Sometimes it feels like the pain is chasing me and I’m doing my best to outrun it. But it always catches up to me. At grief group we talked alot about turning to face the pain.   And for a while after Mike died I was doing exactly that.  I couldn’t do this day in and day out but I didn’t run.  I knew I had to do it if I had any chance of healing and being able to move forward in a healthy way.  I don’t want to go back to that time but there was a whole lot of room in my life for sadness and grief because that was all I was doing -grieving and trying to provide a stable, loving home for Nick and Meghan against the backdrop of this traumatic reality of Mike’s untimely death.

These days my life looks a lot like everyone else’s life around me.  Full days, busy nights and weekends driving kids here and there, lots of fun activity and richness. But the grief is there,  mostly as a subtle undercurrent but still sometimes as a  huge wave threatening to engulf me.  I am less open to these waves when they hit – there is so much less room for this kind of sadness and grief.  And truth be told I’m tired of it and don’t really want to make room for it most days.  But alas…if I don’t turn to face it it chases me down and ultimately finds me.

I think I have spent the last number of months being chased by this pain.  What’s particularly difficult is the changing face of my pain and grief.  Initially there was a pureness to it – Mike died and I was overcome with his absence as a husband and father in our lives.  And overtime the other less obvious losses become apparent to be examined and grieved.  These days the grief seems harder to pin down, more like a moving target although I think it has a lot to with letting go and my changing identity. Letting go of who I was – one half of a partnership of Mike and Heather, Mike’s wife, and all that is wrapped up in twenty great years of being with Mike.

So…  I need space for this latest manifestation of my loss and grief.  And only when I do this, can I truly make space for new love. And I have new love in my life. With a incredibly understanding and patient man. A man who wisely reminds me that he is not filling the place where Mike was. And that Mike will always have a prominent place in my heart that his (Bill’s) presence will not fill. I know I have a huge capacity for love in my heart and don’t have to stop loving Mike to love someone new.  But it does require a colossal shift in identity and huge letting go… I think this has been what’s chasing me.

Some days it seems an impossible task to simultaneously turn back, face the pain, move forward, look ahead – be brave.  To realize the full possibilities of the future ahead of me I have let go of the Heather and Mike as I knew it.  And that is so hard.  But there is hope ahead…and new love.

Hi all former CELPERS – Please read this letter from Clare Wasteneys below:

Community Environmental Leadership Program (CELP)

How was CELP Bike Week, for you?

When you participated in CELP in grade 10, you completed a week of bicycle skills training and group cycling through Guelph to visit sites for the “Civics” course.   This year (January to August, 2011), we are doing an evaluation of the “CELP Bike Week” to see what effect the experience and training may have had on participants.  We have been speaking with current CELP participants, but would also like to hear from past CELP-ers.

Clare Wasteneys, a PhD researcher from Queens University and (incidentally) the mother of a past CELP participant is conducting the interviews and focus groups for this project.  Each interview takes about 20 minutes and is done either by phone (using Skype internet service) or face-to-face, if convenient.  The focus group is an evening (date to be determined) with past CELP participants, nourishing food and drinks provided, during which there will be a 1-2 hour focused discussion.

The questions for this research deal with your impressions of Cycling Week and subsequent cycling experience.  This information will help program coordinators to make improvements to the CELP Bike Week, and guide design of similar programs.  It will also enhance our understanding of the factors that can facilitate or hinder adoption of cycling as a mode of transportation by young women and men.

The Queens University Ethics Board and the Upper Grand District School Board have approved this research.  Dr. Betsy Donald and Dr. Brian Osborne from Queens University are supervising the evaluation.  Clare Wasteneys is working with current CELP head teacher, Joel Barr, to complete the project.

Would you be willing and able to share your story?  If so, please contact Clare by email: clare.wasteneys@queensu.ca to receive further information and to arrange a time for the interview or sign up for the focus group if you choose to participate. If you have any questions about this project, feel free to contact Joel Barr: joel.barr@ugdsb.on.ca.

Thank you!

Snoeshow Trail in Algonquin

We’re still in recovery from a glorious, sunny and cold wintery few days  in Algonquin Park. Twenty friends and family created a village at the Junction campsite, coming together to honour Mike and spread his ashes in a place he so loved.

In the fall of 2009 when Mike was ill and reeling from the diagnosis of lung cancer and the poor prognosis, we realized that the only way we could survive, was to try and find some ‘peace’ in every day.  This is an idea we came across in Bernie Segal’s book,  Love, Medicine and Miracles, when we were so in need of someway to help us not live every moment  in fear and panic.  And it really did help us get through those incredibly challenging days.

Mike had a love affair with winter camping and Algonquin Park, and I see now that this was his spriritual home.  In September 2009 a few of his fellow winter trippers hatched a plan to travel in the park in the winter of 2010.  Mike figured that his first round of chemo would be done by then and that this was not an unrealistic goal. Planning for this trip sustained Mike and really did feed his soul when he so needed it.  This is where he found peace in each day and I have such gratitude to his friends for providing him with this hope for the future.

From Mike’s journal – Oct. 21, 2009:

“Got a letter from Don S. the other day – another letter to be cherished.  He basically says he is thinking of me, especially at this time of year when he is splitting wood and watching winter’s cold begin its grip on Algonquin.  He says his job is to make everything ready for me when I come North.  I must say it creates a marvelous image in my mind – of him at Bonita Lake and Bob D. at his cabin on Maple Lake – both preparing to cross the Park but in different ways.  My ideal schedule would be to head up to Bonita in late January and spend a few days on a ‘pre-trip’ with all our fancy new gear. We could try out the new toboggans and all our gear and I could get a sense of how I might do physically. Then once it is sorted out head out into the park for a a  month’s crossing and a grand finish at Bonita Lake with many folks joining us for a rendevous.  A good image which keeps me going strong and forward.”

This was Mike’s last journal entry.

Mike didn’t make it to the park again and the grand rendezvous of course did not happen either.  But just this past weekend a grand rendevous of sorts did occur. Strapped into our snowshoes, gathered together in the marshlands between Canoe and Rainbow Lakes at a favourite lunch/tea spot of Mike’s,  under a towering white pine and within a stand of Tamarack’s – we spread Mike’s ashes.

We  ’took’ Mike to the park.   And while our hearts were heavy with his absence it felt so incredibly fitting and right.

Tea and goodies waiting for us as we arrived...

Nick, Meghan and I

My ‘Reflection’  or eulogy from Mike’s Memorial Service last year:

In lots of ways Mike has been eulogized many times over since he learned he had cancer in August and very publicly declared his illness on his blog on Sept. 1.

He has not however been eulogized by me. When Jim and Wendy, the 2 Harcourt ministers asked me to tell them about Mike as a husband and father,  and when I in turn asked Nick and Meghan the same question, we all struggled to find an answer.  We perhaps couldn’t find specific adjectives to describe him but the three of us could tell you, however, that we sure did have a good thing going – an amazing thing going.  A happy, healthy family -  a family in which it was hard to know where we all ended and Mike began.

Mike had a way of being in the world which was consistent throughout all aspects of his life.  He didn’t enter the classroom or get on the CELP bus and don his teacher hat, or walk in the door after school pulling off the that bright orange safety vest he wore, and don his papa hat or his husband hat.  Across his life, he was a man with an open heart and a fullness of spirit and Nick, Meghan and I got to experience that daily.  What we didn’t share with others was his love for us -  And wow, did he love us.  He was always so proud to be Nick and Meghan’s papa – he called Nick his big boy and Meghan his beautiful girl.  And I know he was my biggest fan.

Mike certainly made our lives interesting.  Tipi tents, back yard rinks, back yard chickens, winter camping, singing and guitar around the campfire, District 10 volleyball finals, personal maple tree tapping and syrup boil, 100 Mile diets ….. the list goes on and on.  Just this summer Mike spent June learning a couple songs he knew Meghan and her ringette friends would enjoy at the July cottage weekend we had planned.   So there he was singing Butterfly and The Climb by Hannah Montana around the glow of the campfire – absolutely thrilling his 10 year old daughter and her 4 friends – now there is a dedicated Dad!   Nicholas remembers being on the water with Mike, both of them soloing a canoe, Nick for the first time.   He was 8 years old and they were on a 3 generations canoe trip with Mike, his grandpa, Papa Dave,  and Paul Gifford and his Dad Peter.  Nick wanted to learn the J-stroke so the 2 of them headed out on the water.   Mike modeled his own J-stroke giving little instruction.  Paul threw a football and challenged Nick to get it.  Mike allowed Nick to work at it at his own pace, get frustrated even, as he tried different ways to make his canoe go in a straight line.  After circling around and round, Nick finally learned to make the canoe go straight and reach the prized football.  The cheers from the shore and Mike’s pride and excitement in his young son’s achievement echoed around the lake.

As he did in his teaching, with Nick and Meghan, Mike taught through example, encouragement, love  and by following their lead.

Mike and I met in the McMaster Outer’s club, of which Mike was president.  My roommates dragged me along to the first meeting – and the next thing this Windsor girl knew she’s freezing her butt off in a tent in Algonquin Park, sleeping next to a guy named Mike Elrick, who is sleeping soundly in his 3-season mummy bag.  This was the start of many ‘firsts’ in my life which Mike introduced me to.

Mike and I were pretty different in many ways.  I was thrilled that he had other people in his life that he could build chicken coops with, talk endlessly about tent design and construction, talk about how to ‘bend’ wood, and pour over topo maps of northern Ontario canoe routes.

It was the important stuff that we were in total synchronicity – what we wanted from life, what we thought was important in life and how we wanted to live our lives and raise our kids.  On this, we never wavered.  I think we solved most of life’s big issues and small over tea – a simple pleasure that we never got enough of – be it on the front porch after school, around the wood stove, in Janet’s backyard or on the rock at the Keyhole.  And  we greatly admired, loved and respected each other and knew we were so lucky to have chosen one another back in our early twenties when big mistakes can so easily happen.

As I’ve said, Mike was my biggest fan and greatest supporter. I can’t tell you the number of times he said the words “I’m so proud of you babe.”

I wish I had a more definitive belief about what happens when a person dies – where Mike’s huge, beautiful spirit has gone.  I hope it is the sound of the wind in the dry, grasses along the James street trail, in the waves as they pound the rocky shore of Georgian Bay or in the flap of the wings of the Great Blue Heron I saw the other day flying above the Speed River, off into the western sky.

Wherever you are Mike, I’d like to repeat words we said to each other during our wedding ceremony 18 years ago:

“With all that I am, and all that I have…….I honour you.”

Centennial Commencement 2010

Earlier in the month David, and the kids and I attended Centennial Commencement and awarded the first Mike Elrick Scholarship to Brittney Crawford.

On another note here is a link to an article in the Mercury about blogging.  It profiles a number of people who ‘blog’, me included.

http://news.guelphmercury.com/article/718881

Nick the morphsuit man

Halloween was an up and down day which is par for the course recently.  I made a great stew out of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook and invited Mei-fei and David over for stew and cornbread.  This way we could share a meal and they could see the kid’s Halloween costumes.  We couldn’t help but talk about what was happening this time last year and we shared a few tears. Sharing pain somehow helps us feel better.

Meghan and her friend Abby, with a little adult help worked really hard on their costumes for a few weeks and Meghan couldn’t wait for Halloween to arrive.  It’s great to be pulled into her 11 year old world and watching her and Abby before they hit the trick or treat circuit, it was hard to resist the excitement of the night.

Nick  didn’t trick or treat but wore his ‘morphsuit’ which are all the rage these days and wandered around the neighbourhood enjoying the fun.  My nod to Halloween was a viking hat which seemed to be the theme of the street. I ended the night around a campfire at the end of my neighbours driveway.  I had already gone back to my house when Janet R. and Ally C. lit their viking hat horns on fire…you gotta love my neighbourhood.

I thought I’d share some photos of a good time….

Glee Cheerios

ahh..the ubiquitous red plastic cup....

Minga: A moment when the entire community comes together for a common cause.   A Quechuan saying from the indigenous people of Ecuador

MINGA

Last year on this weekend was the incredible Mike Moves Us event.  Nick and I were talking tonite, trying to decide if this day feels like just yesterday or a long time ago.  We both agreed that while this day is very clear in our memories…it’s been a long year. So much has happened since this day last year.  When I talk to people about this event I often say that at the time, I didn’t really get the chance to feel the full embrace of this day because so much happened so quickly that next week.

On the Monday after the event,  we went to see a palliative care doctor in town. We had not met him before and we were doing this so that in the future we would have a team in place if Mike needed pain management, care at home etc.  This of course was not an easy visit.  I believe  this MD was trying to help us be realistic about the future, but I remember the look of shock and fear on Mike’s face when the MD asked him if he had made any funeral plans?  I know I quickly jumped in saying this was not a topic we were ready to discuss.  But by then it was out there, hanging  in the air…a future we were not yet willing to face, knocking at the door.

The Thursday of that week Mike had his 4th chemo treatment.  His  body was feeling good and he was buoyed by the good feelings from the weekend, having safely tucked away the topics raised by the palliative MD, for another day, far in the future.  Chemo went well, by this time Mike was feeling like a veteran, being spoiled by the nurses and quietly reading his book to pass the time.

And then it was the next day when I went to wake Mike from a nap around lunch and found him disoriented and confused.  I was so scared and all I could think of was “he’s had a stroke, oh my god, he’s had a stroke”.  He went to GGH by ambulance where they reassured me he had a fever which indicated infection and this was most likely the cause of confusion.  As it turns out my instincts were correct and as we all know he never made it home again and died in the hospital 3 and a half weeks later.

I should be writing about the hopefulness of the Mike Moves Us event but this is the story which flowed out beneath my fingers on the keyboard. Again my need to tell the whole story – the ever present combination of pain and beauty which has characterized this last 15 months.   So while the days following the Mike Moves Us event were very difficult, the grace, hope and love from that day did sustain me then during those so very difficult weeks which followed…and they continue to sustain me.  I felt the power of the Minga that day and I still feel it’s power a year later.

Thank you.

A link to Mike and my posts after the Mike Moves Us event .

http://michaelsblog.ca/?p=84

http://michaelsblog.

A friend told me he has been reading’s Mike’s blog posts from a year ago as he reflects on the year which has gone by.  I too often read back over Mike’s posts but haven’t in a while.  So sitting here today I wondered if Mike had written anything exactly a year ago today…and sure enough he did and it was his blog post about hope.  I found it rather ironic that my last post was entitled Mike’s hopes and dreams…  Anyway reading this post I remember why I loved Mike so much…not that I need much reminding…and it also helped me remember that even in the face of such hardship and crap which each day was throwing at us,  he was talking about generating hope. He was quite the guy…  Here is the link to that post,  as I know it’s a  little hard to navigate backwards on this site.

http://michaelsblog.ca/?p=29#comments

Sometimes the nature of loss is an ever moving target.  Often I can see clearly what it is I have lost, we have lost, because Mike died.  With each season the new loss presents itself as we move through this first year after Mike’s death.  For instance, Nick is now in grade 10 and we have talked for a long time about when he would be old enough to apply for CELP.  Well the time has arrived…but no Mike. Nick will be in CELP in semester two but many of his friends are in semester one and of course we always thought it would be Mike teaching them.  This loss is pretty clear, easy to see up ahead so in a way we were ready for it.

Other losses are more subtle.  Just recently I have been thinking about all of Mike’s hopes and dreams.  And feeling really sad that those hopes and dreams died with him. I know Mike leaves a huge legacy which tempers these feelings but there was so much more he had  ahead of him.   Maybe I’m thinking about this because I can see that Nick and Meghan and I still have hopes and dreams, and as the acute grief subsides can make room for those possibilities.  I guess I’m circling back to thinking about hope again.  And this new hope has a deeper quality to it, than the hope I’ve felt to date.   This is hope for the future, our future.  And as seems to be the way,  the bright light of my hope is dimmed by the darkness of Mike’s lost hopes and dreams.

I absolutely love the light in this photo...notice Mike's axe beside him

The summer is quickly drawing to a close – Nick grumpily returned from Ross C.V.I.  today after getting his new student card etc.  None of us are quite ready for the first day of school.  All in all we had a pretty good summer – Nick and Meghan both attended camp in July, Nick for a month and Meghan for 2 weeks.  I think having a break from home was really good for both of them, just like my trip west was good for me.  Nick, I notice, has a lightness of spirit these days which I haven’t seen in a long time.

I was having a tired moment earlier today (in the midst of Meghan’s 24 hour marathon Harry Potter birthday party) and my friend Leigh T. said that I need to make sure I take time for myself.  My reply was that sometimes I feel like all I do is take time for myself.  I didn’t elaborate but it got me thinking about what I mean by this.  My job since Mike died has been to keep our home lives as stable as I can for Nick and Meghan and walk through this first year of grief and sadness with the hopes of finding some peace and equilibrium to carry on.  And there has been a myopic quality to this.   Even this blog sometimes feels this way…me, ,me and more about me (although purposefully I have chosen not to write much about the kids to protect their privacy…so that leaves…me.)

And I think I have found some equilibrium this summer. For about the last 5 – 6 weeks I have felt more myself than before Mike got sick.  I am crying far less and my mood and outlook have remained pretty stable with only a few wobbles here and there.  It’s hard to say this but to find this equilibrium requires taking steps away from my old life, which means away from Mike.  I feel a lump  in my throat as I write this and a swell of tears in my eyes but I know in my heart this is necessary – difficult and sad…but necessary.  So now that I know I’m going to be OK – I’m not going to die too from the sadness of it all, I can continue to move forward, integrate Mike’s life and death into my new life.  So not forgetting,  but letting go enough to move forward.  And moving forward right now means  a healthy shift away from myself and my grief ‘journey’ and onto a life which is defined by living, not by grieving.  Wish me luck….

(This blog has now been in existence for over a year as Mike first posted on Aug. 28, 2009.)