Pictures to Show Future Potential Wives

Son #1 and Son #3

Six Months of SAD

For the last five years we have had a battle in our home. Its a fight with an invisible enemy. An enemy that sneaks in with the fading heat of summer and tries to rob me of a son. That tries to rob my son of his life. Of his smile, his joy, his energy and his family.

Our enemy snuck in slowly. We didn't notice we were at war at first.

A child too tired to trick-or-treat? A little guy not excited for Christmas and Santa's arrival? Is he sick? Something going on at school? What are we doing wrong?

Now we recognize when we are under attack, because like clockwork every fall a thief arrives embodied in the heart and soul of our child.

The first sign is the dark circles under his eyes. Then the weepiness follows shortly. Lethargy arrives thereafter. And if we are unawares or unprepared or just too busy to notice, suicidal thoughts sneak their way into our lives.

"Mommy, did you think alot about dying when you were my age?"

"Mommy, do you ever think it would just be easier to be dead?"

Questions that stop the heart of a mother. Questions that force you to face the reality that your child, your beautiful, amazing, perfect in every way child is facing a battle they cannot win alone. Questions that force you out of denial and into action to save your child from themselves.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a chemical reaction in your body that causes depression when you do not have enough exposure to sunlight. It affects many people to various degrees. It affects our son to an extreme degree. He is two different people depending on the season.

There is the summer child. Blond hair lightened to almost glowing white, twinkling eyes and an easy smile. A healthy glow that belies the battle we know is soon to follow September.

There is the winter child. Dark circles, a smile that never reaches from his mouth to his eyes. Tears always under the surface. A sadness the belies the joy we know spring will bring to his soul.

We live in winter country. When time change arrives next week, the sun will slip behind the hills at 4:30pm not to be seen again until 7 or 8 the next morning. And we lose another piece of our son.

I do not often share the exact labels, diagnosis or battles we deal with in our family but fighting SAD is a battle many don't even know they face. Special lights offer an almost unbelievable relief for those with this condition. Vitamins support our son by offering him what our weak Canadian winter son doesn't. Counselling helped him address those suicidal thoughts and gave him the internal power to deal with stressors that were triggering him continually to think that life wasn't worth living.

We count the days until we have our son in his wholeness of spirit, joy and energy back. We wait for March to spring our boys out of the prison of snow, clouds and cold weather and send them back into the yard to absorb the life and warmth of the sun.

Depression is real. SAD is real. It's real in a 5 year old. It's real in a 35 year old. It's real in our family.

F. Scott
Fitzgerald

"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day
after day."

Days Of Significance - Today is One

Today is significant.

I reminded myself of that repeatedly today.

When Eric threw a fit before saying good morning. When we realized the milk had gone bad. When kids at school forgot to do their homework, despite the three day weekend. When the science experiment didn't work as expected. When the boys all gagged on the dinner I cooked. When I had been to the rink for 3 separate ice times by 5:30pm.

Today is significant.

Today a neighbour buried her husband killed in an accident last week. I don't know her, but she and her 4 young children aren't far from my mind. Today is significant.

Today a woman I have never met but know of is taking her last breathe. Robbed by cancer, she leaves behind two children and a traumatized husband unprepared for the road ahead. Today is significant.

Today someone lost a loved one. Today a baby was born. Today some grieves. Today someone rejoices. Today is the best day of someone's life. Today is the worst day of someone's life. Today someone became a victor. Today someone became a victim. Today someone beat addiction. Today someone became an addict. All today. Because today is significant.

Today I hugged my sons. Today I snuggled my husband. Today I talked to a friend. Today I made a choice I am proud of. Today I could work. Today I was healthy. Today I had enough food to eat. Today I was loved. That, and so much infinitely more. All of that, ALL OF THAT, I fit into TODAY.

TODAY is significant.

I never want to be so busy that I forget I want tomorrow to be significant too.

Adoption Diary: A Life Altered

After experiencing the roller coaster of reunion with my sister, I suddenly found myself experience a whole other side of the adoption picture - The abandoned. The starving. The dying. Baby, after baby, after baby.

I came from a globally minded family, or so I thought. We had sponsored a child through World Vision my entire life. My parents sat us down to watch those Saturday morning "starving child" specials on tv. The high school I attended supported a school in Haiti. We did hot dog sales to raise funds. We made dresses in Home Ec that were sent to children. It made me feel I was doing something. At 16, it felt like I was doing enough. My life was pretty easy. Private school. A beautiful home. Good friends.

And then I went. Flew to the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Young, incredibly naive and completely unprepared for what I would see. Port Au Prince with its crowds, heat and constant beggars was shock enough. Hordes of malnourished children. Piles of garbage. Crowded orphanages. It was, I thought, as bad as life could ever get. What I didn't realize is that they were the lucky Haitians.

We left the city and drove several hours. We got out in a small town simply trying to survive in the midst of being decimated by AIDS. 50% of all adults were HIV positive. There were orphaned children everywhere being taken in by neighbours, friends, grandparents, and churches. Disabled children dragged their broken bodies through the dirt. We were shown the morgue. Young people lain on whitewashed slabs. Mothers, Fathers, Children. Body after body. Again, I thought that must be as bad as life could ever get as I struggled to absorb it all.

Then we left the village. No roads, just a foot path. Tired, old and emaciated donkeys carried our young, healthy, teenage bodies up a mountain. A mountain where a village had been found. A village of the starving. The living dead. We were supposed to be bringing them hope. A few boxes of seeds. Assorted medical supplies. Toys.

You might think you understand what it means to hold a child that is dying. You might think you understand what it feels like to look into the eyes of a child dying from a preventable cause. But until you have lived that; Felt it in your very soul, you cannot begin to understand.

When you realize that I, as a teenager with a stethoscope and box full of deworming medication was the best medical care, the ONLY medical care, this village would ever see maybe you can fathom the enormity of the experience.

6 year olds the primary care givers of 3 younger siblings because their mother had died in childbirth. All near death. All severely emotionally disabled from lack of affection, lack of attention, lack of hope. Pregnant women so anemic that death was inevitable once they went into labour. Starving mothers and fathers. Children so near death you know your touch might be the last. Mothers explaining that they had given birth 9 times but only two of their children had lived to a year of age.

It was a week that you cannot fathom. A week that changed my life. A week that the simple act of putting it into words has kept this post locked up because I fear I cannot do it justice.

It is here I saw the need. The desperate, absolute need of children. Heart breaking, desperate, overwhelming need. Need that can't be solved with rhetoric or policy. Need that even money couldn't find a solution too. The need was simply there. Desperate, dying children. Alone. With no one, nothing and absolutely no hope.

On our last day, the lucky children, if you could ever say that, had parents that begged us to take them. I would be holding one child and a mother would rip it from my arms and press her own baby into my arms. As the translator shared her appeal. "This one is cuter, take it please, take my baby to Canada". Then another, then another, then another. Cuter or younger or a boy or a girl. All mothers desperate to save their child in any way they could. Even by sending them half way around the world with a stranger. A child stranger at that.

We left. A group of 16 and 17 year olds completely silent. Tear streaked faces. The nurse we were working with before the trip had STRONGLY advised us not to "get attached" not to hold the babies or the toddlers left motherless. As we left she said something that I didn't completely understand at the time but do today.

"It's worse for them now. Those kids know what they are missing. Before they didn't know what a hug felt like, now they will miss it."

We silently progressed down the mountain on our donkeys. Spread out. Each needing our own space, deep, deep in thought. I passed a hut. Small, mud bricks with a tree branch roof. Suddenly a woman ran out screaming.

With great force she threw something at me.

Instinctively I reached out and grabbed it as it flew by. I realized it wasn't an it. It wasn't a something. It was a someone.

A beautiful, gorgeous, precious baby boy wrapped in a rag.

He was also a starving, dying baby boy.

And as I held him, his weeping mother hit my donkey so it would run off with me carrying her baby in my arms.

And I turned. And I threw that baby back. Back into the arms of his mother and she collapsed to the ground. Yes, back to his family of origin. Yes, back to his home culture, language and place of birth. But also back to certain death.

My life suddenly became more complicated. At home I faced those questions that maybe some never face. Why am I so blessed? Why, through a twist of fate, was I born to a family in Canada while an equally precious child is born into dire poverty in Haiti.

It is on that trip that I lost all sense of "us and them". My world perspective shattered and then expanded globally. Those children I held weren't any different than my newly found niece and nephews. Than my adored baby cousin. Their eyes were a different color, our skin looked different but we were the SAME.

And I became aware of a world where children died alone. Where babies never were held. A world where brothers and sisters were separated out of necessity. A world where mothers were so desperate for their child to live they were willing to beg another to take them.

Haiti changed my life. It will always hold a place in my heart. We continued to send money to that village for a long, long time. Many, if not most, of the children we met that January in 1991 died.

40,000 children died today from starvation and preventable starvation related illness. 40,000 more children will die tomorrow. Each as precious as the child you love most in the world. Each with as much hope. As much potential. Each with a mother who bore them in love. Not to die an agonizing death before ever experiencing life.

Within a year I would be immersed in a culture where there exists very few orphans, and again I saw another side of story of children without families of birth.

An Interesting Discipline Dilema

My son, my oldest son? He has been "sneaking out". Grabbing his coat and backback and making a run for it as soon as my back is turned.

I can hear the sighs and groans now. The support. The ideas for disciplining him. Hockey time? Youth events? Wii privileges? Gone. Gone. Gone.

Except? Things aren't quite that easy.

Our dilemma ... my dear son has been leaving the house in the mornings right after I leave for work. Earlier than he is supposed to be leaving. Not by much, but still against the boundaries we had set up so that Son #3 wouldn't be left at home alone.

Where is he going, this sneaky son of mine?

SCHOOL. Yes, school.

The idea of disciplining a child for going to school EARLY? I suppose there are bigger parenting issues in the world.

Still, he looked as guilty as sin when I returned home unexpectedly this morning and found him sprinting down the sidewalk a block from the house a good 10 minutes before he is supposed to leave. ( NOTE: SERIOUSLY when someone makes a nylon that doesn't run within 15 feet of my front door I will enjoy wearing skirts. Until them, I will resent dress code with a passion!)

He THINKS he is in trouble. I made it seem like we would be "chatting" when I got home from work tonight.

Is it bad that I am laughing at him behind his back?

Pay Back: The Hockey Gods Must Be Crazy

You know, as a woman of faith, although admittedly someone a bit gun shy about being overtly public about it due to my strongly Pentecostal Upbringing (aka Charastmatic-Church-Induced-Traumatic-Childhood), I will tell you that sometimes God does something that makes me laugh. Out Loud. Today God is shutting me up but good.

To occupy some time, I let Caden put three tickets into draw basket today during our 14 hour marathon at the rink.

We sold thousands of tickets. Thousands.

And I won. A new Wii Fit is waiting for me back at the rink (where I will be again in a mere 9.5 hours). Very, very, very happy boys.

In hockey update news. Son #2 whose tournament I am slaving away at? He has lost every game. But did manage a "thank-you for helping out mom" this morning. At 5:10 AM.

Son #3 who is attending a tournament in Vernon? Lost every game. By a total score now of 30 - ZERO. Yeah. Not so fun for them either. Spent some time on the phone with him doing some long distance mama-hugs and tear wiping. Yes, he's a goalie. 30 to zero. Yeah. Not fun.

Son #1 won his game today. Deservedly so too. And he got son #4 out of his gear for me and was generally only slightly teenagerish for most of the day.

Son #4 had his first scrimmage and spent the entire time skating around trying to show me his very wiggly tooth through the glass while managing to avoid touching the puck EVEN ONCE.

And get this ... Shel was hanging around the hotel wearing shorts. A STRANGER came up to him and said "heh do you know Allan ***?".

"Yes I do" said Shel.

"I've heard about your knee" said stranger, while grimacing at the gruesome scar. As I said, they are now sharing a rye and coke and comparing dirt biking stories. Men. I knew one day those legs would get him somewhere, someday.

Cracking Up, Hockey Mom Style

EDITED TO ADD: Just to further prove my insanity, I am wearing my Obama "Yes We Can" shirt today. The whole idea made me smile. To a rink. In Canada. Oh the comments I can expect today! Should make time fly...

Ever have those days? weeks? months? How about years?

Last year sucked. This year? Not much better.

At the moment hockey is killing me.

Shel left Friday morning with Son #3. For a hockey tournament 5 hours away. (Readers in Vernon, BC - go meet Shel. He's the tall one, limping, with the goalie son). He probably looks relaxed and well rested. Thoroughly enjoying his quiet nights with the "easy" kid accompanied by plenty of adult conversation and more than a few rye and cokes. He has a grand total of 3 games to attend this weekend. Did I mention I might be a TAD resentful because I was SUPPOSED to be the parent going away??

Son #2 has a HOME hockey tournament this weekend. That means in ADDITION to transporting 3 boys, feeding 3 boys, catching up on house work and watching hockey games, I have to (yes HAVE to) volunteer an additional 15.5 hours a the rink.

I had 45 minutes after work this afternoon off.

5 hours after that of volunteering.

I have to be back at the rink for a 5:30 am start. I volunteer straight through until noon. Then I watch Son #1 play a game, then Son #4 play a game. Then I volunteer again from 4:00pm - 7:30 pm.

Then I have to be back at the rink for 7:30 am on Sunday morning until at least noon. Then I have my weekend off. Ok, its only 3 hours because Son #1 has to be back at the rink by 3, but you know, how much rest does a woman REALLY need?

I am not sleeping. I am stressed. I cry over nothing. My emotions feel like they are on a yo-yo. And there is simply NO TIME to process anything. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G!

So enjoy my 4 minute blog post whine because its the only time I am going to have to think about anything in between running to the rink.

By the way, I forgot to brag last weekend and while I was in Edmonton visiting my Nan, Greg was attending a tournament. He won MVP ... TWICE. Well done son. Remember, you are paying for your own damm college education after how much it cost to send you to that tournament so keep scoring those goals.

The Gift of Time

Our visit was precious, wonderful and worth every tear.

It was goodbye. Hugs, tears and death bed promises asked and made. She told me to be a "good grandma" one day so I can be as lucky as her. She reminded me of how blessed I am with the family I have. She held my sister and I close and shed tears of grief of the loss about to come, and tears of joy for all we have shared together.

We laughed. We giggled. We ate. We cried. We reminisced. We sang. We listened. We talked.

We played crib. She skunked me. Twice.

We prayed.

She is ready to see heaven, but I am not ready to let her go. This dance of letting go and holding on is tragic. Brutal. Heart breaking. And at the same time, beautiful.

Beautiful to have a chance to celebrate her life with her while she is still aware of what she means to us, and us to her. Beautiful to KNOW that this time I have a chance to say what I need to.

To say good bye. Thank You. I love you. You have taught me all you needed to teach me. I will be ok. I will keep your legacy going. I will never forget you. Your memory is alive with me. It's ok, you don't need to be afraid.

All those the words I whispered in her ear, while inside I was screaming "Not Yet! Please God. Please Nan, NOT YET! You might be ready, but I am not. I need you, please, I need you. I need you as you were. I need your advice, your wisdom, your unconditional love. I need my Nan."

But she is not who she was. She suffers now and wants to go home. To see her daughter, grand daughter, husband, mother, sisters and brothers, friends and her Savior who wait for her. She talks of the curtain she dreams about with the light behind it. Of pulling back that curtain and not being able to see out it yet, but knowing its beautiful and bright. She wants to go. And I hold tight to the memory of the time when she was fully present and I celebrate that. Because I love her, I tell her what she needs to hear. It's ok to go. We will be ok. But I wonder.

And the present calls me back and I watch my sons gently show her love while she so gently offers it in return. I want them to remember her. Her little parties, their sleepovers at her house. The $5 that came in the mail for "an ice cream with your mom" every few months. The card games she so patiently taught, and then lost, for their sake. Her pictures of them that invariably had a thumb in the middle. Her legacy of college funds for each of the 8 great grandsons saved out of her own self sacrifice. She has loved them all. Equally treasuring them and honoring them. For Tanner's gentle nature. Eric's beautiful smile. Greg's love of hockey. Caden's love to snuggle. She is a GREAT, Great-Grandma. And she is so loved.

She is not a perfect woman. She made mistakes. She has had a very hard life full of losses that I can't imagine surviving. But she is my Nan and I love her.

Life without her presence is unimaginable. If one day I am as precious to my grandchildren as she is to me I will truly be a successful woman in the only way that matters.