Hesitant Missionary

You look down on people who don’t do what you do, she said. I love it that there are people in my life who can tell me this stuff. I fully recognized it as truth. I don’t want to be this person. I want each of you to do the things you’re doing, the role you’re called to, without feeling judgement from me. Honestly, I want you to treat me the same way. 

Many days (today, for example) I feel reluctant to participate in the life I’ve been called to, just like the main character in my latest audio book read. Sadly, it’s a novel. I want it to be true. Although reluctant to begin with, Main Character soon has a change of heart and becomes Hesitant Missionary. She gives up her source of income, sells her most expensive possessions, buys a motorcycle 🏍.  Hesitant Missionary devotes her time to driving though the rough parts of town befriending the friendless and then devotes her life and home to supporting women and their children trying to exit drug and prostitution rings. 

Hesitant Missionary made a lot of mistakes. She alienated  friends because they didn’t like the drastic ways she was changing her life to serve others. (Spoiler alert: Like in every good novel, they came around to her way of thinking for a happily ever after ending.) Hesitant Missionary ignored the Holy Spirit sometimes because she thought she had better ideas. She failed some of the people she tried to help but also managed to genuinely help a few. She forgot how to have faith after a woman she was trying to protect dies and a child she was trying to protect is taken into government custody. Hesitant Missionary second guessed herself every other step of the way. These failures sound incredibly true to real life; maybe it’s based on true stories.

Although much less dramatic, there’s so many ways, I recognized myself in this story. I alienate friends and family by my devotion to my kids. I second guess any decision I make. When things go wrong, I forget to have faith. I ignore the Holy Spirit and probably often don’t even notice it enough to ignore it. I disappoint the children and parents I’m supposed to be helping. I sound condescending. My friends helped me realize that it’s a stupid manipulative coping mechanism I use I’m reluctant to do the things I/we feel I/we need to do. I didn’t sign up to be the person I am. Miraculously, I became her anyway, hesitant, but almost willing. Almost willing to do the thing I’m called to do. Always vert willing to project my insecurities on others.

Hesitant Predictions for Tomorrow: 

I’m going to spend the morning trying to get the cooperation of a brother who won’t hear anything I say unless I use the words gloves and swimming.  It’s a foregone conclusion that I will be completely frustrated and energyless and quite possibly resorting to anger by the time I return him to his parents. 

Then I’m going to go to Pelly and spend the rest of the day and evening wondering how to comfort the mom whose teenager OD and nearly died. In all honesty, I’ll be hoping to avoid that conversation altogether, but, like any hesitant missionary, in the end I’ll feel compelled to halfheartedly ask how he’s doing. I’ll inevitably mumble some kind of useless response to her motherly monologue and update on his condition and prognosis. 

At the end of the day I will feel accomplished. I’ll feel happy. I’ll also probably go to sleep wishing I had done something differently. But the Hesitant Missionary taught me something: failure happens. One of my sisters-in-law taught me something else: tomorrow is another day. 

The Ghost of Canada Present

Grief doesn’t always begin as a process that is the result of the death of a Loved One. Sometimes grief begins as a result of a broken heart, and that usually never ends. -Carol Rose GoldenEagle, The Narrows of Fear

One of Brent’s friends recently told Brent a gruesome forgotten story about some local residential schools years ago. It was as horrible and heartbreaking as all the other stories. What made it different to me is that it took place in my community. It makes it personal. Pete is in his 80´s and this story was something  that happened to his father, so it’s safe to guess that it took place almost 100 years ago. The time frame really doesn’t matter. 

The truth really does. I’m not going to go into details here but you can private message me if you want to hear more about this heartbreaking truth. Sometimes my heart feels like it can’t hold more heartbreaking things. Then I start imagining what it must’ve been to be the parents of one of these children who abruptly and silently disappeared from their life forever. Then I decide I don’t know heartbreak.

I spent an hour or two of this Canada Day talking with my husband about our province’s history and its newly discovered mass graves.  That conversation left a haze of melancholy hanging in the stifling air. 

A fist bump from a First Nations stranger who told me I wasn’t racist and that I was pretty cool for a white girl eased my survivor’s guilt a little. The same man told me he and I would each keep loving other people’s children, that that was a way to move forward. 

His words were striking in the face of the renewed grief that Indigenous communities across the country are facing today. This man truly believes that Every child matters. The ones who endured the worst atrocities in the past. The ones who are alive today. Every child matters. 

I know you all have your precious white babies to care for in their perfect little nurseries, but don’t forget to cry tonight over someone else’s babies who weren’t treated as if they were precious and who didn’t have even their most vital needs met. because every child matters.

Gifts, Presents, Cadeaux

Gifts, Ungifts 

I just learned the French word for gift today. Cadeau. plural Cadeaux. This is providential, because it reminded me that yesterday I had written down a list of the gifts I got in the last week. I wrote because I didn’t want to forget any of them. My memory is that bad, not kidding. I tried walking into BP yesterday with one of Brent’s crocs on one foot and one of my flip flops on the other foot. A good memory is not one of my gifts. 

I also had to write these gifts down because it was a difficult week in a lot of ways, and after listing those difficulties, I had to list the gifts for some perspective. I know I should be like modern influencers and share about more of these difficult parts of my life on here, but I can’t for various reasons.  For one thing, My husband doesn’t like it if I write a lot of details about him and about our life online. I have tried to respect that and learn from that and share innocuous things or talk about the parts of my day that don’t involve him much. He’s not the only one who feels that way; one or more other family members are on his side too. I’m not writing this in judgement, because I understand why they feel that way. I’m writing this in the interest of honesty and perspective.

Gifts I got this week

A handmade bracelet from one of my girls. 

The smile on her face every single time she saw it on my wrist all week was amazing. Remembering to tie it on every morning was not so amazing, but that smile helped kick my memory into gear when I was blearily stumbling out the door to go to work at 6:30 every morning. 

The priceless gift of a sour candy from a child. I know it was precious to him; he doesn’t have a lot of candy and he was saving these 3 candies, But his generous soul had to give one to me “because you shared your gum with me yesterday.” I felt a little guilty eating it. I felt so honoured and loved by this selfless gesture. I felt unworthy and unprepared to be a care giver and trusted person to this 10 year old. I felt anxious about breaking the fragile bond we’ve developed. This tiny gift came with huge responsibility. 

A few packages of Bologna from a family who never has much money for extravagant or extra groceries or sometimes even for what I would consider necessary. So often sharing looks the most effortless from people who have the least. (Any one have ideas of ways to make bologna palatable?)

A whole jar of chopped and frozen garlic scapes from one of Pelly’s proficient garlic growers. Their garlic is precious to them and I know they worked hard for this jar of scapes. 

A beautiful pile of fresh brown farm eggs from my auntie. 

C’est L’été

A few words to faithful readers. 

C’est l’été. It’s summer, and the so far it’s the busiest summer of our life. 

We’re working, we’re moving, we’re half building a house. We’re also still trying to meet the demands of our every day commitments and support the people who depend on us. 

As a result, We’re neglecting unimportant things like elaborate cooking and mowing our lawn the minute it looks a little shaggy and blogging. 

If I’m fairly quiet for the next couple months, don’t be surprised  I dream up lengthy pieces in my head, but rarely have the time to get them down in writing. I hope to post more regularly again, but that’s a dream that will wait for a different lifestyle to be fulfilled  

A request 

Because I don’t have time/energy to write and because I feel like I tend to write on the same topics over and over, I’ve been wishing for some different perspectives on this blog.  A few months ago I  tried to get my sister who doesn’t have her own blog to write something for mine, but she has never responded enthusiastically to that  request. I think I also asked my mother, but she didn’t come up with anything either . Although they are unwilling, maybe one of you is willing or inspired to write something to post on my blog or to share something you’ve already written. Private message me or let me know in the comments if you’re inspired. Topic can be self chosen, name can be included or withheld. 

A small announcement to subscribers 

Sometime in July, the email notification system that blogger uses is ending. Supposedly there is an alternative, but I haven’t been successful in figuring it out. Sadly, this is all to say that the email notifications of my blog cluttering up your inbox so irregularly will quit coming in July and will continue to not come until I figure the new system out. 

Au revoir. Have a bel été. 

Just Say No

“He probably just couldn’t say no,” my mom said about my husband today. I’m sure she was right. He can’t say no to a child who needs him or to a caregiver who needs a break. I know she wouldn’t say no either. I know she worries and wants to protect us. I know she herself would do the same in this situation.

“Just say no,” my other mom told me today. Tell them what you can and can’t do. 

I agreed, but inside me I knew. I knew that I wouldn’t have the heart to refuse for a while yet. It’s fairly easy to set boundaries on the weekend from the safety of my home, but when life gets real on Tuesday and 3 children call my name from 5 different directions while I’m trying to walk out the door I won’t be able to look into their eyes and tell them I’m not coming back. I know my mil knows that, too.

It’s exhausting to be a carer. Also, it’s exhausting to care. Some of my friends tell me the same thing. I will paraphrase.

“I need a coping mechanism,” one friend told me in the middle of a long busy week. She’s a very capable person, and like she says, her parents did a good job of preparing her to deal with the things she’s dealing with. Even so, being a carer is overwhelming sometimes, especially when the situation or the people are difficult. She asked me if she could say no. I didn’t tell her that she should say no, because I have a different perspective than she does. From a distance, I see that if she doesn’t do the things, they will fall onto someone else’s shoulders, and maybe those shoulders won’t be as strong as hers. So, even though she has really wanted to on so many days, she hasn’t said no.

Another friend told me she was tired of working with people. “I’ve done it for so many years, and now I’m tired.” She didn’t say she didn’t love her job. She didn’t say she was tired of her job. Caregiving is difficult, emotionally more than physically often. But she still doesn’t say no

“Taking care of a newborn with medical needs is difficult.” These words came from friend who is a new mom. “But BabyBoy makes it so worth it,” she concluded. She’s a mother, she’s responsible for this child. She can’t say “I don’t want to take care of you now,” and walk away. She can’t just say no.

This is from the perspective of women in their 20s. Kids these days assume we’re major adults Cos we old, but some of us know otherwise. From conversations with friends, and my own real time experiences, it appears like we’re still learning how to care and be caregivers. Many of us will make that our life’s work, but  right now, in the learning stage, we  haven’t figured out how to take care of others and ourselves. We sometimes give too much of ourselves away, sometimes too little. Sometimes we feel like we’re caring too much but in reality we’re not caring enough. Sometimes the opposite. Myself,  I often feel both. 

Does being a caregiver get easier as a person ages? Do you learn how to compartmentalize so this work doesn’t take over your whole life ?  Maybe it’s meant to take over our lives. Maybe it’s mostly personality. Some of us probably handle caring better than others. Some of us probably avoid caring when possible.  

The disclaimers come near the end:

To be fair to my mom and mil, I have to say that neither of them say no to children or to caring either. They are just looking out for us like moms do.

I wrote this a few weeks ago, but never managed to pull it all together to form a cohesive post. It still isn’t very cohesive because I haven’t figured out how to blend it all seamlessly, but seamless isn’t what I’m trying to portray here. Real. Raw. That’s life, my life, anyway. I didn’t think I’d post this one every but Today it’s so relevant, once again, that I have to. 

Today I think I can’t do another day of zoom school with hyperactive third graders with fasd who can’t read or write, of feeding the hungry children from empty cupboards, of trying to keep the marijuana-smoking preteen from killing his little siblings, of pouring out every single ounce of love I have into a dark hole of need sometimes only to have it regurgitated and hurled back in my face in the form of anger. 

But I can’t say no. 

I’m not sure what little things that keep you caring and caregiving when you think you honestly can’t do it another minute. For me today it’s Small boy picking a single perfect dandelion for his teacher. The angriest boy who now lets me give him hugs/comfort even when he’s upset, a relatively new development. The weed smoking preteen making a point to talk to me in the mornings and open the door (after first slamming it) to yell  LOVE YOU at me instead of slinking off to school without a word. The little girl who treasures the tiny birthday gift I gave her and who calls me 3 or 7 times every day, even the days that I’ve  been there, because she needs someone. It’s the pure delight of a circle of children when we make a recipe they found on tiktok and it turns out perfectly. 

Inadvertent Faux Pas

Don’t  let Mama see you do that. I startle at the words, momentarily relaxing my busy repetitive scrubbing of the broom across the floor. Confused. 

???

?

Do what ? I finally have to ask, because I’m not figuring it out. It must be something important; these people don’t give orders or tell me I’m doing something wrong often. Just love the kids like they’re yours and do things like you’d do it at your house, is a favourite phrase here. 

That. Distracted for a second with keeping Mir from pulling out her feeding tube, R gestures vaguely toward the table. 

I wait. My mind spins in circles. 

Those shoes, he gets around to telling me. 

You mean on the table ? I’m sorry. I just thought they weren’t dirty-

No. He cuts me off. It’s our superstition. You’ll get bad luck. It doesn’t matter about them being dirty. But You might get bad luck. 

I apologize. Three times. Or five. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just know Mir only uses them in her playroom so they aren’t dirty. I didn’t know. And then, because I’m all the way across the room, I’m busy, I leave them there, thinking I’ll grab them when I leave the room in two minutes and go put them away. Thinking the conversation is over. 

We don’t care about that. But you might have bad luck. Him

I laugh it off. I’ve had black cats run in front of me. My clumsiness has broken more than one mirror.  I laugh, because I still think he’s mostly joking. I’m not sure if I’m rambling about luck out loud or in my head. If I was going to have bad luck I probably already have it. 

I keep sweeping. I think about other things. 

R doesn’t forget that quickly. It’s bad luck, he says again. 

And again. 

Its take me a while, but I finally realize he’s not laughing. He’s serious. He believes this. He probably would’ve gotten up and moved them himself by now if he had been able to safely leave Mir’s side. I drop the broom and go move the shoes. He’s happy now, but still can’t resist one more worried comment a few minutes later, I really hope you don’t have bad luck because of this. 

I tell him I will be okay.

All the way home after my shift I’m wondering- Ukrainian superstition brought from the Old Country 2 generations ago? family belief handed down through the ages? personal belief based on experience? Possibly I should’ve asked. Possibly I should have told him there was Someone stronger than mere bad luck.  

Unforgettable

We’re approaching the end of our lockdown here in Saskatchewan, and I’m a little sad. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not ready for normal life to resume fully. 

I like our Sundays of sitting by the pocket-sized speaker listening to church. But beyond personal enjoyment, these Sundays at home listening to church and not being able to socialize have offered us opportunities and experiences we wouldn’t have had otherwise. 

Take last Sunday for example. The 4 preteen neighbour girls stopped to see us in the morning and ended up hanging out with us all day. The first ones came just as the church service was starting to stream through our speaker, and we could still sit around listening and drawing together.  A little later, two more girls came, and at that point their noise nearly drowned out the pastor’s words. Nearly, but not quite. .

Tal, the oldest of the four at 12 years old, came and huddled over the speaker with me for a couple minutes, listening intently. How you live is how you’re going to die, the pastor intoned. Tal didn’t like that statement and repeated it three or four times before deciding she definitely disagreed, But it must have got her thinking. 

For the next five minutes Tal sat silently. Then she  surprised BTT and me with an insightful question, are you ready for the Lord to return ? We both told her we were and asked her if she was ready for the Lord to return. She said she didn’t know, she said she was worried about it.  She didn’t really know how she’d figure it out. My Mom says she’s ready; you guys are ready. But how do I know if I’m ready for the Lord  to return? she wondered. 

My heart aches for this girl, but I’m a little speechless. How do I explain Jesus to a twelve year old who has only once or twice set foot in a church and has learned everything she knows about God from movies and her off and on drug-addicted mother ? She knows a lot facts about Jesus, the Bible and heaven, (When it rains on earth, it’s the angels or God peeing, don’t you know?) but so many of the things she believes, I have a hard time reconciling with the real life Jesus I know. 

Finally, I find something to say. If you’re worried or confused about if you’re ready for the Lord to return, you can talk to Him. In fact, you can tell Jesus whatever you think and feel, anytime you want to. He’s always around to hear you. I don’t come up with those kinds of words. I mean, there’s a reason I’m at home in Saskatchewan and my sister is the one off in distant lands being the Missionary. Not my words. But I said them, never realizing the immediate effect they would have. 

What happened next was the best. With her typical half smile and a simple, Okay! Tal immediately folded herself into a reverent pose, clasped her hands under her chin and prayed. Miraculously, the other noisy girls noticed her praying and shushed each other to give her some semi-silence for her conversation with Jesus. Tal prayed silently, so I have no idea what she said. I also prayed silently and I have no idea what I said either. The pastor was still droning, unheeded, in the background, and the other little girls and BTT were hissing at each other to shshshsh! Tal’s praying! And then she looked up and smiled and said she felt better now. 

and that was that. 

Truly, though simple, this is a raw story, full of energy and emotion. It's the story of a deep-thinking child, often confused by the things she sees happening around her. I don’t know the future. I only know today. Tal is young, she’s hopeful, and she’s very spiritual. Jesus is and means and expects something different for every single child of His, so I’m trying to squash my tendency to think He’s limited to the way I know Him and the things He asks of me. Now Tal is worried that she might not go to heaven if she doesn’t spread the gospel like the Bible says to. I told her Jesus would tell her how she needed to spread the gospel, and if she’s not sure  her she can talk to Him about that too.  She said she’d do that. She might be growing as a Christian faster than I am. Tal is obsessed with the original 12 disciples of Jesus and likes to try to list them by name. And now that she had this conversation with Jesus, Tal says she’s a disciple of Jesus, too. I have no doubt she is. 

Selfishly, I also got some things out of that day. I got faith. I got to witness  another of the weird incredible ways Jesus works. And I got a story to tell. It’s not my story, it’s God’s story. It’s the oldest story, but for me it’s the first time I’ve witnessed it in action like this. And I. feel. unready. unworthy. and unable to forget it or stop telling it.