Krista, Quirks, Coffee, Cordless Phones, Groceries and Trust in a Marriage.

                I don’t know if you are like me, but I had a wife that didn’t like mornings.  Didn’t like, I should say HATED morning.  Each day before I went to work I would wake up and get Jaxon and Grace their cereal or toast, or oatmeal and a banana or strawberries or whatever else was the easiest, that’s why 9 times out of ten it would be a banana halved between the two of them, with some toast or cereal. While they were eating I would get the coffee going.  I would like to say that my wife was happy to see me in the morning, you know, every husband’s dream is to have his wife greet him with a, “ Good morning babe/honey/sweetheart/etc. you sure do look good today, in fact why don’t we head back to the bedroom before you go to work because I just want you so bad...”, sorry about that, that was my IDEAL daily routine dream.  The normal daily routine dream was to have her get up and say, “Have a good day babe, I love you, have a good day.”  Instead, this is what happened, I would make sure the coffee was going because perhaps the aroma would appease Krista subconsciously before I had to wake her up, then I would open the already cracked door and slowly make my way to her side of the bed...

Now I don’t think you can fully understand my predicament until you understand how much my wife loved her coffee.   Here is an account of her view of how important coffee was to her, it is from some of her writings that I found on our computer after she died when I was searching for anything I could to connect with her.  She had always wanted to write a book and this is the start of one chapter...

"The only reason I grudgingly arose and stumbled down the hallway was the aroma of the caramel flavoured coffee in my French press.   I just recently bought the press from Starbucks and I love it.  I like the way it looks sitting on my countertop with its’ little stainless steel cap and legs and I find satisfaction in depressing the plunger and squishing the coarse grounds in the bottom of the glass cylinder.  Today, similar to many mornings, the promise of coffee was the only reason I got up at all. I wake up with that same thought every morning.  Where is my coffee?  I dare say that it has become somewhat of a crutch for me.  I beg off niceties and simple manners until that first cup is settled nicely in my hand, steam wafting up toward me carrying with it the unmistakable smell of fresh-ground beans.  That first cup of coffee never loses it charm for me.  Each day I arise anew with the thought of it drifting through my mind, luring me out of a bed I might otherwise inhabit for the better part of each day.  The world seems softer, more manageable with my hands curled around the warm body of my favorite mug.  I sink into the corner of our couch, arm propped up on a cushion, so that even the effort of bringing mug to mouth is lessened.   I feel something akin to regret when I realize there is only a sip or two left in that first cup of the morning.  Nothing compares to the peace and warmth humbly offered by that first cup.  Though I tirelessly, or more accurately, naively, continue to seek out those same offerings from a second and sometimes even third cup.  My first is always unmatched.  Isn’t that true of many “firsts”.  First love, first kiss, first time, first baby.  We are consumed by “firsts.”  We keep pictures, journals, scrapbooks, mementos, and memories of our firsts, and as we age, the firsts of our children."

     See what I mean.  Do you see the peril awaiting me each morning wake up?  That first cup of coffee held A LOT of meaning obviously.  I can think of a few other friends of hers that have the same affinity for the stuff!  As I entered the room, I always started with a soft voice, “Babe...Babe...It’s time to wake up.”  When that didn’t rouse her, I would touch her shoulder and say it again, always being ready to jump back just in case.  Almost always she would jump as if I intentionally scared her and cringe away from my outstretched hand, her response being, a low mumbled, “Coffee...” or some other variation, “Did you make the coffee?”  Yes I would reply and say,  “I love you , have a good day.”  It is something that I miss dreadfully.   One of those daily things that you do for your spouse that is so engrained that it feels like something is missing each morning.  I don’t drink coffee right away and if I do, I will get a latte from Starbucks or a cup from Tim Horton’s, I don’t need it to function like Krista did.  The thing that was the most interesting about this morning ritual is that it took me about 5 or 6 years of marriage to realize something.  I can’t remember when I realized it EXACTLY , but I realized that she wasn’t grumpy or mad at me each morning, she was just mad AT morning.  My wife just liked to sleep and she felt offended each time the sun called her to wake up.  It was hilarious to come to that realization and it is one of those quirks that I miss so much. "She's not mad at me, she's mad at morning! I would laugh about this everyday. (after I realized it of course!)  Quirks.

Another one that is coming to mind right now is her inhaler.  Krista had asthma and needed two inhalers to keep her going, one was a steroid inhaler and the other was a ventalin type inhaler.  She had this frickin’ disease all her life and do you think she could remember where her inhaler was half the time?  That is a rhetorical question and I hope you caught the sarcasm.  She forgot where that thing was all the time.  It’s one of those things that annoyed the CRAP out of me for about 9 years, she would ask me, JUST before I would come to bed, “Jared, could you get me my inhaler?”  Me, “Where is it babe?” Her, “I don’t know, my purse?”, “No, maybe in the car?” On winter nights when it was freezing out the last thing I wanted to do was go to that car to get her inhaler.  Some of the guys reading this might say, “Dude, I just would have made her go get it herself, you are whipped...” or something to that effect.  I guess I could have done that, I just didn’t have it in me I guess.  The reality is, I didn’t want to tick her off just before bed. ((You know fellas, just in case something might happen...)  (Women reading this, "seriously!  Is that how men think when they come to bed?")  (Yes.))  Honestly though in the the last bit of time we had, I came to laugh at it because it was a funny quirk, it wasn't going to change and I had gotten over myself.  I just realized that it was one of those things in our relationship that was going to happen and it was part of her, and it was kind of cute by this point and not so annoying.  From talking to other friends it seems it’s this way in all marriages.  There are annoying things about your spouse.  Thing is, they are annoyed at some of the things you do to. 

 

Cordless phones.  I carry those things all around the house and when I am done a conversation, I leave them right where I finish.  Krista always put them back on the receiver.  It wasn’t a big deal until the phone rang and neither I nor Krista knew where the phone was.  Ohhhh man that would annoy her so much.  “Jared, why can’t you just put the phone on the receiver please!”  Me, “O.k., O.k. I’ll do it.”  Did I ever do it consistently? No.  That is one of my quirks.  Just like she couldn’t remember her inhaler, she never did tell me she would try and remember though, and that’s interesting...

Groceries.  I would sometimes get a short e-mail from Krista at school like this, “Could you please pick up some milk, lettuce, and tortillas for supper tonight.” I would shoot a quick one back, “sure babe, no problem, how’s your day....etc.”  Then once I had done that I would go about my day, get home after school and as I was entering the house she would be standing there looking at me with the knowing look on her face that said, “You forgot again didn’t you?”  I would look at her and there was nothing to say except, “I’ll be right back.”  I would rush out and get the short list of stuff but I felt like a tool.  Now I know that it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal when your spouse forgets something.   The thing is, I just thought that this was an annoying quirk of mine.  No BIG deal or anything.  The thing is, when you do this multiple times (I think I had a run of a few in a row, or close enough in a row that the times where I correctly completed the mission didn’t amount to a hill of beans) it shows something of yourself I think.  IF YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO SOMETHING, THEN DO IT.  I am talking to both MEN AND WOMEN here!  When you don't do what you say you will do, THIS IS NOT A QUIRK, this is a breach of trust.  Some of you might be thinking, whoa, this guy is pretty intense about forgetting groceries.  Let me explain what I mean.

Obviously there are times where things won’t work out like you think and you won't be able to do what you said you would even though you tried your best. It is important that your spouse recognizes this and forgiveness comes in, but sometimes, when patterns of not completing the things you say you will do begin to arise, you have shown your spouse that you don’t live up to your word and can’t be trusted.  It starts with "small things".  When you can’t remember to pick up groceries WHEN YOU SAY YOU WILL, you may not think it’s a big deal, but it means a lot in the way of undermining trust.  Those "small things" have an interesting way of building up into resentment that can drift into many thoughts.

What I am getting at is this, be honest with what you can do for your spouse.  Don’t say you will do something when you know in the back of your mind that you might get to it, but , you aren’t quite sure.  Just TELL THEM that you probably won’t get to it.  Krista used to use this phrase at times, “Don’t overpromise and under deliver.”  That would annoy me because she did it too, but really, we both did it at times.  Trust is so important, once patterns of misunderstanding develop it’s hard not to let trust get undermined when you start discussing the big things in life.  Again, I really think it’s important to set roles and responsibilities in your marriage or relationship that are realistic.  If you can’t be real with your spouse, and are constantly overpromising and under delivering, you are going to have a problem on your hands.   I can tell you that we worked on that, we really did, and I started to feel more confident about what she and I were both expecting so there were no false promises.  I really started to evaluate what I could do, and let her know, instead of getting her hopes up only to fall short.  It was a good thing in our marriage to work that out.  I hope that if you are in a rough spot in your marriage right now, that you can have objective, honest conversations that can get you back on track.  They are not easy, and you may or may not feel like a million bucks after, but I think they are important.  I hope you get the fact that I wasn't perfect,  and don't feel like I know everything,  but just before she passed away I saw some of the benefits of talking about this stuff, you know, how it positively affected my marriage.

Summary:

1.      1.  Each of you has quirks, figure out which ones are actually endearing because they are so ridiculous and unique (and therefore you just need to suck it up when you are annoyed because that is just your spouse, and if you had a different spouse, you would get new annoying quirks.  The grass is not greener...)

2.      2.   Telling someone you will do something, is asking them to trust you.  Just not in those words.  Don’t breach their trust by over promising and under delivering.  I am not saying that if your spouse forgets something every now and then, that you should just lambaste them and call them untrustworthy either.  Forgiveness needs it’s place as well.  It’s when you can tell that your pattern of screw-ups is hurting your spouse.  Whether you think it is a big deal or not, if you said you will do something and you don’t and it hurts your spouse, OWN IT and STOP doing it.

3.       3.  Everyone screws up from time to time, evaluate what battles need to be fought, talk about them, truly listen to the other person.  Don’t brew up arguments against them while they are speaking, just waiting for your moment to let loose your come back argument.  Listen.  They are speaking, that should be important to you.  They should also be listening to you, it should be important to them.  If you don’t think it is, then that is a different issue.  Look after what you can do first though, don’t just look for their negatives.

 

I would do anything to hear her get mad that it’s morning.  I would do anything to go get that frickin’ inhaler from the frickin’ car I can tell you that.  Just thinking about it makes me cry and makes me think about going outside just to freeze a bit, just to relive it, in fact, it's just the right temperature....I’ll talk to you later...

Belonging, Apple, and Christianity

Like I said before, the movie Dolphin Tale spoke to me on a number of levels and I was thinking about the third one.  Belonging.  The kid in the movie is a bit of a social outcast (at least they try and portray that) kept to himself, seeing no reason to interact with anybody.  Once he gets involved with this dolphin, something he cared about, he all of a sudden is interacting with others, a bit shy at first, but once he feels like he belongs his life changes.  Man isn't that the truth.

I think people will do pretty much anything to feel like they belong.  I know that this isn't groundbreaking news. It's what fads are based on.  It's what Apple is based on.  I mean it's no secret that people who are "Apple people" are hardcore for it.  I find that many people that are hardcore Apple people think that they are part of a small group of  people who really "know" where it's at.  They come across a little elitist in my opinion.  It's like all they can talk about is how great their Mac is and how they can't believe you haven't switched over from your archaic PC lifestyle.  (If you own a Mac and are not like this then never mind what I am saying.  Mac people who know PC people like this, switch the context around.  There are PC people who are the same way.  There are people who love their Toyota the same way too.)  Some of them seem to even act like they don't care about status and that they are even part of a revolution at the grassroots level.  Last time I checked though, grassroots didn't involve purchasing something 3 times the price of another product, thereby limiting the people who can even buy it.  The only people who can afford Mac's are not grassroots, everyday people.  They are people with well paying jobs who try to pretend that they are not interested in purchasing expensive things.  People who love their Mac's feel like they are part of a select group of people who know the best way to live using technology available.  They feel like they belong to something.  Some kind of movement, that, if you are not in this movement, then you must be a bit dull because it has taken you so long to join in.  Maybe I'm just bitter because I still use a Dell that works just fine right now when I would really like to go for a Mac. (That's probably the reason, because I think I would really like one.)   I feel like I would become an elitist just like the rest of em though and I don't want to do that.  I feel like I like belonging to the group who complains about the people who talk about their Mac's all the time. (to be honest though, my family has an Iphone, Ipod touch, and Ipod nano(old school version), Ipod shuffle (REALLY old school stick version)  Anyway, I think all of us know people that talk about something in their life like it is the greatest thing ever and all the rest is just second best. To be honest I do this myself with some products I really like.  Either way, you either belong to the one group with or you belong to the group without. 

I am a Christian. I make no bones about it.  The thing that I was just wondering about tonight was what if I look like a Mac user to people who still have questions about what "this Christianity thing" is about.  I am sure that there are many preconceptions about me just because I say I am a Christian.  I wonder if people look at me and go, "He's part of that elitist group who think they know how to live life using the spirituality available right now."  Hmmmm.  I think that sometimes it might come across that way to people.  Not just me but all Christians.  That we're all a little on the jerk side.  It probably rubs people the wrong way that we feel like we have found something important that is the truth.  As soon as people think that you think that you have found the truth, thereby telling them that they do not have truth, it can get tense.  It's like me not being able to afford a Mac and having some hipster tell me that there is nothing that can come close to it and if you don't have one and are a "PC person" then you are really just spinning your wheels.  You feel like saying, "Look you inconsiderate jerk, some of us don't make the money it takes to buy one of those, and you rubbing it in my face just makes me more annoyed at you.  It certainly does not make me want to buy a Mac. In fact, there is more than one way to live life and I am doing fine with the way I am doing it now." The PC user may say this even though they wish there was a way that they could purchase a Mac, but they are just so in debt that they feel there is no way to do it.  They've made some bad purchases and their credit is maxed.

Everyone is searching for belonging, and at the core of Christianity is the hope of being accepted.  Accepted by a Creator of all things.  Now if you don't believe in God, you find this stupid.  I wonder if some people who are atheists sometimes choose atheism because even though they would like to have hope in something, they look at the way people of various religious belief around the world, and how they conduct themselves and they just think, "even if I did think there may be something out there, I would not want to work it into any of those paradigms, it just can't be like that.  Therefore it's better for me to make a choice to not believe at all." I am not going to try and apologize for Christian beliefs right now.

I guess I just want to say that I can understand where the people who think that Christianity is like Apple are right at times.  I guess  it would look like a club of people who act like they have the greatest product ever produced, in a religious sense.  Maybe they might seem a bit elitist to you.  Like a big country club.  They get together on Sundays and meet and sing about good things and try to put a positive spin on life, even when the world is falling apart.  That must seem sort of stupid.  People get dressed in their "Sunday Best" when much of the world is starving and has no clothing at all.  That seems stupid too.  You might know some people who say they go to a certain church on Sunday, but you see them throughout the rest of the week and they are just like you, or much of the time WORSE than you are.  How can Christianity claim to be the best product out there when I am getting by just fine (or better than fine in my opinion) on my own?

Well I am sorry that Christianity comes across like that when it was never meant to be a club.  It was meant for everybody, and made so that we could love everybody the best that could be done.  It has had a rough go of trying to figure out what to stand for and what to let go.  It seems to me that my faith has gotten more simple and more complex as I get older.  More simple in that it is about Jesus Christ and figuring out how to let people know that there is forgiveness in a seemingly unforgiving world.  All the rules that I thought I learned as a kid have fallen off or changed a bit.  That's the complex part.  In this changing world, I don't think that the Bible has changed, but our interpretations of what it says have changed at times.  I'm talking about  things like drinking as an example, something that when I was younger I thought very conservatively about, and now I will have a drink every now and then.  I still don't think it's a good idea to go get hammered, but I used  to think that God would be VERY upset with me if I even took a drink.  Alcohol is something that can get people into a lot of trouble though, so I'm not saying just have at 'er but I'm not saying we should go back to prohibition.  There are a lot of issues that polarize people in this world.  I wish we could talk about them, hear both sides. I don't know that I can have a definitive answer for some things.  Some of you may find that horrible, that I should have an answer for a question.  I'm just being honest I guess.  The one thing I do believe in definitively is that Christ can pay your debt.  It's weird to say out loud that you believe that the death of a human man on a Roman Cross 2000ish years ago (who was born of a virgin no less) can give cause for celebration because of the magnitude of forgiveness that this one act offers all humanity.  It does sound weird.  But, I think that basically all faiths sound really weird when you say them out loud.  I even think Atheism sounds weird.  That we just happened to come about, that the planet Earth just happens to be in exactly the right spot in the cosmos for us to have randomly have formed.  That a molecule called DNA was made and just happened to start replicating itself.  I know all the arguments for the start of time and all that and I sometimes wonder if God used that method to get us going, but can't you agree that it is pretty overwhelming, and a little weird?

The place where my Mac analogy falls apart is that I think that getting a Mac is expensive.  It costs you a lot of money.  Getting Christ doesn't cost a lot of money, but it does cost.  I think the thing it costs me the most is my pride.  To admit that I need something else to save me is really hard sometimes.  I don't like it, turning to, and having to submit to something else.  I mean, I do alright.  I do good things.  I make a difference in this world.  I guess that I just believe that at our darkest hours, during our hardest times (which all of us have) I have a need. I don't believe in God just because he can help me though, I do believe that, but I believe he can help us, as a human race, if we will submit our pride and wrongdoings, submit our debts as it were and trust in someone who has the capital to bail us out.  I don' know how he makes his living, but I know he has the ability to erase my debt.  I call Him up often, sometimes not often enough I think, and ask for understanding as to the outstanding balance for my account.  I think the Bible tells us that once we commit our lives to God, he pays the balance and it is always zero.  Hard for me to understand how someone could do this for me, but like I said, I don't quite understand His line of work.  I think that as I get older and continue to search and talk to Him, I will understand just a minute fraction of a trillionth of how He does his work, but it will be worth it.

I hope the if you are bitter at Christians that you can see that we really don't think we are better than anyone else.  We just happen to do jerkface things sometimes that may give you that impression.  The thing is, the essence of what we believe teaches that nobody is better than anyone else, we are just working hard at believing it, and sometimes we fail.  If you have been thinking about giving God a chance, or a second chance or third chance etc. don't let a Christian get in the way of God.  You can get to Him directly by the way.  Talk to Him, see what you think after.

Anyway, I hope you feel loved and have a sense of belonging in your life.  I'm trying to talk to God more about it myself, and I hope I didn't come across as a jerk in this blog today.

Parenting, Dolphins, Sparks and that's pretty much it.

      I watched the movie Dolphin Tale last night with my kids and I loved it.  I must admit that I had every intention of never watching that movie, but we were searching through the Telus TV rental stuff and the kids saw it, Jaxon got excited, then Grace did and Soph didn't say a word through the preview, so it was a win for them.  Harry Connick Jr. was in it, and I like that guy, Ashley Judd was in it and that was JUST fine by me as well.  Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristopherson were both there too so, "Maybe it won't be too bad."  I thought to myself.

Here come a couple of massive run-on sentences:

     Basically the kid has no dad, Ashley Judd is a single mom, the kid has no love for life or the people around him, finds a beached dolphin, cuts him free, dolphin has a bond with the kid, dolphin is rescued, kid skips his summer school class to work with dolphin, mom finds out, is mad, hears the kid out, meets him where he is at, backs her kid because she realizes he has found his meaning in life and it is super postitive being influenced by a great single dad (Harry Connick) whose wife has died in the pre-story his new friend who loves dolphins too, and many other caring adults who "get" this kid.  Kid ends up getting a hurt dolphin a prosthetic tail by convincing a Dr. (Freeman) to create said tail out of the goodness of his heart and the cause, and dolphin and boy are best friends.  There's a wise grandpa (Kristopherson) in there who says lots of wisdomish type things as well.

      Now that does not sound like a movie that I should have been crying in 5-6 times but that is what happened.  Here's the 3 things that I loved about the movie that just smacked me in the face multiple times.  1 and 2 are a bit of a package deal so I guess you could say that there are two things that smacked me in the face if you wanted to get particular about it, but I digress....

Number 1and 2 - The kid found his spark AND the mom recognized it and backed her kid

      I never called the thing that makes someone tick their "spark" until I watched this video that on of my colleagues sent me.  The presenter is a little cheesy sometimes, lowering his voice for effect when I think he shouldn't and stuff like that, but the message is gold.  Watch it if you have 20 minutes sometime.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqzUHcW58Us The kid in this movie found his spark. This of course is not just for parents and kids, but for anyone in community with someone else.  It would be cool if we could all be on the lookout and foster each other's "things" that make us excited about life.  I am just speaking as a parent because this is something obviously important in my world, but I think this stuff applies to all people...
    
     As a parent I hope and pray to God that I can realize the spark in my kids when they try and tell me, or when they are exhibiting such joy and interest in something that I should be able to notice.  The things that really make them tick.  Things that really get them going.  One of my biggest fears as a parent is that I won't see it.  That I won't realize it until it's too late and only when they are 35 after months of counseling will my kids be able to tell me that they always felt inadequate because I never fostered their true passion.  Like, Jaxon comes up to me at 35 and says, "Dad, I know that I am 6'9" 250 with 7% body fat and that basketball seemed like a great fit, but all I ever really wanted to do was.......DANCE." Then he starts voguing or something and I start wondering how I missed that he wanted to dance, or that I just never fostered his love of dance because I didn't really understand it.  I don't want to miss my kid's spark because I don't quite understand it.  I think about this especially now that I don't have Krista to help me to recognize "the spark(s)".  I feel even more responsible to be the one that recognizes it because I better step up myself.

       When I really think about it I know that is stupid in some respects because as they say, "it takes a village to raise a child".  I guess I just have some pride that I want to be the one that recognizes the spark before anyone else.  That I know my kid better than anyone else.  That's pretty prideful in one way and probably is one good way to guarantee that I may not recognize it.  I need to trust in the many people who love my kids.  My family, Simone (our ridiculously awesome nanny) teachers, coaches etc.  I have to monitor my pride and weigh out what the trustworthy people that God has placed in our lives have to say.  I actually may not be the best person to recognize those things in my kids, just because I am not the one with them throughout the day.  That is scary but true.  More prayer needed on that one.

    The second part of this is that the mom backed up the kid.  Now I don't necessarily advocate pulling your kid out of summer school, (like in the movie) which, they were only in because they were lazy during the school year, just because they found something else they found interesting. (Run-on sentence)  In this case however, she could tell that this was really, really different for her son.  She actually heard him out, went with him to the aquarium, met people he was with, and even though the kid didn't go about it the right way the mom did the right thing by her kid.  She made sure the kid knew that he was wrong the way he handled it, but also gave merit to the spark of the kid.  She didn't let the kid walk on her, in my opinion, she fostered the spark.  (The kid still had to write a paper and do a whack of work to get credit for summer school)  She did not do what I hope I never do, but have seen parents do.  Which was to just give in to their kid's whims, thinking that this is the best way to love their child.  To give them what they want.  Sometimes kids need to realize that what they want is not best for them, whether they want it "really bad" or not.

      I guess that's how I see God sometimes.  I see him as a Father who knows what I need no matter how badly I want something.  I also think he recognizes my spark, and that he backs me up.  Now if you had a horrible father, it might not be very easy to understand what a good father can look like.  That is tough, and is another topic for another blog.  Some of you may think this is a load of CRAP!  How can God allow bad things to happen in people's lives, or to people who seemingly do not deserve those things.  Well that is a BIG frickin' question that may not have an answer that someone who is hellbent on disproving Christianity will accept.  The thing is, no matter what set of morals you live by, that question cannot be answered perfectly, where we will enjoy the whole of the answer that is given.  I think maybe we get too hung up on the "enjoy" part of life.  If there is not an answer that we are "happy" with, we may just find another answer that can fulfill our whims no matter how weak or unfounded it is.  Anyway, that's another blog....  What I will say sometimes to God is that I think he is a frickin' crazy jerk of a God for not stopping what happened to Krista.  Then I quickly am reminded that if I believe in a God that created this place, and that loves me, that it is likely that he is smarter than me.  Well alright, not likely.  It is an assured fact that if a God created this place that he is smarter than me and if I believe that he loves me (Which I truly do.) then he can handle my misunderstandings and hear my pleas, and grant me forgiveness.  Those of you who do not believe in a God will think that is silly nonsensical thinking, but I can talk to you personally if you want to know why I would still believe in a God when there is so much pain in the world.  I will say there is evil at work in this world too.  Not a pointy tailed red dude with a pitchfork of a devil, but an entity of evil much more devious and deceptive and smarter than that classic cartoonish image renders.  Again, that's another blog....

    
      I just realized that this is getting long and it is getting late, so I will conclude with this.  I hope all of us parents can recognize our kids' spark(s).  I think we need to trust the people we trust when it comes to really knowing our kids.   We need to back up our kids when we figure out what their spark is, and if it legitimatley changes over time, that we can change with them and continue to support them.   Not flights of fancy here, legit spark change.

Next week I write my random thoughts about the 3rd thing the movie made me realize. The importance of belonging.   I mean I knew it was important before, but seeing that kid finally feel like he belonged made me cry.  Him being accepted by that dolphin, and the love they seemed to have for each other made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Guess what,  I think I found the topic for my next blog.  Yep.  There it is.  Dolphin Tale stretched over two weeks.   I will never live this one down....

Rose Parade Thoughts

I posted a bunch of pictures on my Facebook site of my kids and I and our experience at the 2012 Rose Parade where we had to the chance to honor my wife Krista.  She was one of 72 floragraph honorees from across the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and Canada to be on the float.  She was the only one from Canada. The probability of having this opportunity is insanely small and I really can only say that I think it was from God.  Some of you may be thinking, "For sure!" others who don't believe in God may just be thinking, "Well it is crazy and I'm glad you got to do it, but it wasn't from God, it was chance, and you made the most of it."  Whatever your opinion is, I am sure you were glad for my family.  I was too, but I also thought, "Man, why did WE get to do this and not someone else?"  I mean really, why?  I don't know the answer to that question, I really don't think I will ever know the answer to that question, but it will be one of the many questions that I want to have a long conversation with Jesus about when I talk to Him one day.  I was glad for it though and did want to make the most of it.  It is hard to describe all the events that went on, but I did try and summarize them for eWomen's Network, the company who sponsored our family to take part in this beautiful and hard adventure.  The asked me for a "little blurb" on what my experience from the Rose Parade was like for their eWomen's Network, eMagazine and if you know anything about me, I have a hard time writing "blurbs".  So I wrote a three and a quarter page journal like thing about my thoughts on the Parade.  If you really want to know my thoughts about the parade, this is the thing to read.

I am going to share it here in case any of you were interested on hearing those thoughts.  Some things you should know so that they make sense when you read it, a character list of sorts... Jenn is was my organization contact at eWomen's for the trip.  Sandra Yancey is CEO of eWomen Network, her husband Kym is President.  Nancy Michaels was another lady sponsored by eWomen's to be there and rode on the float.  She is a liver transplant recipient. Bryan Stewart is the chairman of the Donate Life Rose Parade float committee and pretty much ran the show with the float stuff.  Cora Johnson is the lady who is awesome and helped the kids and I decorate the float.

                                                                                                                                                               

eWomenNetwork e-Magazine Contribution

Where do I begin?  I guess a good place to start would be at the beginning, which may be too much for a “blurb” as you put it Jenn, hahahahahaha, but I feel like I should put it all out there and then you can take what you wish.

September (don’t worry, I’m not going to go month by month here, it’s just a paragraph title)

When I received an e-mail from the co-ordinator of the Southern Alberta Organ and Tissue Donation Program and she said to me that they had an opportunity for me, I actually thought they were going to ask me to speak at one of their memorial services or something else.  I gladly do that for them when they ask, I think it’s important to connect with other people who are hurting or going through things like myself, and I always said that if I was ever asked to speak about my situation and story that I would do it, but I wouldn’t seek out venues to share my story.  Anyway, I thought that if they were going to ask me to speak that “opportunity” was a really weird and slightly inappropriate way to ask someone to speak at a function about Organ Donation and the loss that comes with it. 

It turned out that she was not asking me to speak but informing me that they had received an invitation from the Rose Parade to have one of the organ donors that had come into the Southern Alberta program represented in a picture on a float in the Rose Parade.  She continued, saying that they thought that my wife Krista and our family would be great representatives, that she would be the only representative from our entire country and that I would be able to travel to Pasadena to take part in honoring her.  I really couldn’t think of a more crazy and beautiful turn of events.  She mentioned that the company was eWomenNetwork, and I had never heard of it before, likely due to the fact that I am a teacher, not an entrepreneur, nor a female. Hahahahaha!  I had no idea what I was getting into, how it would be run, or anything like that, so she gave me the number of Bryan Stewart who oversees the Donate Life Float.  After a conversation with him I felt excited, nervous, sad, and pretty much every other positive and negative emotional adjective you could think of, but I was convinced that my family would benefit from this and that it would be such an unforgettable way for my kids and I to honour Krista together.

December 10^th Weekend

I brought Jaxon (8) and Grace (6) down to Pasadena in early December to decorate Krista’s floragraph.  Sophie who is 2 did not make the trip because she would not have been able to be in a busy decorating facility and focus for 6+ hours working on a piece of art! She stayed at home with Krista’s mom for the weekend.  That weekend alone was worth this whole thing.  The kids and I had such a great time together doing the floragraph and they were totally into it.  Not upset or sad, but serious, it was important to them, and they knew it was important to me.  We met a great lady named Cora Johnson who was a float rider and is extremely involved with Donate Life.  She worked all day with us on the floragraph, guiding us along the way but letting us do the work.  She was gentle, kind, understanding and patient and the kids and I just loved her.  Every volunteer with the Donate Life Float was so positive and helpful and interested in us as a family.  It really felt like the event had been organized with just the families in mind, that the Float was an afterthought, if you know what I mean.  The Float, even though it is the center of attention in the actual parade, is really the culmination of the positive experiences of a large group of people grieving the loss of their loved ones in an intensely positive and well organized environment, along with the joy of organ recipients. It really was quite the perfect storm for a meaningful experience.  The Float then, is secondary to the families and showing them care.  It felt like if Donate Life could help us do something that would positively affect our family in dealing with our loss then they had achieved their goal. 

December 29^th-Jan 3rd

To come back to help finish the float and take part in seeing the parade in person was icing on the cake.  Having the chance to meet Sandra and Kym was so great.  It is cool when people who are successful and busy and are involved in many great things take the time to meet a person they don’t know, and really meet them where they are at.  When they truly listen, invest in a conversation, look you in the eyes and tell you they care about your story and are honoured to give you this opportunity, well I can’t put into words how meaningful that is.  To meet the people who started a company that make giving back to the world around them a priority and be the recipient of the generosity is a great thing.  Especially when you didn’t know them at all and feel like they care about you just because they do.  Generosity is something that I am not sure always makes its way into all facets of North American society, but I really appreciated the generosity of the many people who contribute to the eWomenNetwork Foundation.  It was great to meet a few of them as well.  Jeanie Douthitt, Teresa Surya Ma Lamb, and Laura Gisborne were really nice people as well, and it’s humbling to meet people like that. 

Meeting Nancy Michaels was also awesome.  She has been through so much and to see her on her feet and working at being her best was so encouraging.  Meeting her and other organ recipients is such an encouragement to me and many of the other donor families.  To see the thankfulness of the recipients for their organ donor lets me know that Krista’s gift of life is not going to be forgotten.  It seems to me that in our world, people buy things, they are shiny and new and great, but when they get a bit old, or a new version comes out, the once great thing isn’t so great anymore.  I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t just like that for people who received organs.  You know what I mean?  Maybe the novelty wears off or something like that.  When you meet organ recipients you immediately know how thankful they are for their donors because they don’t hesitate to tell you.  They are fully aware of the reason that they are living.  They think about their donor and the loved ones of that donor every day and it is nice to know that someone out there is thinking about Krista and us and appreciative.  I don’t want those people to feel guilt about receiving life, I want them to take advantage of the chance they have.  I wrote this in a letter to the staff at my high school the day that Krista passed away because it summed up the tough reality of organ donation, “When the neurologist and radiologist and internal medicine doctor saw the CT scan of Krista's brain and did a number of other tests for brain death, they all pointed to the same thing, that in fact Krista's brain was dead and dying and her heart rate was the next thing to fail.  This made her an organ donor candidate so they took her to Calgary today to pass her organs on to other people desperately in need of some hope.  Krista would never have had this any other way.  It is quite a thing, praying for your wife to be healed, not seeing that answer, and then realizing that she is the answer to prayer for someone who is anxiously awaiting an organ or tissue transplant.  That her organs and tissues could help out a number of other families, that the pain you are feeling is similar to the pain the other families are feeling as they wait for a donation.  As I helped load her body into the ambulance to go to Calgary, I realized that in fact her spirit is with our Lord in heaven and that in fact this shell in front of me was just that, a shell of who she was.”

This trip was full of emotion, a 6 Flags Theme Park of emotion, that being that there were A LOT of ups and downs.  Having a part in finishing the decorating of the Float, sharing in the joy and sorrows of organ donor families and recipients was something I am sure I could not have experienced anywhere else.  It felt like a new family, too big to remember all the names, like second and third cousins you haven’t ever met, but a family nonetheless.  We could all immediately connect.  I don’t know if I can fully describe to you the feeling of connectedness you feel when you all bear similar wounds and scars but are working together toward one positive goal and message. The message is that organ donation saves lives.  It’s sad but joyous, unbearable and hopeful, heart wrenching and heart warming. It’s the beauty and the darkness of life all in one.  But it’s right. It’s important.

I can’t really tell you that I thought I needed to grieve Krista in a way like this.  Life has a way of settling into the “new normal” the term counsellors and people looking for some way to describe life after losing someone monumentally important to them use.  I don’t know that I would have missed out on some important part of grieving her that hadn’t been met already but after the experience I can say this; going through this event has helped me process the pain of losing Krista in my life in another helpful, positive way.  This way of honouring her has brought an already close family closer.  The message of organ donation has been spread around through things like classic media and the social media.  Many people followed my Facebook updates and pictures and talked to their friends about it.  There are so many positives that have come from this opportunity in my world and the other 72 families and float riders that it is hard to deny the beauty and hope that has been birthed out of desperation and sadness.  It is something that I will ALWAYS be thankful that I and my children had a chance to in.  Thank you.

This experience is a gift from God I have no doubt.  I am confused as to why it came to my family with all the others that have gone through thing s like us out there, but it “is what it is “ as they say.  Honestly I feel blessed by God and I trust in Him.  I believe in Jesus Christ. Faith in God and in Christ is a giant part of how I filter my world.  How I look to the future.   It does not mean that I have not told Him that I think He got His plan really, really wrong and that I think He is pretty much an idiot for Krista’s death.  However, once I get over myself and really examine what it means to have faith in something greater than myself, I feel like I need to trust Him.  All people go through hardship, the 72 floragraph stories show that and that is just a minute sampling of stories worldwide.  If I believe in a God who made this place (creation, evolution it doesn’t matter to me, the method is not the important part in my opinion) then I have to believe that He is smarter than me even though I don’t understand why certain things are allowed to go on in this place, or in my life.  Sometimes faith is not easy to understand, if it was, I don’t know that I would appreciate it.  Who would really trust in a God they knew every exact thing about, if that was the case, then you would be as smart as Him and it wouldn’t be very easy to follow someone you think you’re equal to.

Finally, thank you so, so,so,so,so much for this insanely rare and precious experience.  It has helped my kids and I.  It has helped our families.  It has brought honour to Krista who was a great woman.  It has promoted organ and tissue donation.   I don’t really see any downside to this at all except that I had to come back to Canada from the warm California sun!  Thank you, I really don’t know how I can thank you enough.

Jared.

                                                                                                                                                                    

There you go, those are many of my thoughts about the parade.  If you are still reading this blog can I ask you to think about doing one thing right now?  If you have not already signed the back of your Health Care card to make you an organ donor, would you please do it?  Then talk to your spouse, significant other, friends, parents, acquaintance, and enemies about doing it.  That would be great.  Thanks.