Life as Mrs. Mack

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The big "I do"

Well… I have totally neglected my blog. The pace of life has been changing too quickly for me to catch my breath, and while I’m thoroughly enjoying every minute of it, I feel like a bit of a hermit at the moment.

So I married Big Mack on April 2nd in Osoyoos, BC. It was a tiny little wedding with our very closest family and friends there: 20 adults including ourselves and the pastor who married us and his wife plus 12 children and 2 babysitters. Yes, the babysitters were necessary. We could have done with a couple more in fact.

Being a second wedding for both of us – and a daytime one at that – we opted for casual. I wore a green dress and Big Mack wore a grey suit. We left the white dresses for the Mack girls who were my de facto bridesmaids and walked down the aisle to the song “In Christ Alone“. The lunch reception at the Walnut Beach Resort was really great – the food was amazing – and we commemorated our wedding night by taking our 5 kids home to Oliver.

All the kids thoroughly enjoyed the after-dinner aperatifs of NyQuil.

Of course I’m kidding; but you can see a selection of photos from the wedding on this Flickr set.

Within a few days we were off to Miami, where we spent two nights and one full day exploring Miami Beach and the scene at South Beach, and then Sint Maarten where we were guests of the new vacation real estate community Porto Cupecoy.

View from our condo at Porto Cupecoy

I actually won the week at Porto Cupecoy thanks to a twitter contest so we had a beautiful 2 bedroom, three bathroom condo right on the waterfront. Both rooms had king beds and the ensuites were about as big as our master bedroom at home. The walk-in closet the side of the kids’ rooms at home. It was really beautiful. There was a huge private terrace overlooking the marina where we enjoyed our morning coffee and an evening glass of wine while looking at the multi-million dollar yachts and imagining what the lives of their owners must be like.

View from the dock on Pinel Island

While in Sint Maarten we did some exploring, spent time sunning ourselves on Pinel Island and took out a little sea-doo style thing called a Rhino to snorkel on the north side of the island in the most insane rain storm I have seen in a long time… and we were snorkeling under the lightning! Fun.

We returned to Miss Mack’s 11th birthday at Boston Pizza… our first meal excursion with all 5 kids. Good times all around for sure. I think the hostess panicked a little when she saw us. The waitress sure did… but I suppose I’ll have to get used to that.

The movers brought my things last week – the guys from Ferguson Moving & Storage were awesome by the way… very professional and wrapped everything so well; I highly recommend them – and now we’re digging out from under the rubble. Slowly but surely we’re getting organized and learning to blend not only two households, but two lives into one… or rather, 7 lives into one home. It’s been an emotional ride for everyone I think. All the kids are doing well, though… and Big Mack and I are saving a lot of gas money now since we don’t have to drive 400km to see one another.

A few random observations from the last month:

  • I like not having a scale in my bathroom. Big Mack keeps his downstairs in the gym so I’m not tempted to hop on each day.
  • Small towns are awesome. I recently posted on my Facebook how I went for a walk and was stopped 3 times (mind you, once was by my husband) by people stopping their cars in the middle of the road to just chat right there.
  • It’s good for kids to be able to run around outside. Mini-Man is thoroughly enjoying calling up from the carport to me saying, “Mommy can I ride my bike?” Sure. No problem. We live in a cul-de-sac where you see a car every couple of hours.
  • Eleven-years-old is an awesome age. That is all.
  • I parent emotionally and need to learn to take the emotion out of my disciplining. The kids respond well to Big-Mack… less so to my ranting
  • I really enjoy blue cheese
  • Seven people in one home create an astronomical amount of laundry
  • I love the town of Oliver. The weather is mostly dry and there’s a HUGE long paved path – from here to Osoyoos, actually – to run on along a river. So nice.
  • It’s a good thing babies and toddlers are cute.
  • Kids enjoy games that may induce vomiting.
  • I consider remote controls to be the man’s domain; in fact, I don’t even want to learn which one operates what.
  • Life feels less chaotic when the kitchen is clean.
  • DVD players in cars are an awesome invention.
  • Boys’ pants will always have something in the pockets when thrown into the laundry hamper. And in that vein, it’s a good idea to have a hamper in every room of the house. Mind you, socks still end up on the floor. So do towels.
  • I need to drink more water; it’s dry here.

So there you have it… the briefest of updates and nothing deep to say. It’s all there in my head… I have had many awesome nights of sitting up talking with Big Mack about the things of life thanks to our shared views on religious adherence to early bedtimes.  I just haven’t had the time to write it on my blog. But Big Mack is back to work this weekend – he’s had 5 weeks off – and I will have some free evenings from this point on.

I promise to keep writing… I have too many opinions not to.

God bless…

The promises and the blessing

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Photo: The Doctr on Flickr

The other day a friend of mine told me that a friend of his had been following my blog (yay at least one reader!) and had been enjoying it (even better!). Apparently he said something to the effect that he liked it because I seemed “real” and not like all the people he’d gone to bible college with.

Uh oh. What?

Now I’ve never been to bible college. In fact, I have to (rather painfully) admit I still haven’t read the entire bible yet. Those old testament books are a little on the dry side and I have the attention span of a goldfish (Oh look, a castle!)… but I will get through them. I will… but I digress. I don’t know what students at bible college are like but I would think that people pursuing higher education towards a pastoral ministry ought to be real, no? In fact, I’m pretty sure that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… the God of the bible, expects this to be very real to us.

What is faith if it’s not real? Is it still faith? By its biblical definition, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So faith means assurance. Do you have assurance? Do you think it or do you know it? Can you believe and yet not apply biblical principles to your life? And before you get all over me for suggesting we need to “work” to “apply” these principles I was primarily thinking of principles such as:

  • Trusting God for everything you need (Matthew 6:25-34)
  • Trusting He has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11)
  • Believing that all the trials you face in this life will work out towards God’s greater purpose if you love Him and walk with Him (Romans 8:28)
  • Knowing that we were all created for a very specific purpose; you are not an accident (Ephesians 2:10)
  • Having freedom to forgive those who wrong us because it is God who will seek vengeance; we don’t need to. We can let it go (Romans 12:19)
  • Trusting God will deliver us out of all our troubles if we cry out to him (Psalm 34:17)

… and if that is considered “works”, sign me up.

It’s funny… I don’t quote scripture all that often in conversation. Mostly because I have a terrible memory – I have a hard time connecting the verses with the actual references. But these verses are so powerful that if you read them and allow yourself to just mull them over with an open heart I believe they will speak right into your spirit. When you think on these things, how can your faith not prove real? As believers in Christ we MUST take God’s Word – the bible – as infallible, inerrant. Holy.

I think Christians, in general, don’t spend enough time being real.

I think we are all hypocrites. It is always easier to see someone else’s sin than our own. In fact, that is precisely why we have Matthew 7:1-5. Because people throughout history have been the same way. We are all hypocrites. Now having said that, I believe wholeheartedly God’s Holy Spirit empowers us to be humble… to recognize our own sin. To stare it in the face and to not run from it. I believe based on my own personal experience that if we stay honest with God (after all it’s not like he doesn’t KNOW what we’re up to!) we will find His all-sufficient grace (2 Cor 12:9). We will find peace (Phil 4:6-7) and we will find redemption (Psalm 78:35) and deliverance (Psalm 18:2).

So if our God is big enough to deliver us, redeem us and fill us with His Holy peace, surely we ought to consider all the other ways God wants to bless us. There are blessings to be gained by knowing God’s Word. Dig in and find out! Did you know that if you honor your father and your mother you will live a long life (Ephesians 6:2-3)?! Here’s another thing the bible tells us: “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). So on the topic of being real, do you think maybe we should be doing this? As a body of believers… the church, the very body of Christ? Do you think there would be healing in an environment where everyone felt comfortable enough (or crazy enough) to go ahead and confess it?

I think we need to be fostering the kind of relationships and the kind of trust that allows people to be open about what’s going on so that we can build them up! Why is it that we see what we think is an awesome Christian family – beautiful parents, awesome kids, financially blessed, strong faith (or so it seems) – and BAM! Next thing you know he’s moved out with another woman. Uh… what happened?! Why didn’t anyone see this coming? My guess is that no one fostered an environment for that man where he could say, “Gosh we’re having some real trouble and I just don’t feel like I can do it anymore; I don’t love my wife.” That’s where it starts. That’s where the healing starts… with the confession of our sins one to another.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians he says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” (2 Cor 12:19). It’s in our weakness that God moves. His power is made perfect in OUR weakness. If we never show our weakness we don’t allow Him to move and work in and through us.

A huge part of what has allowed me to be so open about my faith, my struggles and my failures is the love and support I have felt from my church community. I have been very blessed to find an awesome group of people who really care. The more I have shared the more I’ve found others with similar stories and the more we’ve all poured it out. But there has to first be a sense of community and a humility in the Lord. We have to humble ourselves and accept that none of us is perfect. You know who your true friends are when you receive a rebuke in love for something you’re doing wrong in your life. Not someone who is oblivious to the log in their own eye, but someone who loves you enough to say, “Hey, what you’re doing is wrong and I’d like to help you… love you… support you and hold you accountable.”

Let’s all get more real. And lets start by loving one another and creating an environment of trust so we can openly confess our sins one to another and find the healing God promises.

With an overflowing heart

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Photo: Britannia Willes-Smythe

A year.

It’s a long time. It’s a short time. Some things in this life seem to make time irrelevant. I feel almost as if I’ve experienced more in the last year of my life than I did in the 35 leading up to it. I know that’s not true. But I have grown and changed so much in the last year that I almost don’t recognize myself. And if I’m being honest, I like who I have become far more than the girl I was this time last year.

It’s been almost a year since Dave died.

It will be a year one week from tomorrow but I wanted to post this now… I’m not sure why. It’s not that I don’t want to acknowledge the actual anniversary of his death, it’s just that I think I want that day to just exist inside my head. I don’t want to share it with people. I don’t want to immortalize any date on the calendar for sorrow. It’s not the date of his death that should be remembered… it was the years he lived on this earth that made all the difference to those who knew him and to those he left behind.

I’m not sure I can make any sense of what it is I’m trying to say. The corners of my mind are filled with a million thoughts constantly. I’m sitting here watching the snow fall outside my window… it’s glimmering in the light of the street lamp. It’s beautiful. This time last year was very different. The days were warm and sunny. The day he died was beautiful, yet so different from today. I’m reliving the experiences of last year in my mind as I get ready to celebrate Mini-Man’s birthday once again. So many days come to mind: the day he died – I can still see and hear his friend clearly as he delivered the news through his own sobs… and telling his mom – I’m not sure I’ll ever speak words again that will impact someone so much; going to church the next morning – there’s no where else I wanted to be; meeting with the police at the accident site – fixating on the details and going over and over them in my head for weeks to follow; the memorial service – I still think Dave would have loved it; celebrating Mini-Man’s 4th birthday just 10 days after his dad died. I barely even remember it… I’m grateful to those who braved seeing me in order to help my son feel normal on his special day.

If you had asked me on this day last year where I thought I’d be a year from then, my answer would have been so vastly different from where I find myself now. I can say now, with all honesty, I’m amazed and excited and hopeful about where God is taking me.

March 6th is the anniversary of Dave’s death. April 2nd I’m getting married to Big Mack. I hate that Dave died. I love being with someone I have so much in common with. I hate that my boys have to know what it’s like to grow up without their dad. I love that I can see the life I was destined for laid out before me. I hate that the perfect nuclear family we both wanted to give our kids was not meant to be. I love the hope that I feel about my new family and our ability to live out God’s perfect redemption story. It’s hard to think all these thoughts at the same time. I’m grateful for heavenly peace. I’m grateful for God’s grace in my heart that has given me the ability to simply think these thoughts and not judge myself for them.

I have never felt love the way I feel it right now.

I used to think I settled when I married Dave. I was so wrong. He was the one who settled. I know that now. He deserved more than I gave him. He deserved to be loved the way he loved me. He loved me with an overflowing heart. I wish I’d loved him more. I wish I’d made him happy. I wish I had been able to relate to him better. I wish I’d been a better wife to him. He was good to me. We were excited about our future together.

I’m glad I see with my new eyes. I’m glad Big Mack is understanding. I’m glad I know what it feels like to love with every corner of my heart. I’m glad my boys will have an amazing dad to look up to. I’m grateful for my beautiful boys. I thank God for them. I thank Dave for them. I’m glad Big Mack is a conversationalist. I’m glad we share so many opinions from doctrine to food choices to humour to parenting style. I was committed to making my marriage with Dave good. I think marriage with Big Mack is going to be easier.

It’s bittersweet watching Mini-Man grow to love Big Mack. It’s beautiful watching Mini-Boy play with Big Mack’s nose and seeing them laugh together. It amazes me how much my heart has grown to make space for the 3 Mack kids. I pray every day that I’ll become a better mom. I pray that I will become more fruitful… patient, kind, gentle, self-controlled… I pray I will be a good step-mom too. I pray I’ll be a better cook.

I believe God has good plans for me. I’ve never stopped believing that. I believe what I say I believe. I believe it with my whole heart. I believe Jesus is the redeemer. I believe Dave is being rewarded in heaven and I believe God still has things for me to do in this life. I believe I’ve experienced everything I have for a purpose. I believe I’m becoming who I am intended to be.

The way I can honour Dave’s life is to love as he did.

With an overflowing heart.

If you’re new to my blog or have just stumbled upon it through a search engine, you can read all the entries about the death of my husband here.

One in 6+ billion

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Photo: another sergio on Flickr

I was reading an article the other day about Wal-Mart introducing a new makeup and personal care line for tweens. Yes, tweens. Wal-Mart is bringing in a new line of cosmetics for the 8-12 year old girls of the world.

Last I checked, 8 year old girls were very much little girls… without blemish and with perfectly beautiful features. And last I checked, 12 year old girls should be considering nothing more than a little lip gloss and a hair clip to accessorize in order to express themselves if they so choose. What are we doing to our little girls that we are making them feel like they should be trying to alter the way they look?

WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR LITTLE GIRLS?!

I had a conversation with Miss Mack this morning about her belly. Miss Mack is 10 years old – almost 11 – and she told me of two of her other 10 year old girlfriends who sat around comparing their beautiful 10 year old bellies stating how fat they are. She told me a little of how that made her feel.

Again I say it: WHAT ARE WE DOING TO THESE LITTLE GIRLS?!

Why are these little girls contemplating their bellies at all? Why should they need makeup!? Have you ever seen a little girl sit around and talk about her elbows with concern? How about her neck? I’ve written before about my own body issues and how I’m slowly – in my thirties, I’ll add – learning to love my body despite its imperfections. And when I say imperfect I do, in fact, mean downright un-pretty by today’s Hollywood standards. While I am learning to appreciate that my body is just one of the billions of prototypes out there, I’ll admit I sometimes feel like a 10 year old girl on the school ground sitting alongside her little friends comparing their bellies and feeling like there is something drastically wrong with me.

I have a confession to make:

I had an appointment scheduled for December 8th, 2010. I had an appointment to visit one of the top plastic surgeons in Vancouver. I had an appointment to hand over an obscene amount of money to have him slice me from one side to the other, pull all of my skin away from my muscles from my hips to my armpits, suck out fat, cut out skin, lift up my boobs, throw in a little volume and sew me back together so I could recover for two months, all in the name of vanity.

You see, after two babies my body is not perfect. My post-baby body doesn’t look like Heidi Klum’s post-baby body. In fact, my pre-baby body was a ways off of hers if I’m being honest. My post-baby body doesn’t bear the breasts of a 20 year old and my post-baby belly bears the scar of not just one, but two surgical births. And I felt an overwhelming fear when I thought about ever being in a position to share my body’s battle wounds with any man other than the one who helped me create those wounds.

But then I met Miss Mack.

She is beautiful. She is tall and strong and has awesome skin, beautiful eyes and lovely thick hair. She is smart and funny and polite and helpful and curious and adventuresome. And she loves God. How can I sit face to face with her and look into those beautiful 10 year old eyes and tell her how her body is perfect, that she was created in the image of God and that she is absolutely beautiful just the way she is but then go to ridiculous lengths to alter my own appearance? How could I justify it?

I couldn’t. And I can’t. And I won’t. I remember being 10. I remember being teased.

Why are we telling our children there is something wrong with them? What are we doing to our little girls? Why are we allowing TV and fashion mags and the entertainment industry as a whole to determine not just the standard of beauty but our worth?

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
[Psalm 139]

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
[Genesis 1:27]

So to Miss Mack and every other girl on earth who has ever felt like less than everything she was made to be: You are beautiful. You are just as you were created to be. You were intricately woven… knitted together. We can do what we can do to protect our bodies from ill-health, but what we call imperfections are not imperfections at all! The are simply attributes that make us different from one another. You are one in several billion. You are the only one of you. You are just right. You are unique. You were formed in the image of God. Your worth is not determined by the clarity of your skin, the firmness of your stomach or the colour of your hair. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are loved. Just as you are.

Please pass the meat

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Photo: Zach Dischner on Flickr

I remember when I was in my late teens and I was sitting by the water at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. There was a choir singing on the wharf and I was listening. While I wasn’t really hearing what they were singing I was enjoying it. A young woman walked towards me and sat down next to me and said, “Hello.” She smiled and I responded politely. Then it came… –insert record scratching soundhere– “Have you received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”

Aaaaaaaaaack. %@#! Get me out of here… I was so thrown by that question that I think I got up and walked away awkwardly without even a word. I know what people think about Christians… bible thumpers… jesus freaks… fundamentalist crazies… I know. I used to feel the same way.

If you know me and if you knew me, say, 6 or 8 years ago – as many people I work with did – you would have seen (I think… I hope?) a change begin to take place about 6 years ago. Six years ago was when I “converted” (for lack of a better word) to Christianity as a “religion” (another word I hate). I use these terms because they’re widely used and they convey the truth I suppose. Not the truth I feel and know inside but the truth as I can convey it to someone who doesn’t share my faith.

Now at the time I was a newlywed. Dave and I had been married in August 2004 and my conversion took place basically in the last few days of the calendar year. I remember being afraid. I was very afraid. I even said to him, “I know this isn’t what you signed up for,” – he wasn’t a believer either – “but I can’t stop what’s happening here. I can’t NOT believe.”

The only thing that stands out to me in those early days is this overwhelming desire to stick  my nose in my bible and not even come up for air for months. I read it every day for at least an hour or more. I soaked it up. It was like my food. I craved it. I loved it.

I needed it.

Surprisingly, Dave was actually very supportive. He had grown up in a catholic home and so he understood religion to some degree. He knew the contents of the bible and just sort of figured he’d give me the time and the grace to learn what was in it if that was what I wanted to do. No judgment. I was grateful and very relieved.

I started going to church.

I fell in love with it. When I’d go I’d want to stay the whole day… I wanted to soak up the presence of all these other people who understood what I was thinking and how I was feeling. I was so uplifted and encouraged to know I wasn’t the only crazy one out there who went from not believing this stuff to believing it without a doubt overnight. Was I going crazy? Was this entire room full of people crazy? Were they all nuts? Am I?

I started going to a home bible study group one evening a week. I made new friends. I read Christian books on marriage and prayer. I was invited to start serving the church in ministry. I couldn’t get enough.

And that was just the first few months.

In the fall of 2005 Dave had his own conversion experience. “Born again” we call it. There is nothing like it… one minute you don’t get any of this stuff and the next you’re busting out in tears or laughing hysterically at the joy bubbling over from inside. I can’t describe it well… I’m not sure it can be described and I’m fairly certain everyone who experiences it has a different experience indeed. I remember Dave calling me up at work and saying, “I GET IT!! I totally know what you’ve been talking about!” He was in tears.

I was excited to be able to share this new part of my life with him.

During our marriage we learned together and grew together and began to model our marriage after God’s plan the way the Bible describes it by God’s grace. It became easier. We became stronger. We were floating on the beautiful newness of our faith and reveling in it. We got through nearly losing our newborn son by leaning on our faith in God together. That experience actually strengthened both our faith and our marriage. Our faith grew. It began to take up a bigger and bigger part of our life.

When Dave died, our marriage and our faith was the strongest it had ever been.

I feel like he accomplished what God set forth for him to accomplish in this life and now he has reaped the ultimate reward… an eternity with the Father. And now God has more for me… more growth, more service… more purpose. In chapter 5 of the book of Hebrews in the bible talks about spiritual maturity… it likens our spirituality to milk and meat. Milk is for babies just learning; eventually you learn to eat meat and be nourished far beyond what milk can do. I believe God is calling me to move towards digging deeper… going further… stretching me to a greater understanding. He wants to nourish me with meat rather than the milk I’d been relying on.

I started thinking about this a few days ago as I was re-writing my About Michelle Evans page on this blog. I know how I appear. I know who I’m becoming. And in the same way I couldn’t stop what was happening with my original conversion, I can’t stop what’s happening now.

Nor do I want to.

All I desire is to become what God wants me to be. Nothing else is of any consequence. And that’s not to say that I am a religious fanatic that doesn’t do anything normal people do in life; I still have every intention of enjoying life the way I always have – running, snowboarding, music, beaches, friends etc. But I really just want to strip out the areas of my life that are of little consequence to my purpose. I believe God is calling me to put my energy into being a wife and a mother. It’s not something I’m doing because I feel like I “should” because that’s what Christian fundamentalists do. It’s a new desire placed right in my soul. I believe God is calling me to serve others in the church and in my community through music… through songwriting and singing. I believe God is calling me to build a home and a family that will glorify Him – a place where our kids will be welcome to grow in strength, love and learn in a wholesome, nurturing environment.

The remnant of the old me wants to apologize for who I’m becoming. But I can’t do it. I love who I’m becoming. For the first time ever I feel like I’m finally becoming who I was created to be.

So please pass the meat. I’m ready to dig in.

The First Noel

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Photo: Sweet*Shot on Flickr

This year is Mini-Boy’s first Christmas and he seems to sense the excitement… he sure does enjoy the lights on the Christmas tree. Maybe I’m the one who is excited about seeing him unwrap gifts for the first time while dressed in a Santa-suit sleeper on Christmas morning or maybe I’m just making it up.

It’s also the first Christmas without Dave.

We have to do things differently this year. Trying to continue with the same traditions we’d been building together over the years would, no doubt, feel forced and lacking. Not just for me, but for the rest of his family as well.

We used to go over to his mom’s house for Christmas breakfast of eggs in tomato sauce, hot capicollo and pan-fried oysters. We’d open our gifts together while Dave and his mom would begin to try to outdo one another in the kitchen in preparation for a multi-course feast. I think I have his grandma to blame for that one… the first time I participated in one of these meals was at his grandma’s apartment. She managed to serve a 7-course meal for around 12 people from her little galley kitchen. A family friend had mentored me through the process. “Just take a bite or two of each course. You need to be able to make it to the end.” Sage advice indeed.

The first Christmas we spent in our home after we were married, Dave decided to outdo even his grandma (sorry Susan). I lost track of how many courses he served to 14 people from our own tiny galley kitchen. The meal ended with flames in the kitchen as he served up Bananas Foster for everyone. It was pretty spectacular. In years following we have had our Christmas dinners at his mom’s place.

This year I wanted to offer his mom a rest.

I know this is hard for her. My life is in such flux right now that I’m really looking ahead to what is to come and this particular Christmas feels like a sort of single, random Christmas stuck between two existences. I had to fight the urge to not even do Christmas at all, but that wouldn’t have been fun or fair for my boys.

So I’m going to “do” Christmas this year… my way.

I’m not sure how good of a job I’m doing – I’ve never been good at sending out cards – but I got a tree and got it decorated. Dave’s mom helped decorate it with Mini-Man and he’s very excited about seeing the gifts arrive under it. He keeps asking each day, “Is tomorrow the day that there will be presents under the tree?” Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that all the gifts I so diligently bought way ahead of time are not going to wrap themselves and, thus, I must stop procrastinating and get it done. I’m excited about singing for the Christmas Eve services at my church and having Dave’s mom bring the boys there to celebrate before she takes them back to my place to tuck them in for the night. I’ll join her for a Christmas Eve beverage of the adult variety when I get home and we’ll get to work preparing the magic for the next morning. Christmas morning will see a quiet gift-opening at my place and then I’ll be getting busy preparing a turkey dinner.

I’ve never cooked a turkey on my own before.

When I went to Mexico in the early weeks after Dave died I recognized that I’d have to learn to do things that I considered “his job”. For instance, I had to learn to transform transformers. I know, this sounds random… and it is, but it’s similar to cooking a turkey for me. At first I kept resisting Mini-Man’s requests to have Bumblebee transformed because I didn’t know how to do it and I was angry that I even had to… that was Dave’s job. But he wasn’t here to do it anymore.

So I learned.

I sat down one night and spent a good hour figuring it out. When I finally got him from a robot back into a car I had an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I know it probably sounds stupid, but it began a journey towards my feeling like I can manage. Like I can do all the things I need to do to get by without Dave. And so now I will learn to cook and serve a turkey dinner in the same manner. Well, maybe not the SAME manner… there is no way I’m doing a seafood course and a pasta course and all that stuff. But, I will cook a turkey complete with stuffing, veggies, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy and such.

I know I can do it. And I know it will be empowering but bittersweet.

The only one tradition I do want to keep is one we started just a couple of years ago with Mini-Man. On Christmas eve he’ll bake a birthday cake and for dessert after Christmas dinner we’ll sing happy birthday to Jesus and enjoy a piece of cake together.

After all, Christmas is about Jesus anyway. And birthday cake is WAY better than Christmas cake.

So this Christmas I want to embrace its uniqueness, love my family, sing some songs, learn some new skills and life lessons, bless others and thank God for sending the Savior.

For the love of powder

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Photo: Grouse Mountain on Flickr

Ahhhhh… finally powder.

See, I haven’t been snowboarding since the season before last. Last season I was pregnant until just after Christmas, recovering from childbirth for 2 months after that and then coping with Dave’s death. So I think the last time I was on the hill was early April 2009.

Wow that feels like a million years ago.

So yesterday my boys were invited to spend the night at their Nona’s house and I had the entire evening to myself. I was pleasantly surprised to find easy parking and no lineups for the Skyride at Grouse Mountain when I got there at about 3:30pm on a Saturday afternoon – the first Saturday of the Christmas break. When I got up top my spirits automatically lifted as I found the white fluffy gift from heaven falling plentifully  at my feet. There’s something about the brightness of the snow and how it seems infinitely drier than rain that makes me feel way better about life.

I strapped in to my brand new 2011 Bataleon Violenza 153 board with K2 Charm bindings… I haven’t enjoyed new gear since 2001 if you can believe. Well with enough snow falling that every run offered new freshies and an awesome new board I felt like I never wanted to leave! This new board rides like a dream – I couldn’t be happier. The visibility was sort of sketchy, though; it was dark and a bit foggy, plus of course it was snowing (not like the photo above)… and my goggles have a dark lens so it was kind of like I was riding with my eyes closed but then maybe that made it more fun.

I’ve got Mini-Man registered for 4 private ski lessons through Grouse Mountain’s Adopt An Instructor program since the procrastinator in me waited to long to get him into Ski Wee group lessons before Christmas. I think I’ll put him in Ski Wee for after Christmas if I get around to it. We’re going to spend New Year’s weekend with Big Mack and his family and we’ll spend at least a day at Mount Baldy where the Macks are season passholders.

I can’t bear the thought of not working in this industry anymore once I move to Oliver; I’m sure I’ll find a way to work something out ;)

The end of an era

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Well it feels like an era… 11 1/2 years, that is.

That’s how long I’ve been on the payroll at Grouse Mountain. And come January, I will return to work only part time after my maternity leave to help transition someone new in to my role as Marketing Manager.

It all started as a summer job.

I had been living in Penticton, BC and working at Apex Mountain Resort as a lift operator while I went to school. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Hotel & Restaurant Management from Okanagan University College (which is now Okanagan College and UBC Okanagan Campus) and I wanted to figure out how to get one of those very coveted year-round jobs in the ski industry in BC’s interior. They are very few and far-between to say the least. So I began working as a Guest Services Representative at Grouse Mountain as a way to get my foot in the door with arguably one of the most successful year-round ski/recreation areas in the country. My plan at the beginning of summer 1999 had been to work there for the summer before going to Nelson, BC where I had been registered for the Selkirk College Ski Resort Operations & Management diploma program. Well due to a personal situation I didn’t end up going to Nelson; I stayed in North Vancouver, met Dave – the man I would later marry, and took on the position of Executive Assistant to the VP Marketing, also one of Grouse Mountain’s owners.

Over a year as her EA gave me a huge overview into the world of resort management. During that time, the owners of Grouse Mountain were heavily involved in the launching of Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden BC, so I also got to play a little part in it, which gave me huge insight into what it takes to build a four-season destination resort from scratch – it afforded me the opportunity to see and hear things I never would have seen or heard otherwise and I feel very blessed to have gained that amount of knowledge in such a short period of time.

During my time as EA, however, I realized I wasn’t on the right career path for me. I remember waking up one morning thinking, “What am I doing!? I want to HAVE an EA… not BE one.” So after an oddly stressful moment and the extension of way more grace than I was deserving of from the VP Marketing, I was handed the position of Marketing Coordinator. That was early in 2001.

Since then my position within the marketing team has shifted and morphed and moved and stretched and shifted again until I found myself in the position of Marketing Manager for Vancouver’s most-visited destination and an organization that I am very proud to be a part of. I have had the opportunity to grow my career within the safety of a company that appreciates me and my efforts and gives me the freedom to try new things. I was able to go out on a limb and lead the company into new marketing channels like social networking on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr before it hit the mainstream and blogging when other companies didn’t have the confidence to get in there and jump in to these then-emerging areas.

It’s strange when I think that I’ll be giving up a position I absolutely love with a company I have grown to adore filled with people I now consider some of my closest friends… but the future is before me and I’m excited to say I have no idea, really, where it will take me in the long run.

What I do know, however, is it will take me to Oliver BC, where I will become a stay-at-home mom to 5 kids when I marry Big Mack in April.

While I’m very excited to have found a partner I couldn’t possibly be more compatible with (thank you God!), I never thought I’d want to be a stay-at-home mom at all… let alone one to five children. But the last 9 months since Dave’s death have taught me just how important the people in our lives are and how we need to cherish and nurture those relationships. It’s more important to me that I raise my kids in a wholesome home environment than it is that I continue to live and work here in North Vancouver where my modest 800 square foot condo bears the same value as a 4-5 bedroom house in Oliver. Besides, I find it terribly ironic that I had always had the intention of moving back to the Okanagan all those years ago and had contemplated revisiting the idea even before I met Big Mack.

Just last year I couldn’t imagine leaving North Vancouver. Now I can’t imagine staying.

The thought of a new start in a new town with new people and a new outlook is very freeing… refreshing even. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for me. In the meantime, I will spend my final months in Vancouver working part time, recording an album of original music, snowboarding as much as I can, planning a wedding and spending time with my kids and the Macks.

I look forward to continuing to share the journey with you.

And the earth continues to spin

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Photo: Pete on flickr

It’s been over 8 months now since Dave died and the earth continues to spin; creation is alive all around us. The sun rises and sets; the tides change and people are moving around this earth at a harried pace.

As my kids have grown and changed over that short time, so have I. Where once I was blessed to be able to claim a peace that could come only from God in the midst of one of life’s greatest trials, I can now claim something even better: Joy.

My heart is filled with it.

It’s a very profound experience… losing a loved one. So profound that it can’t really be explained. Sure, I can tell you what I’m thinking and what I’ve experienced and how that has played out in my life but there’s really no way for anyone who hasn’t experienced it to understand it in any tangible way. Even for those who have lost someone close to them, their ability to understand someone else’s similar yet entirely different situation is weak.

Even if you think you understand for a second, it’s gone as quickly as it came.

Losing a spouse is different from losing a child or a parent or a grandparent or a sibling or a friend. And me losing my spouse is different from you losing your spouse. I realized that no one can feel what I’m feeling and it can be a very lonely place to be, really. But what it has done is make me dig in and seek out my peace, my comfort and my purpose in God through my relationship with Jesus Christ.

I know Mini-Man is experiencing his father’s death all on his own and that kills me. The fact that I can’t understand exactly what he’s going through in his little 4 year old head makes me want to cry for him. He will one day grow up and realize he had to go through his own process that will likely take much of his life to fully understand. And while I want to help him in whatever way I can, he will one day realize I have no idea what I’m doing and if what I am doing is even helping. I’m still conflicted about the thought that Mini-Boy won’t even ever remember his dad. Is that worse? Better?

I don’t know.

If there is only one thing I do know, though, it is that this lifetime is about relationships. Nothing more; nothing less. Nothing else matters. Not our jobs, not our possessions, not where we live, not our hobbies, not our cars, our houses, our clothes, our appearance. It’s our relationships, our experiences and our unique gifts and histories that paint a picture of life that we can share with others. It’s about loving and living and sharing and giving and enjoying creation. It’s about being good stewards of what we have and using our experiences to comfort others.

It’s about serving one another.

This life is filled with trial. My story certainly isn’t the worst one out there… people have gone through far worse situations than mine: war, famine, poverty, violence, oppression, abandonment, abuse. I don’t feel sorry for me… never have. God knows the bigger picture. And just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

And I trust in that bigger picture.

The earth continues to spin. My heart is joyful. God is working out a beautiful story in my life. I am engaged to be married again. I have no explanation or apology for this and I believe with all my heart that it’s part of that bigger picture… God’s plan.

I will write more as thes story continues to unfold.

If you’re new to my blog or have just stumbled upon it through a search engine, you can read all the entries about the death of my husband here.

Second Child

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Photo: Britannia Willes

So I was feeding Mini Boy earlier today and I was thinking how different it is with the second child.

When Mini Man was born, I vowed to be the perfect mother. I was going to get him to sleep perfectly, eat nothing but organic and whole earthy foods, nurse until he was in kindergarten and know all the countries of the world and their states, provinces and capitals by 8 months. He would be taught to crawl at 4 months, walk at 6 months and be snowboarding by the time he was two. He would learn violin at the age of 3 and write his first concerto by the time he was 5.

Well… now I get to enjoy number two.

Today I found myself feeding him Kraft Dinner and getting excited that he can clap at 10 months.