I’m a big believer in the importance of education. I consider my family to be extremely fortunate to be educated in French in BC. We’re privileged enough to have small classrooms, outstanding teachers and programs that allow our kids to experience different things other than just sitting behind a desk 24/7.
This past weekend, we were chatting with friends who were telling us about their own experiences with their schools. For instance, they were reprimanded when they took their kindergartner out of school for a week to go to India (India!) Others are charged $200 per absence because truancy levels are so high where they live.
Personally, I think that is outrageous. I want my kids to experience a diverse education. If that means that I’ll pull my first grader out of school for one day to do something I think has value, I will. If I want to give the kids the opportunity to travel somewhere exotic (or not), I’d like to do that without penalty (within reason, of course). Granted, growing up, if we weren’t bleeding from our eyeballs, we didn’t skip school – ever. I don’t regret that because our weekends were so wildly different from our Monday-Friday life.
All this long winded diatribe to say that it was great to pull Will out of school today to take him and Rory to hike the Chief in Squamish. I’d been promising/threatening to take them all summer and with the weather about to turn and empty retirement days looming, I thought it would be a great time to do it.
The boys did great. The hike was no joke and we made it to just beyond the second peak. Saved by some PB&J sandwiches in the sun, we ventured back down and had some very amusing chats about a variety of topics on our way down: Star Wars, manners, Omi, squirrels, walking sticks, burping and sore muscles to name but a few. I’ve heard that the best way to communicate with young boys is while they are moving. If my kids are any indication, it’s 100% true.
We didn’t make record time by any means but there was sunshine, limited whining, minimal blood and no fights. I’ll call that a win.
Tomorrow marks my last day of full time employment. It’s been an interesting learning experience; learning to juggle family, work, recreation and day-to-day life. Surprisingly, everyone handled it pretty well.
For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about what I’ll miss and what I won’t when I’m unemployed (or as I like to call it, semi-retired). Herewith, my list.
I will miss
Daily, intelligent adult interaction. Not that my people aren’t intelligent, but a girl can only talk about Lego and Star Wars for so long.
Thinking, problem solving, creating and doing. Learning some new tricks of the trade.
My colleagues. They really are a fun and caring group. They love what they do, and it shows.
Visiting with the boys at their camps, which was based just downstairs from my office. It’s a treat to spy on my kids.
Daily lunch runs. Even though I can run at home, lunch runs always felt like they had a purpose. I hope I can carry that purpose forward into… retirement.
I won’t miss
Being more tired on Mondays than I was on Fridays due to trying to cram 5 days of recreation and family time into 48 hours. Woe is me, I know.
Sitting all day. If I were more industrious, I’d have devised something like this. But I’m not particularly handy, so that’ll have to wait till my next job. Or until I learn to be handy.
Saying goodbye to my people every day and wondering what adventures they’ll get up to without me.
The commute. Sure, it’s scenic and relatively short. Yes, I like to roll down the window and sing along poorly and loudly or be a good Canadian and listen to the CBC, but I’m kind of over spending $100 a week on gas.
Fluorescent lights. Evil, evil invention, those.
I’m not too sure what the future holds, but I’m not prepared to worry about it just yet. The right situation will present itself.
I’m home again, settling in to my new reality. It was great to get home and see my little family and to try to find routine again.
While I do that, Dad and Nicholas have set off on an adventure – well deserved, I’d say. So without further ado, I’ll introduce my first guest poster: my brother, Nicholas. A much better writer than yours truly, that’s for certain!
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In the wake of mom’s passing last week, dad asked me to join him on a road trip to the Maritimes to clear our heads and gather our thoughts.
13 Years ago, I drove with my mom to the Maritimes for my first time ever as we drove King`s College for my first year at university. 3 years later, Dad drove me back for my last year at STFX. Both were very special trips for me, but this one evokes more memories and emotions than either.
It’s been nice and somewhat out of character for both Dad and I to have a free form vacation. We have an idea of how far we want to go East, but no set itinerary or agenda: we’ve simply hit the open road with some ideas of places to visit and of which old friends we could call in on along the way.
Our first stop was Westmount for lunch on Thursday afternoon with Bill and Patty Smith (parents of Maryann) who, over the years have proven time and again to be excellent and reliable friends. Patty served delicious homemade sandwiches and bruschetta salad, followed by coffee and a great conversation – mostly regarding the recent Quebec provincial election. Patty also made sure we left with a tin-full of home made chocolate chip cookies which we have been making short work of along the way.
I have driven back and forth to the Maritimes more times than I can count, and so has dad. So, for a bit of a change, we decided to drive the first stretch along the north shore of the St Lawrence to Quebec City, then on to dad’s friend Gilles Rivard’s farm in St. Joachim, at the base of Mt. Ste Anne. The drive through La Mauricie, past Trois Rivieres is so much more entertaining than the Trans- Canada on the south shore – more rolling hills, more vistas…, and by late afternoon we were pulling into the driveway at M. Rivard’s farm. Built and completed in 1779, M. Rivard and his wife have owned it for 35 years, and have worked diligently at acquiring all the bits of land surrounding it. Today it is a magnificent spread with waterfront on the St Laurence, a full working cattle farm, sugar shack, and numerous outbuildings. M. Rivsard is exactly what one thinks of when the term “bon vivant” is used. He loves good scotch, eats rich foods (“Steak. Bleu!“) and pulls no punches in regaling us with his stories.
I took a seat quietly while dad and M. Rivard reminisced about all the people they had worked with in the professional careers, and a litany of hilarious stories from their days as young upstart lawyers (Conservative, at that!) in Quebec City. M. Rivard treated us to a lovely meal at St. Bernard Steakhouse in Ste. Anne de Beaupré before dad and I adjourned to our private cottage for the night. We retired but not before a stroll out into the back field under the stars to listen to the river and watch the lights of Quebec City in the distance to the west.
We woke up early, had a cup of coffee watching the river flowing East some more before quickly saying “adieu!” to Mme. Rivard (Gilles, bon vivant, was still in bed. Good for him!). We got back on the road, continuing East along the north shore, past Le Petit Massif de la Rivière St. François, and venturing beyond my experience of the Lower North Shore. Along the way, Dad, as is his wont, occasionally dropped anecdotes about villages and landmarks we passed along the way: the time during the ’72 campaign when they…, or once, while caucus was sitting at Murray Bay, the wives went to… etc.. etc… We stopped for a light breakfast in Baie St. Paul and pushed on to La Malbaie, where we pulled over to take in the view over the river before pushing on, all the way to Baie Ste Catherine.
As we waited there for the ferry to cross the Saguenay River, dad went inside to speak to the people operating the ferry terminal. I am not sure what he said, but when the young lady behind the counter came by to count the cars and passengers waiting for the ferry, she was in hysterics (“Ton pere est crampant!’she said, virtually in tears.) We crossed the mouth of the Saguenay to Tadoussac, where we promptly found our way to to the Hotel Tadoussac which was made famous in the film version of John Irving’s “The Hotel New Hampshire”. We had a lovely lunch *Christine: dad actually ordered (and ate!) une assiette de crudités* before doubling back on our tracks to St. Siméon, where we caught a ferry over the river to Rivière du Loup, where I am writing this now.
Tomorrow, we will try (but not too hard) to make it to PEI, choosing wisely, in my opinion, to speed through northern New Brunswick. This time, and the first time for me, we will head further East after Grand Falls towards the Miramichi and follow the coast to Shediac before crossing over the Confederation Bridge to PEI. I have a wonderful photo of Mom and Cathy Morris up to their knees in the Northumberland Strait with the bridge behind them from that first trip in 1999.
That’s all the news that is fit to report for now. We are happy, healthy, well fed and sleepy. Looking forward to more fun tomorrow.
I don’t know how to best express it, except to say thank you. Thank you from
all of us for your calls, your messages, your notes. It isn’t a platitude when
I say that it really does mean the world.
Mum would not have wanted us to mope around and be miserable. In fact, one of the last things she said to me was: “don’t look so worried, go do something!”
And so I will. I will do my very best to hold her near to me, to take her on my adventures, to tell the kids stories about her life and to look back on the good and not dwell on the bad. We owed her that much, I think. She wasn’t perfect, but perhaps she was the perfect fit for us.
A celebration of her life will be held in Knowlton on October 13th at 2pm at the Lakeview Inn. More than anything I hope at it will be an occasion to reconnect with friends and family and remember as she would have liked: with tales, laughter and a few tears.
Rory wanted to make me feel better. So he drew me some apples.
Today, my strong, smart, funny and caring mother passed away. She had just turned 70 years old and fought hard until the very end.
These past few days and weeks have been so hard, but it really is amazing what a family can endure. Although her body was diminished by years of fighting cancer, her mind was sharp until the end and for that I am thankful. I’m also thankful to have been by her side with my brothers and to have been able to ease the burden for my dad. I’m thankful that my kids will remember her as Omi; the Omi who read stories and planted gardens and didn’t like riding in Gondolas. I’m thankful for the extraordinary care she received; her doctors, nurses and therapists couldn’t be kinder, more caring people. Without them, we’d have been lost and this fight would have ended long ago.
In my minds eye, I don’t see Mum as she was these last few days. Rather, I will remember her as someone who loved being in her garden, reading, her friends, her family. Who was opinionated and very, very strong willed and who occasionally scared my friends. Who loved her grandchildren and all their silly antics. She was so proud of all of us.
She isn’t suffering anymore and I’m sure that wherever she is, it’s most likely by a beach, enjoying a cigarette, a scotch and the sun.
I’ve been thankful that while here in the Eastern Townships, Quebec the weather has been spectacular and that I’ve been able to sneak out for some great mind-clearing runs. It really is amazing how many roads, nooks and crannies there are to explore. I’ve only gotten lost once – so far. While I love running in the mountains and trails back home, there’s something to be said for endless miles of dirt roads.
4 years ago, Rory was born… amidst a rock slide that shut down the Sea-to-Sky Highway and left us separated from Will for something like 6 days. That adventure was followed shortly thereafter by the Beijing 2008 Olympics. I don’t think I’ll ever forget being in my brother’s apartment, Will asleep in the other room, Rory on my shoulder, whisper-screaming for Simon Whitfield to GO! GO! GO! And Go! He did… to a silver medal.
Sadly things didn’t end well for Simon today, but in honour of that event four years ago, we gave Rory’s 4th birthday party a fitting theme this year.
Bring on… The Rolympics!
We like our Games to be inclusive (we mix age, gender and qualifying times for every ‘event’). We keep our athletes hydrated and fueled (aka juice boxes and cupcakes). We provide diversion from the stress of competition (aka smash the piñata). We are quite flexible on uniform rules (nudiness encouraged). Our flag bearer was selected by his peers (more like forced to do it). We all napped afterwards.
That was certainly a full and fun-filled weekend. CITS had to take a backseat this weekend (for me anyway) so that I could partake in the silliness that was Charlie’s Angels.
DH Angels.
I have to hand it to Tony Horn. I’d never done one of his events and can now say, with certainty, that if he does another event, I’m in. He puts on a great event that was challenging yet achievable and more importantly, all for a good cause.
I haven’t raced a mountain bike race since 2003… and I’ve been on my mountain bike precisely 3 times this summer. I was certainly out of my comfort zone as we rode up to the start of the DH. Surrounded by downhillers, there’s no doubt in my mind that I am definitely more of an Uphiller (that’s a word, right?) I had seeded myself just about last because of my, uh… prowess in the park? However, I couldn’t take sitting up there watching everyone go. So I jumped in and went.
Proof that I made it to the bottom – in one piece, no less.
I loathe time-trial starts and despite not pre-riding the course, I didn’t exactly light the world on fire BUT I laughed (nervous laughter) all the way down, even after I hit a tree and then crashed off a jump. I made it down in one relatively unscathed piece and then flew home to catch the Opening Ceremony. It was, in my opinion, a great way to spend an evening.
Back of the packer…
Saturday held the XC portion of the race and although I experienced some kick-ass cramping in muscles I forgot how to fire, I had a fantastic time and really enjoyed the course Tony put together. It was fun to ride to some fun women I rarely get to see. I much prefer mass starts (it’s where my pointy elbows come in handy) and especially ones that start uphill. It got me out of the fray quickly and on my way. 2.5ish hours later I was at the lake, ready for more Olympic spectating (I immediately turned on my phone to see who won the Phelps V. Lochte dual – NERD).
Of course, no weekend is complete without some kind of medical emergency with the kiddos. This weekend we were treated to 2!
Little broken beaner…
Onwards with the week. Here’s to my arms regaining some of their feeling after the weekend and looking for the next adventure…
The SMO's stories 