Today's forecast: 100% Chance of Waiting!

Waiting. It seems that we are all doing a great deal of it these days. One thing that I am sure of is that I have been doing my fair share of waiting lately.  Our lives seem to be on freeze frame as we wait for the go ahead to return to the life as we once knew it. At the moment there is not much else we can do but wait, patiently wait. 

Patience is a virtue, so they say. I'm not sure that I have this virtue in my personal toolkit. For those of you that know me, I'm not what you would call a patient person. I have been described by some as 'the energizer bunny'. I am a bit of a hyperactive person (maybe more than a bit). I am a man of action. I like to get things done. Waiting is really not something that is in my DNA. These times are especially difficult for me personally because I have no choice but to wait.

I feel like I am in the Ground Hog Day movie. Each day seems to be the same as the last. There really is not much to do (or at least things you would like to do).  My pace of life has substantially slowed down recently. This has been due to a number of factors including my recent retirement, our current state of affairs with physical distancing and my cancer diagnosis. 

A cancer diagnosis quickly consumes your life and forces you to postpone, re-think and in some cases cancel your plans. Your life is suddenly on hold. Waiting is painful for me. Over the past six months I have been doing a lot of waiting. Most of this waiting has not been by choice. Waiting for test diagnosis, waiting for results, waiting for updates on progress and waiting for what is next on my cancer journey. Patiently waiting for the go ahead and opening up of the economy and opportunity for travel, so that my family and I can fulfil some of our dreams and wishes.  Still we wait.

On the brighter side, waiting gives me time to think. Time to reflect and time to reminisce. 

Recently I have been thinking a lot about some of my friends and colleagues who are also going through their own cancer journeys. They too are waiting. One is waiting for surgery to remove her cancer which has been recently postponed and the other (who has just been released from the hospital) is waiting to find out why they continue to struggle with stubborn symptoms that don't seem to want to go away. Waiting is hard for all of us.

At this time, there is not much else we can do, but wait.  We are all waiting for things to get back to normal. Will things every get back to normal again? 

I guess we will just have to WAIT and see!

Richard

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!

Throughout my educational career I have always tried to highlight and champion the ideas around growth mindset, perseverance and grit. I truly believe that a sincere focus on these traits can help to support goal achievement and overall success in life. I have had many opportunities to witness first hand examples where this has been the case. More recently I have witnessed one of the best examples of the power of perseverance, grit and determination right here at home, through our daughter Sophie.  

To me, Sophia exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, grit and determination. She has definitely inherited some of this from her mother and I, but she has taken it to a whole new level!  Daily we witness her efforts to set goals, organize, prioritize and execute on her plans. Sophie sets high standards for herself and plans out exactly how she is going to achieve and maintain these goals, and utilizes bullet journalling extensively to stay on track. I am truly impressed with the time Sophie spends detailing her daily, weekly and monthly goals and objectives through her bullet journal.  

Recently Sophie started up a small, online business called Opal and Fern Designs (sorry proud father moment here!) which features artisan bullet journalling stickers and other items that she herself crafted and uses in her own daily journalling. To me this has been a perfect pairing of her talents! She is using her artistic ability and her focus on goal setting to her advantage.  I believe that her business serves multiple purposes. First it provides an outlet for her creativity. Sophie has always been doodling, drawing and creating art from an early age. She loves the Arts, hence taking Art History as one of her majors in university. Secondly, it provides a small income for her. She has been saving up money to attend a university class in Venice, Italy. (currently postponed until next year due to recent flooding and COVID-19). Finally, I personally feel that starting up and maintaining her online sticker shop has offered her a distraction from our current family situation. Sophie has always been a quiet, shy person who avoids conflict and uncertainty. Her intense focus on her university studies and her sticker company allows her a way to express herself artistically, a way to get out of being stuck in neutral, and an escape from our current family reality.

I am so impressed with Sophie's ability to maintain focus, to persevere, to strive to achieve her goals and dreams despite all of the obstacles and barriers that have recently plagued our family. Regardless of our current circumstances, she continues to be laser focused on her university studies. She has a clear plan for her future and is working hard to achieve her goals. Starting up a small online business while maintaining a high calibre university level is an amazing achievement. We are all so impressed and proud of her.  She is our superstar!  We all get very involved in her success and her business, so excited when we see a sale come through on her ETSY shop, fascinated to see the global reach of her business, and all have tips and input - some she has welcomed, others not so much lol!

I continue to worry about her and the rest of my family as the effects of my cancer diagnosis and prognosis continue to take a toll on all of us, not physically but mentally and emotionally. It has been difficult for all of us. Each family member is trying to deal with it the best that they can in their own unique ways. Sophie seems to have found a way to cope with it through the Arts (her passion). She has even got our whole family painting on canvases in our kitchen during this time of isolation to keep us busy and help distract us. 

Like Sophie, I too try to find ways to distract myself and continue to try to maintain positive momentum. My personal determination to stay strong and persevere while dealing with my cancer journey is what I believe has kept me going all this time. Despite the many setbacks and obstacles that have come my way over the past six months I try to push through them and keep going. 

As both Michelle, and Dory from Finding Nemo keep saying,  "Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming"! 

Richard

Home Movies - Treasuring the Moments

Like all of you, we are trying to find ways to fill our days now that we are basically sequestered at home for the foreseeable future. As I had previously mentioned in my post Spring Cleaning- Got Junk! , I have been slowly cleaning our basement, which has 20+ years of boxes and discarded items to go through. It has been an overwhelming, tedious task for sure, sorting and sifting through the boxes, bins and collections of stored items. A lifetime of memories are stored down there. It has resulted in some exciting discoveries. 

A few days ago, our son Jonathan came down to the basement to check on me as I have been trying to go downstairs for an hour our two each day to keep the cleaning momentum going (after taking a few weeks off). It has given me a purpose or job to do each day during these long days at home. Jon quickly noticed that I had uncovered one of my old video recorders, along with a box of video cassette tapes and even a collection of old film reels from my childhood. Jon, being a film affcionado and a lover of all things to do with movies and technology, immediately brought these items upstairs and was trying to figure out how to get them operational again. In no time, he had the video camera charging, figured out how to link it up to the flat screen and we were ready to go.

We decided to have a viewing party that night. Having not taken the time to label the video cassettes when I should have years ago, each cassette was a mystery tape. Child birth, birthday parties, christenings, family BBQ's, even surprise videos that my parents had taken on their trips and vacations that I have never seen before. What a discovery.

Our now adult children were mesmerized at seeing themselves as babies and during their toddler years. What a treasure it was to be able to show them what they were like back then. Michelle and I had almost forgotten their baby voices, their actions and reactions. It was great to see and hear them at this age again. Our kids couldn't get over how young Michelle and I looked- mind you, we think we hadn't changed at all (lol). In some of the videos, we were close to the same age as Jon is today. 

These videos took us back in time, so sad but also wonderful to see family that have now passed on, to re-live family celebrations, moments that were captured on video that might have been forgotten forever. It was wonderful to hear our children's voices, how they they giggled and spoke as young children and to hear the voices of those family members that had passed on or changed due to health. The videos also showed the little nuances and activities going on in the background.  Photographs could never capture those for us to remember. In this age of instant Snapchat photos and fifteen second phone video clips - home movies are a dying art!

I have to admit that I got very emotional watching these videos. Many of these videos had me choked up and almost in tears and Michelle had to leave the room. Not only because of the emotions of the memories that can flooding back to me while watching them but also because I began to think about the events and moments that I would not be a part of in the future. Cancer will eventually rob me of my chance to be apart of making memories with my family. I resent this. I have to admit that it makes me angry at times and melancholy too.

We are slowly working through the video cassette tapes, labelling them and hoping to hold video viewing parties every now and then. Next on the list is our wedding video and then going way back to the 8 mm movie reels so that our kids can see what life was like when dad was a baby. Luckily I also found the projector so that we can watch them too. Fingers crossed it still works.

I encourage you to dig up your old albums and home movies, spend some time looking through them. Set up a viewing party of your own. You will never regret the time you spend, the conversations that they ignite, the laughter and tears, the memories that come back to life before your eyes.  

Keep making memories, capturing & treasuring the moments.

Richard

The Power of Walking

This week’s blog comes courtesy of My Michelle.

“I’m walking, yes indeed and I’m talking, about you and me!” (Fats Domino)

Richard and I love to exercise and go to the gym, and while his current cancer battle, the restrictions due to COVID 19 and the important need for physical distancing has limited us somewhat, one thing we can definitely do is get outside and WALK!  And walk we do - often averaging 13-15,000 steps at a time. We are so fortunate to live here in Newmarket, where so much attention and planning has gone into creating and preserving greenspace and the provision of extensive walking trails. We walk on the path near our house and have a favourite loop we have mapped out, but we also venture out to the paths around Fairy Lake, the Tom Taylor Trail, as well as along the Nokiidaa Trail.  Appropriately, the word Nokiidaa comes from the Ojibwa and means “Walking Together”.  

On our treks we often run into many old friends and acquaintances, especially folks who know Richard from his 30 plus years in education - peers, families, former students. I actually do not think that I can think of one walk where we didn’t get a “Hi Richard! How are you!”. What’s also great about our walks, is that for the most part, I have Richard all to myself.  To hold hands, to link arms, to encourage him up the hills, to stop and take photos of a point of interest or two, and best of all, to talk. The conversations are different now, more focused on the here and now, logistics of appointments or treatments, things that need to get done, but always with a base of an unspoken appreciation of each other & treasuring our time.  

Lately our son Joshua has been joining us, and this takes the conversation to another place as he is always very concerned for Richard and how he is feeling, likes to see his dad active and walking, encouraging him to work through aches and pains, to keep moving.  Sometimes with physical distancing, I drop behind the two of them as we walk past others, and I love those moments actually, as I see them walk side by side, and I can see how similar they are, same walk, same posture, same stature. There is so much of Richard in each of our children, and I take comfort in that.  

The benefits of walking to your physical and emotional health and management of stress are undeniable. I find at times I am also able to work through issues and problems while I am walking, gaining clarity of thought.  Throw in some sunshine, the promise of some warmer

weather, your loved ones, and well it’s a win-win all around.

It's not where you walk, it's who walks with you.

So join us, lace up your runners, keep calm and walk on.

Love Michelle