Who is Brianna??...

I am the Mother of Brianna Canacari... where do I start?

Brianna will be forever 12 years old and an angel watching over us. She was the kind of girl that would light up a room, her smile was infectious, her hugs would knock you to the ground and that laugh would warm your belly.

Brianna was a girl who knew who she was, she loved experimenting with different hair colors, makeup and clothes. She had a spicy streak in her, I guess just like me. When she was 11 and 12 years old our relationship was a little harder, we definitely butted heads more. But just like raising our other daughter we chalked it up to adolescence. We had our ups and downs, but towards the end I thought it was starting to look up for us.

Brianna had such an old soul, she really read people and could pick up on their emotions. If you were feeling down she was the first one to ask how you were. If you were new at school she befriended you right away so you wouldn’t feel alone. If you were getting picked on she was the first to intervene, whether she knew you or not, she would step in. One story I heard after she passed away, she was at the skate park and saw a girl picking on another girl, Brianna went up to the bully and told her to stop, I am sure the girl said something to Brianna because before you knew it the girl “bully” was on the ground and Brianna said “I told you it was going to hurt little miss sunshine”. That's my girl and that wasn’t the first time she came to someone’s rescue.

Brianna use to tuck me into bed, I miss that so much. Her dad didn’t always feel good and on those bad days she always knew he was going to feel bad before he did, so she would go to him and comfort him. She totally looked up to her big sister and wanted to be just like her, she was always taking Kayla’s stuff and of course denying it. :) I could only imagine how they would be together today, Brianna would be 20 years old now and she would probably want to be at Kayla’s house all the time.

On June 16, 2010 Brianna was found in her closet with a scarf around her neck, she was blue and unresponsive. I panicked while my husband and daughter rushed and fought to bring Brianna to life. Her daddy had to perform CPR on her to try and bring her back. We sat in the ICU for 4 days, praying, crying, not sleeping, praying, and praying. It was awful to see our daughter in that condition. The worst was the way she looked, a bunch of machines hooked up to her and nothing I could do to help her. We held onto hope until the very end. When we got the final diagnosis from the doctors that she was brain dead and that there was nothing they could do, we had to make a decision. Would we want Brianna to be an organ donor?! Her dad knew that was exactly what she would want to do. Her last day was filled with so many emotions, I couldn’t believe I would never see her again, I would never be able to smell her, hear her voice or her crazy laugh. Through organ, bone and tissue donation Brianna saved at least 3 families lives with her organs and hundreds with her tissue and bone donation.

I cannot tell you what this has done to our family, it shattered us, we have grown closer and stronger than ever, we keep “Growing Forward” in our life and honoring my sweet girl.

Brianna unintentionally took her life by playing the Choking Game and I have made it a mission the rest of my life to spread awareness about the so called Choking game….

Remember when I said this has shattered our family???

March 26, 2015 my husband took his life…

I will introduce you to him in our next “Who is?...”

If you would like to learn more about our story you may visit our blog: https://alwaysandforeverbri.wordpress.com/

I have been sharing our story for over 7 years. Please visit our website for more information about our foundation:

The BRI Project

www.thebriproject.org

(Partner organization with BCC Evolution)

Thank you for reading our story!!

Babs... the Mother of two beautiful angels, One in heaven and One on earth to watch over me.