All we need is...

It’s not all we need but sometimes it’s enough.

Love.

Songs, books, movies, art..all have been created in one way or another to honour it. And yet, we don’t. Not always. Not when it counts the most.

Today tragedy struck. Senseless, devastating, heart wrenching tragedy. It stripped lives of the innocent; hope from humanity.

The news out of Connecticut today, then China, was heartbreaking. I know I’m not alone in its effects. Social media flooded with sentiments, opinions, outrage, shock and dismay, over the day’s events.

I instantly wondered why? Who? How? The media (albeit inaccurately and prematurely for large parts of the day) had answered the who, what and where questions. But the harder questions. Those still linger. Maybe we’ll find some answers. I hope we don’t have to ask them again.

Too many guns? Too many untreated mental illnesses? Too much media attention creating notoriety-seeking psychopaths? Could it be video games? Is this a media monster? Is this an American problem?

Too many questions we don’t have the answers for.

It’s so wrong that there are so many days like this to remember or forget..but there are. This has happened too many times. Each time it happens, I, like many, go through a gamut of emotions. Shock, sadness, wonder, despair, anger, more sadness. I want to blame someone but this has happened too many times to blame any one person or any one thing.   

Yes, those committing these heinous acts are wrong for taking out whatever's going on inside on others outside. Maybe, just maybe, there needed to be more intervention when it came to mental health. Maybe there were warning signs. And yes, gun reform needs to happen. It’s too late in many cases but not too late to act as some sort of prevention for repeats of today’s events. No human being should ever hold, use, own or find need for a semi-automatic weapon. Why we’ve created these killing machines, I’ll never know. One-upmanship I suppose. All I know is this world would be a lot better place without them.

This isn’t just a gun issue though. This is a humanity issue.

The outpouring of love, harmony, community and turning to God is so awe inspiring after days like today. But then it waxes and wanes and it feels like the coldness seeps back into our hearts before we even know it’s there.

On my drive home from work, my heart ached especially for the families, friends and first responders all affected directly by the actions of one man. I wanted to become a beacon of love for everyone. Live charity every day, not just around the Christmas holidays or when my heart was feeling full because a tragedy reminded me how precious life is.

But then when a begging man approached my car, all I gave him was a wave and an “I’m sorry” even though I’m not. I’m just selfish. I’d rather hang onto my few pennies and dimes rather than give another a handful of hope.

There it was, my chance to lift another’s spirit in some small way. But I reasoned and reckoned my way out of helping. And that’s not the first time. 

What I take from all of this is that time is short. Sometimes too short. So we do our best to make the best of it. And we fall short. Then we try again. We give where we can, love when it counts, hug when it hurts and when it just seems to fit the moment. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes we go cold.

Thoughts and prayers will go a long way. Advocacy for change too. I personally am pushing for all of them but I believe where we really make the most of our time here is when we love. Love now while we can because, while I believe love endures beyond this often messed up world, right now, this world’s what we’ve got.

An Owly Observation

For the longest time I thought the intro song to CSI went something like “Ooooo Wally---Ooo Ooo. Ooo ooo.”

What a day when I learned it was actually “Who are you—who who? Who who?”

That made so much more sense.

So lately I’ve had that line in my head. Who are you?

Last spring I suffered a bit of an injury. Enough of one that I invested a lot of money into getting better and actually stopped playing sports. I think 1986 may have been the last time I went this long without playing sports.

Recently I had an appointment where the doctor told me she believed I would need a surgery to get back to activity and that since it was such a specialized surgery I would need to wait a couple of years to get it.

It rocked my foundation a little bit. Who am I if not an athlete? That’s basically been the centre of my universe for as long as I can remember.

In high school when it came down to choosing between seminary and early morning practices I made the easy choice---morning practices. Confession: I slightly regret that because I feel like I missed out not attending seminary. Alas, sports were my priority. And have been all along I suppose.

As a kid I collected hockey cards—off Kraft Dinner and Jell-O boxes even. I watched the Blue Jays win the World Series. Twice. I rollerbladed around my garage, hockey stick in hand as I listened to the heartache of Game 7 during the Canucks ’94 run to the Stanley Cup. I fell in love with field hockey and dribbled around my living room night after night. I shot hundreds of baskets every day on my younger siblings’ Fisherprice basketball hoop. I’m sure if I asked my mom, she’d say my first word was “win”. Because I love to win and love even more the pursuit of becoming a winner.

When my grandma said I needed to stop watching Sportcentre and start focusing on getting a real job I made a job in sports my focus. And then it happened. The stars aligned and sports remained the centre of my universe.

Then in an innocent basketball game, in a local women’s league, I took a hard foul courtesy of a couple of ‘ladies’ and knew something was wrong the second I tried to stand up. For the first time in a long time I couldn’t play through it. Not like the broken toes, shin splints and countless aches and pains I’d shrugged off so many times.

So four months later it’s still lingering and I get this new possibility. No sports for two years? Now what?

Could I forge a new identity after 28 years of the same old, same old?

 Are sports my identity anyways? Are we identified by what we love? Who we love? How we love?

Am I a writer, guitar player, drummer, camper, and occasional Nintendo player? Or a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend? Am I loyal, ambitious, tenacious, stubborn, fair and creative?

What makes us who we are? What changes who we are?

I may not be an athlete right now and may have to reel it in moving forward but I’ll find new ways and new things to define my identity. For now, I am in limbo. At least that’s a start.

So, Sally Can Wait

She could have been anyone. Anyone’s sister, daughter, aunt, friend. She didn’t tell me her name but she did tell me she was a child of God. Hearing that warmed my heart. The rest broke it a little. Maybe a lot.

When she sat down on the couch across from me in the church foyer I figured she must have been visiting. She wore black sweatpant capris, an Old Navy hoodie and a gray beanie on a cool summer day. Maybe she just came from a camp site. She cleared that notion with the next twenty minutes of heart-pulling conversation.

Her biological mom was a unicorn, she told me. She preferred that term over ‘stripper’—what her mom actually was.

Without skipping a beat she shared how her adoptive father had molested then raped her as she grew up. When the truth came out, her adoptive mother thankfully left her husband but according to this girl, checked out in the meantime. So there this young girl was. For whatever reason, given up by her biological parents. Then abused by one new adoptive parent and essentially left to her own devices by the remaining adoptive parent. In her teenage years she said she turned to alcohol and weed for solace and eventually became a regular in ‘the system’. In and out of foster home after foster home she said she saw more ‘messed up stuff’ than she cared to share.

More messed up than the ‘stuff’ she’d already shared?

So now she’s at the point where she seeks peace in a church building and wants nothing more than to just live in the woods with a dog—a black lab or a Siberian husky.

But then what? She has enough wherewithal to think there would be consequences to just up and leaving for the woods. What would she eat? How would she survive. You see, she explained, she is a survivor. And a child of God. That much she knew. And she knew none of this was her fault. The stuff she’s experienced. The things she’s done. Has had done to her. She said it’s all her parents’ fault.

Then she asked me if I thought she was going to Heaven or Hell. Before I could open my mouth she decided out loud she deserved Heaven because all the bad stuff she’s done is her parents’ fault.

And it got me thinking. Whose fault is it? At the surface she seemed clean, well cared for, well adjusted. But a step closer and the cracks at her seams come through. The black lining her teeth from years of alcohol abuse and who knows what else. The voices she says are telling her everyone around her is a whore. Her jittery energy she says is from ingesting too many calories.

Whose fault is it that her mortality has come to this. Is it her parents' for making a baby they didn’t want? Is it her adoptive parents' for taking a baby they couldn’t love the way a child deserves to be loved? Is it ‘the system’ for letting her fall through the cracks? Is it our fault, as a larger whole, for turning a blind eye to it all?

I love that we have agency. It bothers me to no end when my agency—or anyone’s for that matter—is jeopardized. I may choose poorly but that is my choice to make. Did this girl have agency? Did she choose this path? I don’t know anyone who would outright choose a life of calamities, abuse and neglect. Or do I?

This girl did. She knew someone who chose that life. And she clung to the idea of Him. In her despair, I think she, much more than I, could relate to our Savior. He had suffered tremendously in His walk in mortality. At such a young age, this girl had clearly suffered much as well. And still she had hope. That she could learn more about Jesus. That she knew she was a daughter of God and deserved more than this.

Today gave me a dose of perspective. In a world of suffering and sin and scary, scary ‘stuff’ there is hope. There is peace. There is a Savior we can all turn to. He might not fix everything now. He might not fix many things now. But in time, the ultimate physician will right the wrongs. That young girl knew this. I hope, for now, that’s enough. But I know she deserves more than enough. She is, after all, a child of God. Aren't we all?

4 AM

Sometimes the lights go out. Just for a while. Maybe longer than we’d like.

I never thought I’d be the type to get short on words when it comes to writing but when my nephew passed away this past February the words stopped coming. The lights went out.

Thankfully it was a busy time of the work year so I was able to dive right into preparation for what would surely be another long playoff run.

My heart did ache knowing that not everybody who knew and loved my nephew Zachary had the luxury of delving into busy distractions. The quiet of evening swallowed me whole on more than one occasion. I could only imagine what it was like for my loved ones whose days and nights blended together without interruptions of requests and phone calls and ‘important’ things to be done.

They say everybody goes through the grieving process. It might look different from one person to the next but apparently involves shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression/reflection/loneliness, the ‘upward turn’ (sunshine and lollipops, right?), reconstruction and working through, and then acceptance and hope.

 I don’t know if I’ve gone through any of those let alone all of them. Certainly I was very angry very early. I can tell you that much. Good thing there weren’t any sports or board games to be played at that time because my fuse was short. Dodged that one.

Initially, I didn’t want to tell anyone about what had happened. Maybe that was my way of denying it had. In my mind I was worried if I opened my mouth to say those words, the dam I had so carefully constructed emotionally would break and the tears and who knows what...would come. If there’s one thing my dad taught me, it’s nobody likes a cry baby--and that Fruit & Nut chocolate bars are the best breakfast for early morning hunting trips (don’t worry, I never hit anything but coins and markings on a wood stump).

Then one night something clicked. I think it was a light switch, somewhere. I grabbed my guitar. My therapy so many times before. And started playing a song that began with lines I’d been living for weeks:

“I’m okay on the outside but it’s all caving in. I can pretend that I’m alright but I’m close to the edge.”

I know I’m not the only one that was feeling that way. That has felt that way.

I thought about calling this entry “Don’t say your $%*@ don’t stink” but thought my LDS friends would think I’d gone apostate.

But really, we’ve all got stinky parts to us. Some people wear the stinky parts on their sleeves (ew…bad visual). Some people quietly carry the stinky stuff, trapped under its weight. However it appears or doesn’t appear, it’s there.

Only time can teach you certain lessons but golly do I wish I’d learned a lot earlier not to judge other people. You can’t ever know what’s in their heart. What’s in their lives. In hindsight I remember kids in elementary school that came from very broken homes. My best friend up until I was five was living with his grandparents because (as I later found out) he’d suffered at the hands of a pedophile. I never knew! I never knew.

We might never know.

But we can love. We can embrace. We can show compassion. We can show understanding…sometimes, many times, without understanding.

Recently my cousin posed the question on facebook about the Coldplay line “every tear is a waterfall”. What does that mean?

To me, it means we’re all connected. Pain can beget pain. Likewise, joy can beget joy. We can’t control everything. But we can control some things.

Be love. Be embrace. Be compassion. Be understanding. Be there.

Taking Notice

Maybe it’s something to do with being raised as one of five kids but I’ve always wanted to be noticed

Astrology says it’s because I’m a Leo. We crave the spotlight. My Sunday School teacher when I was 12 said I shouldn’t believe horoscopes. I’m still working on it.

Whatever the cause, I know it’s there. My need for affirmation, attention, adulation even. I was the kid that turned the fireplace mantle into a stage. My tennis racquet into a guitar. My hair brush: a microphone. Once I learned sports could get me attention, I focused pretty much all my energy into becoming good at whatever I did.

At the end of the day, I wanted to stand out.

Somehow I don’t think I’m alone.

I’m starting to think sometimes it’s over-rated—standing out.

In the last year, a place I frequent changed their cleaning system. Or cleaners. Or something. All I know is now I notice things. Not good things. The foul smell in their bathroom. Spot marks on the doors and walls. Things that went unnoticed for however long I’d been to this place now are noticeable. They stand out. But not for the right reasons.

I wish I could tell those old cleaners how great of a job they did. I didn’t even notice.

It’s like that with a lot of things. The stay at home defenceman who never scores aka never gets talked about but also never gets scored on. I’ve blogged about them before but I can’t say enough about the real heroes of this world—mothers, fathers, caretakers, guardians, teachers, nurses, doctors, bus drivers (the kind that let you on the bus when it’s pouring ice pellets), garbage men—I could go on. There are so many good people and good things that go unnoticed. And are far too under appreciated.

The 10^th day in a row of blue sky in the middle of summer. Blooming flowers on the 21^st day of Spring. A toilet that flushes. Water you can drink, wash your face with and brush your teeth with and not worry it’ll cripple your gut with disease and whatever else is in it. A spouse who isn’t perfect but is there for you. The sound of your loved one’s voice on the other end of a telephone line.

So many things that are so great. And I don’t notice them. Maybe it was the smell of urine in that bathroom or just the reflection and introspection that comes with the dawning of a New Year but I want to change that. It shouldn’t have to take fireworks and a big bang to notice something wonderful. Wonderful is everywhere. We just have to look for it. I just have to look for it.

Switching it up

Recently a colleague of mine tweeted a link to a newspaper article supposedly printed in 1911. The article featured a number of experts projecting what they thought 2011 would bring.

Some of their assertions were pretty bang on. Some—like the notion that mosquitoes would no longer exist—not so much. Too bad.

It got me thinking. About the future. I know it’s 2012 and the Mayans say I should live in the here and now but I did spend a moment thinking about what the future will bring.

I didn’t want to kill too many brain cells so I stopped at this one: no off buttons for electronics.

I personally have a mini panic attack when I think for a moment I’ve left my cell phone/iPod/insert electronic gadget here at home. I’m pretty good (touch wood) at keeping track of my belongings so it’s quickly followed by a great sense of relief when I remember I just put it in a different pocket than usual.

I rarely turn my cell phone off. That moment of peace and serenity is reserved for traveling when I don’t want to incur roaming charges. Typically switching that off button is quickly followed by an itching to get to the nearest computer to check my email. Scour Facebook. Update my fantasy hockey team’s roster. You know, all that really important stuff.

I think we won’t even have to wait 100 years to see the disappearance of the off switch. Rather than an off switch there will be standby. At the ready. Seems so much more fitting. Energy conservation will be greatly improved and we’ll never have to feel that anxiety of being fully ‘out of touch’.

Heretics like my dad, who insist on not being cell phone laden, will be a distant memory captured in 300 pixel images. Off and on will be reserved for things like faucets and washing machines. And even then it won’t be like now. Touching a faucet handle will be viewed as loathsome as licking a toilet seat. All those germs? So 2012. A wave of the hand. A voice command. Whatever it is, the off/on switch as we know it will be completely different. Or at least that’s what I think.

Maybe I’m wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last.

Electronics won’t have off switches but we still will. At least I hope so. Sure we’re all about maximizing every minute of the day—fitting more and more tasks into an impossibly crammed day. Day after day. But the need to rejuvenate won’t be replaced by gadgets or gizmos.

In bygone eras when people had to actually labor for food, shelter and other basic needs, there was still a time for down time. There was still a time to turn the work mode off.

I imagine days were pretty routine. Wake with the sun. Work through the day. Eat at the same time each day. Retire at dusk. Rinse and repeat.

Now things aren’t necessarily so routine. The challenge is knowing when to turn off. And when to turn back on. I’ll be the first to admit, some days I don’t feel like I’ve hit my on switch. Whether it’s emotional, mental, physical or spiritual—sometimes I feel a little off. It’s a work in progress. I fool myself into believing some people are always on. But I don’t think that’s the case. We all turn off sometimes. We just have to make sure we turn back on.

The Circle of Life

Sometimes they just hit you. Life lessons. When you least expect them, they sneak up and snap you out of whatever good or bad routine you’ve got going.

This morning we had some excitement at work. Michael Buble joined the team for the morning. He also brought some family members—including a half-year-old babe.

It was an interesting way to start the day. There was this little guy so dependent on his dad for care. His dad dutifully and happily catered to his every need. Without a thanks or any real compensation except maybe the baby’s fussing stopping.

Just hours removed from that exchange I got to see the other end of the spectrum. I was able to join a number of young girls from my church at a care home as we caroled Christmas songs.

I was really taken aback at how dependent these elderly people were. How their independence had been stripped with age. As powerful, wise, able-bodied and sociable they’d been the majority of their lives, those days were over. Time had erased those qualities. The markings of age left many of them incoherent, crippled, powerless and strangely alone in a crowd.

As harsh as it seems, the care home was full of them. These hollow remains of once productive and fully functioning men and women. I thought of myself now. Before the years have caught up to me. I can have a two-way conversation. I can pick myself out of a chair and walk, run, bend—and not break.

When these dear, elderly people spoke tonight it was unadulterated speech. Pure, innocent and honest words. Not all of them made sense but I knew they were genuine and grateful. The simplest utterances I could understand: Merry Christmas.

The years, age, disease and illness hadn’t stripped away their Christmas spirit. I saw a trend of innocence in the two ends of life’s spectrum. The two times when one’s reigning traits are naïve, trusting, dependent and pure.

Whether straight from Heaven or knocking on Heaven’s door there are commonalities. We must rely on love to survive. Parents, caretakers, family and friends all help us through those most humble stages of life.

I am in awe of every mother and father, guardian and grandparent who ceaselessly cares for babies through infancy and into childhood. Each baby’s arrival in school years is a great miracle of love, charity and endurance. I can’t imagine where I would be without loving and charitable parents who tended to my needs. Night after thankless night.

For those with little ones, I commend you. You are building the future. You are making a difference.

I am also greatly inspired by those who care for strangers and loved ones in the final stages of life. Whether due to illness or age, the care it takes in those final stages is taxing and often unheralded.

For you angels on earth who tend to the needs of the age-stricken and those at end of life, thank you. You are true heroes.