I thought last week was rough.   Then this week arrived, and made last week look good.  The unbelievable tragedy in Nova Scotia has rocked me, and has rocked our entire nation.  One of my brothers is a member of the RCMP.  Another of my brothers lives in Nova Scotia, as does our son-in-law, Matt’s, family.  It hits close to home.  The isolation we are all feeling in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, just seems to magnify our feelings.  The trouble is, all our regular coping methods, our ways of expressing grief, our ways of being together and helping one another are in isolation too. 

Usually when we hear of things that have happened, both good and bad, we know we have a stash of ‘go to’ reactions and actions.  Countless times I have simply gone to be with someone who needed being with.  I find comfort when I can bake or cook a meal and deliver it to a friend in need.  I gather my family close.  I join together with others to give and receive support and to simply have a place where we can share our feelings.  We have rituals and ceremonies to mark our important events.

Each of these little routines, give us a way to let our feelings find their way out of our bodies.  Those routines have a normalcy, and that helps us cope.  This week, my feelings have no where to go.  It’s like someone has stuck a cork in all of the usual escape routes.  We can’t gather with others.  We can’t talk in person.  We can’t hug.  We can’t go and be.  We can’t go to a memorial service.  We can’t visit hospitals.   We can’t even look forward to an exact date when we might be able to do some of these things again.

So, the question I’ve been wrestling with this week is this, ‘How do we show our love and provide support, when the storm is so big, and so different than anything we have ever known?’

The answers I have come up with have been found in two places; in Nova Scotia and in my marriage.  Today, Saturday, April 25th, Jim and I celebrate forty years of marriage.  We had hoped to be in Ireland.  Then in June, we had booked a trip to Nova Scotia, for me to bike the Cabot Trail with my friend Rhonda, and with my brother, Daniel, the RCMP officer, and his partner Victoria.  Jim was to be our trusty support person.  Both of these trips are now on pause of course.  Whether or not we are in Ireland, and  Nova Scotia, we still have forty years on which to reflect.

What I know from my marriage is that if you stay married for any length of time, you will have storms to navigate.  No two storms will be alike.  Some will be mild, some will be incredibly frightening, some will be shocking, and some will whip up waves that feel like they could sweep you away.  A few will leave rainbows.  None of the storms will come in times of convenience.  Most will come with little or no warning.  Many will come while we have our attention fixed firmly in a different direction. None will come with an instruction manual. 

Jim and I have had our share of storms.  We have lost parents and unborn babies and siblings.  We have had children move far away.   We have weathered two open-heart surgeries and countless hospital stays.  We have had job disappointments and people disappointments.  I’m not sure if we’ve had more or less than anyone else.  No one gets through life, or marriage, without storms.

Nova Scotia has storms too.  One of the things I fell in love with when we visited Nova Scotia in the year of Canada’s 150th birthday, was her most beautiful lighthouses.  No matter the storm battering the shore, those lighthouses have stood for literally hundreds of years, offering beacons of safety and hope.  These days, electronics assist in keeping lights shining, but in long ago times, lighthouse keepers were employed to keep the light burning.  I’m certain the keepers had other duties to attend but their absolute primary duty was to keep the light burning so fishermen and seamen could navigate their way safely along the shore and home.  The light from the lighthouses provided comfort, guidance and hope. 

Lighthouses do not get to choose their storms.  Neither do marriages.  Neither do the people of Nova Scotia.  Neither do we, the citizens of Canada.  Lighthouses do not always get warnings about storms.  Neither do marriages.  Neither do the people of Canada.  In a good marriage, when one person is battling a storm, the other keeps the light shining.  In good countries, when one province or one group of people is battling a storm, the others keep the light shining.  Lighthouses stand tall, and continue to shine their light through the storm.  The ones that do this are the ones that do the most good.  So too with marriages.  And countries.

Our front-line workers do not have the luxury of being lighthouse keepers.  Honouring the oaths they have taken, they must rush headlong into storms.  We are grateful they do this.  The rest of us can do our part by keeping the light.

Right now, we want to gather all Nova Scotians, and all families affected by the tragedy there, and the Covid-19 crisis everywhere, and do what we have always done.   We cannot.  Now is our time to take a lesson from Nova Scotia and from her lighthouses.  We need to simply keep our light on, letting others know that although we cannot head out to sea to help them navigate the storm they face, we can show them that we wait, ready to provide comfort, peace, and a sense of togetherness.

May each of us, keep our light on for our cousins in Nova Scotia and for all those working so hard to guide us through this pandemic.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I keeping my light on?’
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to be a faithful lighthouse keeper.
 
 

Before your imagination gets away on you, spoiler alert!  I am NOT pregnant.   With that out of the way, the past week has brought with it a couple of pregnancy related announcements from our friends, and that of course has my mind wandering to the whole idea of pregnancy.

Our world bid a most wonderful welcome to my dear friend, Debbie’s son and his partner’s firstborn.   Little William  arrived safely, healthy, loved and treasured.  Then only a couple of days later my friend Donna was given the green light to announce the pregnancy of her daughter – this is a pregnancy to be celebrated and prayed for, as I am faithfully doing each day.

As I was spending time being thankful for both these announcements, my mind also wandered to the times I had been pregnant.  I can easily recall so many of the feelings and worries and hopes I had during that time.  I realized some of those feelings were not unlike the feelings I’m experiencing now. 

When a woman first gets the news she is pregnant, whether from a doctor, as it was in my case, or from a kit in a drugstore, which seems to give a person a bit of time to digest the information on her own, the first thing realized is that you really have absolutely no idea what is ahead of you. 

It becomes quickly apparent that things will be changing for at least a certain number of months.  It is as though the life you once knew and were so comfortable with is put on pause, a great pause. So too with this pandemic.  It feels like we are in the midst of a great pause.  Pregnant women are informed by those in positions of authority of things they can and cannot do, of things they should and should not do, and they are often given endless supplies of unwelcome advice from countless people.  So too with this pandemic.

When I was pregnant, there were foods and drinks to give up.  There were countries to avoid travelling to. In fact, as I recall, air travel was not really recommended at all, unless there was a serious emergency.  Walking of course, was encouraged.  But being in contact with people infected with colds, the flu and measles were not.  Eating healthy and keeping blood pressure in check were on the list of ‘dos’.  So too with this pandemic. 

Beyond those practical things, I had plenty to worry about.  I couldn’t see the baby growing inside me, and I had to trust others that it was progressing as was expected.  Other than following the few guidelines set out for me in a pamphlet, I really felt I had very little control over making sure that the life in me was going to be ok.   So too with this pandemic.

The other thing I recall about being pregnant was it was really hard for me to imagine what our new life with a new baby would be like.  With our firstborn, Kaitlyn, we, like all parents thought we could imagine the changes headed out way.  Of course, we had absolutely no way of understanding the full impact her entrance to the world would have on us.  With our second, Gregory, we couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to introduce a sibling to the mix.  We couldn’t imagine that our love wasn’t limited and that instantly, upon his arrival, it would simply expand so there was enough for all of us. 

I also recall some days and weeks just dragging, and some flying by.  I remember sometimes being tearful and sometimes being giddy.  I remember wanting the private time with my baby to last, and I remember not being able to stand the wait until the birth day.  So too, with this pandemic.

While I can recall the discomforts of the pregnancy, I have to admit they are not front and centre in my mind.  I have to think hard about them to recall them at all. 

What I do remember clearly, what I learned from being pregnant, giving birth and starting a new life with our children is this.  I could never, ever, ever, have imagined the absolute joy, new unexpected gifts, depth of love, new experiences and new ways of being that came with the birth of our children. 

In these weeks when I find myself tearing up at the Modern Family season finale, at emails from friends, at Jim telling me that Ben blew him a kiss when he was dropping something off on their front porch, at a video of man playing his guitar and singing Amazing Grace, through an opened window, with his mother who is in a long-term care facility, at Debbie telling me of William’s birth and of Donna telling me of her daughter’s healthy pregnancy, I remember that these things would have given me the same reaction many years ago when I was waiting for new life.

I cling to the idea that when restrictions are lifted, when we are blessed with our new life of sorts, we too, will simply be amazed that the life we so tried to anticipate, is more precious than we ever could have imagined.  I pray the way we are imagining ourselves being will be realized.  I pray we will remember gratitude.  I pray we will remember the importance each member of our society holds.  I am praying I find ways to grow during these times (not necessarily around my waist) that will allow me to become the person I am imagining I will be.

Right now, we are in the midst of a great pause.  In pregnancy, we need the months of pause to allow new life to grow.  During our pandemic, I am trying to be patient to allow our world to grow too, into the healthy, loving, vibrant home we long for.
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how find your area of growth during these times.
 
 
 
 

I’ve heard from a lot of people this week.  Everyone has a similar message.  While people are coping, finding ways to pass the days, and figuring out a ‘new normal’, this week has brought with it, feelings of ‘Ok then, that’s enough’.

The first weeks of physical distancing were filled with lists and, if you were healthy, an appreciation of a rare gift of time.   It’s the only time many of us can recall when we had at our fingertips, unspoken for time.  Time perhaps to start on some long overdue projects, or to work on some beloved hobbies.  People were racing to beat each other to Facebook and Twitter and the ‘Gram’ (the Gram???!!!)  with pictures of completed crossword puzzles and loaves of freshly made bread.  We were delighting in the unexpected blessings that had come our way; connections with old friends, Zoom calls to hold book clubs and classes, Netflix shows to watch at our leisure, and time for daily walks.

This week the shine is wearing off.  The common sentiment is that people have geared down to a slower pace; undone projects are not alluring, Zoom is losing some of her appeal, and motivation is as scarce as toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

On Wednesday, when the Premier of Alberta gave his address, there wasn’t really any shocking new news.  But it was stunning to hear it said aloud: We will be remaining in our state of physical distancing for at least eight more weeks. It’s no wonder people have slowed down to the point of discouragement.  Eight weeks is long enough that we can safely waste time and still get to those pesky projects.

His words stopped me in my tracks.  I’ve spent the last four weeks counting my blessings along with photos in those old albums.  I’ve behaved.  I’ve stayed home.  I’ve followed the rules.  And now, eight more weeks.  It’s enough to make a grown girl cry.  Plenty of people have mentioned their tears that have flowed this week.

I try to be a witness to my own life, to discover what I am meant to learn by living it.  This week, amid the discouragement I learned something.  Last Friday, a week ago, I received an email telling about a situation in Kenya.  About ten years ago, I happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, to be lucky enough to start a registered Canadian Charity.  Our mandate was to raise money to build schools in a small rural area of the country, Ewaso Ngiro.  My original intent was not only to build the schools, but to teach the students at my school about the power they have to change the world.  All of us involved in the project learned this lesson in spades. 

While many of those students are now pursuing adult lives, the Charity, RDL Building Hope Society, continues to operate and we continue to be very connected with our partners in Ewaso Ngiro, and with the school and the community there.  Additionally, we have done much more than build schools.  We have developed wonderful relationships with the people in this community, we have helped the teachers modernize their methods, we have supplied books and food and encouragement.  We have given generously, and have received far more in return.

The email that arrived told me of the affect Covid 19 was having on this wonderful community. While the virus itself has not reached Ewaso Ngiro, all schools and marketplaces are closed.  Because students were regularly receiving two meals each day at school, having closed schools means they are not being fed.  With markets closed there is no place to sell livestock to get money for food.  Our friends in our school community were beginning to go hungry.   To tighten up the story, suffice it to say, a request for donations was sent, responded to and by Monday, Joy, our treasurer, and I, donned our masks, entered the bank and wired enough money to help with the first few weeks of food.  This community too will have many weeks of physical distancing and we are continuing to work on ways to help them.

Our partner in Kenya, David, used the money to order a shipment of food and hand washing supplies, and organized the community to come to receive it.  He sent us some incredible photos of the operation he set up.  And in with one of his emails of thanks to Karen, one of our organization’s Directors, he ended with this,

I have heard and said, be safe, be happy, be good, be kind, but never be blessed.
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When I have heard be safe, I have assumed it was in my power to do so.  I had not realized it is in my power to be blessed.  I have always thought of blessings as things that were bestowed on me or given to me; things over which I did not have much control.  But the way David used it in his short message, well, let’s just say that his words too, stopped me in my tracks. 

To be blessed may not have nearly as much to do with things other people do for us as they do with how we choose to recognize blessings in our lives and how we choose to be blessed by them.  It is in this spirit that I have spent the last few days of this week; being blessed. 

On Tuesday I was repeatedly blessed.  My doorbell, which has not been overused these weeks, rang in the morning when I was on the phone figuring out more logistics for our project in Kenya.  Jim answered and was delighted with an appropriately distanced visit from my friend Gina who was checking in.   A few hours later, I received a phone call asking me to come to the door.  It was an appropriately distanced Karen, dropping off some beautiful daffodils.  And then when all was quiet in the late evening, the doorbell chimed again.  This time it was an appropriately distanced Steve, Joy’s husband, who was dropping off a cotton mask Joy had made for me.  Be blessed, David had said.  And so, we were.

I am choosing to be blessed this Easter weekend.  Some of my blessings will come with a side serving of tears.  I will still choose to be blessed.  We cannot have Easter dinner with our kids so we have designed a pandemic appropriate meal.  Each of the kids and our nephew and us, have chosen a part of the meal to make. We will divide the dishes we make into portions for each family.  I will set out boxes in our garage and everyone will deliver their contribution at an appointed time.  When they are filled, each family will individually pick theirs up and take it home so that we can still share our Easter meal.

I will be the lady with the tears at the window watching as our family comes and goes; the lady being blessed.

Happy Easter to you and your family.  Be blessed.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I being blessed?’
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Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to identify blessings.

I’m guessing the feelings we’ve been experiencing in our house this week are not a lot different than those felt in thousands of homes around our country.  From morning to afternoon to evening, we do not suffer from a lack of variety in terms of our feelings.  Our daughter, Kaitlyn, would say, ‘We’ve been really feeling all our feelings.’

I thought I might take a minute this week to try to express some of my feelings.  It’s a selfish move on my part.  When my thoughts are just swirling around in my own head bumping into each other, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by them.  When I can talk them out or in this case, get them on paper, sort of shine a light on them, they don’t have the same power over me.

My current situation is one of privilege.  We are not sick.  Although our businesses have both slowed to a crawl, we do not worry about our next meal or paying a mortgage.  Our families, and even our large extended families, are all Covid-19 free.  We do have elderly parents, but neither of them is in a care facility, and both are in good health.  Jim and I get outside for a nice walk in the country each day.  We connect with our children via FaceTime, Zoom and online games and have lots and lots of jobs and interests and hobbies to keep the days full.

Yet, we’ve had tears.

It was Jim’s birthday on Tuesday.  It was one of those milestone ones.  We knew we would be spending the day together, just the two of us.  We’ve not spent in-person time with anyone else for several weeks now, so the idea of spending this day together-alone wasn’t a surprise.  I had even talked myself into the idea that it would take us back to where we started, over forty years ago.  At that time, we wanted nothing more than just to be together.  And here we were again, just the two of us. 

Jim’s gift from me this year was an experience.  I can’t give away the secret here because although Jim now knows about it, one of the people he will share it with won’t find out for another couple of weeks.  At any rate, I created a puzzle for Jim to solve as a way to reveal his gift.  My plan was to have him work on it over breakfast and into the morning, which he did.  Then Jim checked his phone and was welcomed to his birthday with many wonderful Happy Birthday messages.  Kaitlyn had sent a little video of Ben singing Happy Birthday Mampa.  That brought on the first set of tears.  It was the first of many seeming contradictions in our feelings that day.

​On the one hand, we have so many blessings to count.   The very fact that Jim has reached this age is no small miracle.  Given his family history of heart disease, and his own personal history with heart disease, with myocarditis and his heart attack, there have been many reasons to think he would not see this milestone.  And yet he has, and is healthy, happy, active and loving life.  So, this hand is full.  Full of gratitude, full of good health, full of blessings.  Neither of us take the fullness of this hand for granted.  Both of us handle it with care.

In our other hand though, it feels like we are carrying grief.  When I carried Jim’s birthday cake to him, singing solo, I didn’t make it past the first line before bursting into tears.  Usually we have our whole family with us; our children, our children-in-law, our grandson, our nephew and his girlfriend and my brother and his girlfriend.  We usually make such a wonderful choir of voices.  I could hardly stand not having our family, the one we are so grateful for, with us.  This hand of grief also felt full.  And also needed to be held with care.

My hand of gratitude did not cancel out my hand full of grief.  I’ve had to keep reminding myself it is possible to carry two very different things at the same time.

I am seeing and feeling a lot of this ‘two-full-hands’ syndrome around me.  I see each of us doing what we can to help curb the virus, by staying home, hand washing and taking social-distancing seriously.  In this hand we hold a feeling of control.  In our other hand we hold such a lack of control; we have no template for this world we find ourselves in.  We are moving forward using Braille. 

In one hand we hold hope.  We see numbers beginning to weaken in certain regions of the world.  At the same time, our other hand is filled with despair.  We despair at the thousands and thousands of lives, young and old, being lost.

In one hand we hold normalcy and calm.  Meals get made, chores get done, work continues albeit in a different setting.  In the other hand we hold a complete lack of normalcy.  Nothing feels quite right.  We have simple thoughts of running to the store for something and then remind ourselves to stay put.  Regular activities and appointments are cancelled.  The axis of the earth seems off.

Our front-line workers are having these ‘two-hands-full’ moments too.  On one hand they are doing exactly what they have been trained to do; to care for those of us who are too sick to care for ourselves.  In this hand they carry all their skills, their training, their expertise and their compassion.  But in their other hand they must be carrying exhaustion and fear.  They too have families who they leave each day when they go to work.  Their families are missing their voices around their kitchen tables; voices that are an important part of their family’s choir. 

What I know for sure is it is normal to carry two very different feelings at once.  In fact, we are good at it.   It is healthy for us to acknowledge it.  It is not a contest between our hands.  Both things can, and should be carried at the same time. 
Jim’s birthday was a perfect reminder of this.  We felt so grateful to know we have such a loving family, and so heartbroken not to be able to be together with them.  We have two full hands.
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My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What’s in your other hand?’

Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to hold two full hands.