sweeny took her last ride on a horse. She maneuvered the animal through and around some jumps and somehow lost her balance and was thrown to the ground where her horse unintentionally kicked her in the head. She was rushed to Grand River Hospital and on to McMaster Children's Hospital where she would eventually die.
Today she was taken off life support after donating her organs to someone else, which means a part of her will live on in our world; a small comfort in what has been an unthinkable week in the lives of her family and loved ones.
It seems that when we reflect on tragedies like this they appear to have been unavoidable. That they are indeed a date with destiny and that nothing short of the supernatural could have altered the outcome. Those individuals left behind, family, friends, school mates --and even strangers in this case--are lost for words...yet they manage to find something to say about this unusually vibrant, exceptional individual.
We are stunned, stopped in our tracks where we quietly assume some responsibility in the terrible outcome. "If only I had asked her to do something else on Monday....maybe it wouldn't have happened." This kind of reasoning is all for naught.
When accidents like this occur, it does make me believe that there is perhaps some painless explanation or a larger cosmic plan which ultimately releases us all from guilt and helps us to grasp the tremendous loss.
France-Anne's contributions to her community and the larger good in her short life are evident in the comments from teachers, schoolmates, family, and friends in her equestrian circles. She was a model human being, with enough hope and dreams to move mountains yet she will not physically do the moving. Why? How come she didn't get to live her dreams? Why was she deprived?
Maybe, if there really is a larger scheme of things, an unseen dimension we keep hearing about, just perhaps now the responsibility to "Make the world a better place" rests with all of those left behind who knew her or even those who are hearing about her for the first time. Maybe it's up to us to "finish the ride" so to speak.
Every generation lives this tragedy. We need to come away from this motivated and changed to add her dreams of change and a better world to our own personal life agenda. Take France-Anne's message forward with you and she will never be gone...you will not see her again (that is our tragedy) but the life she lived and intended to live, will never we gone.
Rest In Peace.
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France-Anne was involved with WAYVE (Working Against Youth Violence Everywhere) - it was a cause she was passionate about
