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?’
​
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.
​
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.
​
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?’
​
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.
​
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.

I’ve spent some time this week working on a project I’ve been meaning to get to for over ten years.  It was around the time that both our kids were graduating from University (for the first time!) that I spent many evenings scanning all the pictures I’d taken since they were born and putting them into photo books.  Each book covered a five-year period.  I made four books in all, covering from 1985 to 2005.  

They were thrilled with them, and so was I.  Instead of having about a dozen of those old, heavy, thick photo albums, with yellowing pages, we now had sleek photo books that in total occupy only about eight centimetres on our shelves.  When I finally finished those books and breathed a sigh of accomplishment, Jim asked if I was going to do the other years too.

Let’s just say my response was not favourable.  And yet, for the past many years, this project has been hanging on a hook in my brain, occupying space that I could easily have used for other things.  This week, knowing we are choosing to be in self-isolation, and knowing I find having a schedule to be comforting, I put this project on my list along with several others like quilting, knitting, cribbage, walks, ukulele, meditating and using up what we have in the pantry.

When we moved to this house five years ago, all those extra albums, the pre 1985 ones, and the post 2005 ones, were boxed up and moved with us.  They have remained in those boxes on shelves since then.  On the weekend I went to the basement and hauled them out so I could at least see what I was facing.  It was overwhelming.  And yet I knew, the journey of a thousand photos….

What started as a daunting project soon became one I looked forward to spending time with each day.  As I’d open each album, peel back the clear, sticky cellophane, thought to be a wonder product in its day, and gently pry each individual photo off the page, before measuring, scanning and saving it, I found myself engrossed in the story of our life as told in the pages of these books.

What has simply astounded me, is how many details of our story I have forgotten.   Or at least have not bothered to include in the story in my mind.  I can only assume I took pictures of places and people and events that were important to me.  And yet, these are not all remembered with the same amount of clarity. 

This idea of what becomes the story, after the details of it have had some years to filter into their spots in history, has struck a chord with me this week.  The Covid-19 story is being written as we go.  None of us knows the ending.  Today, the pictures that are being taken are many.  I am so grateful these will all be of the digital kind and will never have to be pried from old albums.  We have pictures of hospital corridors in Italy, lined with patients; some lying on the floor.  We see the military patrolling the streets of Spain.  We see the empty streets in a normally over-crowded India.  We see young adults frolicking carelessly on beaches in Florida.  We see friends posts of clean cupboards, and of piles of things waiting to be donated. 

These things are, of course, all important parts of the story.  Certainly, we should have pictures of these in our albums commemorating these times. 

But there are other photos that are being taken too.  There are photos of friends ‘visiting’ over Zoom chats.  There are pictures of groceries being dropped off on doorsteps.  There are shots of people singing on balconies, and of others cheering on the front-line workers from their front doors.  There are pictures of small children taking neighbourhood walks to wave to their friends through windows.  There are even rumours of politicians of opposing views, coming together to work for the good of the city, province and country.  There are professional athletes choosing to cover the wages of stadium workers.

These too, are important parts of the story and these pictures too will go into our albums.  The question will be, if, like with my albums, the brain only remembers a story in a certain way, which way will each of us remember this time?

Research tells us that the strongest memories are formed when they are linked to strong feelings.  This is why we easily remember things like the birth of our children, events where we really connected with others, events that frightened us or ones that made us come alive.  I suspect that whatever feelings we have in these weeks and months we are navigating, will be the ones that help us form our memories.  I’m going to try to create feelings over these weeks that will foster the kinds of memories I want to have.  I’m not afraid of losing my memory about how bad or frightening or lonely a time this is.  I will certainly remember how hard it is to not see our children and little Ben.  It is important for me to remember these things.  And yet, there are other things I want to remember too.

I want to remember how nice it has been to go out into the country for a walk with Jim each day.  Just being in our old neck of the woods has been very comforting to me.  Not needing to rush home for anything is a rare treat.  I want to remember how I rushed out to the door of the garage today to film the garbage truck picking up our recycling.  Garbage trucks are Ben’s absolute favourite thing, so I can send him this little video as a way to connect.  I want to remember how nice it was to see my book club friends on a group chat, and my dancing friends on a separate one and that in both groups, being able to talk about our fears and thoughts brings us closer.  I want to remember what fine people our children are; how they are making the best possible choices to both care for their own families and to do everything possible to see to it that we are safe too.

I want to remember what it is like to miss doing the things I love, so that when the restrictions are lifted, and the axis of the world rights itself, I will never again dismiss simple pleasures or be so entitled as to think I can assume the things and people I love today will still be available to me tomorrow.

For now, I’m going to keep on scanning 1983.  I’ll also keep creating new pictures for the book of 2020.  I’m going to assume it will have a most miraculous ending.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What memories am I creating?’
​
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 develop skills needed for navigating uncharted waters.
 

I usually write my blog before the days end Thursday each week, and last week was no different.  I wrote it Wednesday.  At the time of that writing, we knew COVID-19 was on the way, it had even made a few appearances, and I had decided to change some of my habits and appointments, but its true force had not revealed itself.

Then Thursday arrived.

On Thursday morning, I saw a message from our former acreage neighbour, Elizabeth, that one of their dogs had been chasing a fox and had not returned home the night before.  Elizabeth was house and dog sitting for her parents who were away on the end of a two-week trip.  I knew she would be worried and I also knew that looking for Max in the rolling Foothills was not something anyone could do alone.  Even with a group it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.  I offered that Jim and I would come out to help her. 

Between the time I read Elizabeth’s message, and the time I returned home, it felt like the earth had lost her axis.  Max hadn’t been found, but we had followed his tracks and he eventually arrived safely home in the evening.  As I drove home, mid-afternoon, the ten-minute news cycle on the local AM radio station, which usually gets repetitive after two cycles, had continuous new updates about Covid - 19.  It was hard to process it all.

And then I got home and found out there was even more news to process.

Our daughter texted to ask, “Mom, did you hear?  Ken King died.”

To be very, very clear, Ken, the former President and CEO of the Calgary Flames, and recently Vice Chairman of CSEC, was not my best friend.  He may not even have been able to pick me out of a line up.  But he has had a lasting impact on me.  And the news of his death, while not a surprise, hit much harder than I had been expecting.

Two years ago, my friend Rhonda and I decided to bike in the Ride to Conquer Cancer.  Rhonda’s husband, John worked with Ken, as did our friend, Coralie.  I only knew Ken through the media and through their connection with him.  I did know he had been diagnosed with cancer.  Ken’s brother, Ray, and Ray’s wife, Francine, were going to ride in the Ride, and we were invited to join the team of King’s Road Warriors.  I was pleased to have been asked.  In my mind, there would be an army of us riding on that team.  I was picturing our massive team at the start line and hoping I could keep up.

As with many of our imaginings, real life looks quite different.  We arrived at the starting place in the predawn.  Thousands of cyclists were assembling under a smoke-filled sky.  The first people we saw were Ken, who was going to ride as far as he could, Ray and Francine who were joining us, Ken’s wife Marilyn, one of his daughters and several of his grandchildren who were there to cheer us on as we started.  It turns out Ray, Francine, Rhonda, myself and Ken, were the entire team.  I felt some pressure.

I knew Ken was not feeling well.  I’d been told he did not want the spotlight on him, that he would not want us to ‘slow down’ for him, that he wouldn’t like talking about his cancer, and basically that it was biking business as usual.  Most of us had tears running down our faces as the National Anthem played.  And then we were off.

We all biked along pretty gently for the first couple of kilometres.  We had been told it was an easy route, with gently rolling hills.  That may have been a slight stretch.  No more than a few kilometres into the ride the first hill loomed in front of us.  I think it was Ray who said we should just bike up it like normal, that Ken would do his best to navigate it at his own speed. 

I could not bear it.

I was behind the group so I slowed my pace thinking I could stay behind Ken without him knowing.  I was a little concerned he might topple off his bike and I couldn’t stand the idea of him being alone.  We hadn’t climbed one-quarter of the hill when he got slower and slower and slower until I could no longer stay pedalling.  Neither could he.   We stepped off our bikes and started to walk side by side.  I said not one word.  Eventually he started to talk.  With labouring breath, he told me about his cancer.  He told me about his prognosis.  He told me about his reduced lung capacity.  He told me how frustrated he was at his body.  We chatted easily together. 

We climbed the hill together.

I had hoped that the money we raised could save Ken, and all the others we biked for.  It did not.  Some have experienced a cure.  Others, have had many more months and years than they would have without the research and new treatments.

What I learned from that first hill on the Ride is helping me this week as we all face uncharted waters with COVID -19.  There is not one person who is not hill climbing right now.  Hill climbing looks like worrying about money, like feeling forgotten, like not knowing what to do with our days, like guilt over not being at work, like guilt over being at work, like being far from family, like being close to family but not being able to see them, like second guessing ourselves, like having no control, like feeling helpless.

Often, we think we can, and perhaps even that we want, to climb our hills alone.  We don’t want to be a bother.  Here is what I know.  All hill-climbing people make it to the top more easily when they have someone to climb along side them.  We don’t need answers.  We don’t need matching stories.  We don’t need witty comebacks.  We don’t even need to talk.
We need simply to walk beside.

Each of us can find an opportunity to walk beside.  Walking beside looks like making phone calls, checking in with people who live alone, and with those whose pantry shelves my not look as full as ours.  It looks like letting go, for a while, of some of the things we thought defined us.  It looks like caring, and random acts of kindness.  It looks like smiling from a distance, and saying thank you to health care professionals and politicians.   It looks like listening.   
 
It looks like walking up a hill with Ken King. 
 
My wish for you during this challenging time is that you find friends and not-yet friends with whom to do some hill-walking.  You’ll both feel better at the top.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How can I walk beside?’
​
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 become a hill-walker.

Wash your hands.  This is the new battle cry against the 2020 Covid-19 virus.  This virus, only months ago unheard of, has people around the globe on edge.  For good reason, too.  To watch the exhausted medical staff in Italy work around the clock, hospitals overflowing and new patients still arriving, makes all of us recognize ‘there but for the grace of God go I’.

It turns out this pesky, but mighty, little virus is spread not only when droplets of bodily fluid are shared through coughing or sneezing, but also when someone who is infected with it touches a surface with their fingers.  In doing so, they deposit live germs on it.  Then, along comes an unsuspecting potential victim who also touches the surface with their fingers.  Not realizing they may have been infected they carry on with their day, possibly touching their face, which happens to have just the right kind of openings for the virus to enter the body.

It's enough to make a person terrified to go about regular life.  It also seems to bring on a strange fixation with toilet paper, but that’s a whole different issue!  It certainly has shone a spotlight on the idea of fingerprints, and as always, once something is brought to my attention, I see evidence of it everywhere.  I’ve been seeing fingerprints this week.

Jim serves on the Board of Directors at the Leighton Art Centre.  The Leighton Art Centre, situated in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains, provides a place for artists, budding artists, art lovers and nature lovers to gather to celebrate and share not only their talents, but also the beauty of the place itself.  One of the offerings Jim has made to the centre, is to invite the public to come to the Centre to participate in one of his nature workshops.  This weekend he had planned to offer Stories in the Snow.  Jim is very at home in nature and he has spent countless hours, days and years noticing and learning about animals, about how to identify them, how they interact with their environment, and what makes them interesting and special.  He’s developed a sharp eye for evidence of their presence. 

In Stories in the Snow, he guides his group around the Leighton Art Centre property, finding and pointing out tracks in the snow, made by the many deer, skunks, elk, mice, moose, birds, weasels and even the rare cougar that call the LAC home.  When there is snow on the ground, there is no way these animals can go about their lives without leaving prints behind.  By studying the tracks, or fingerprints, of these animals, it is easy to discover how they travel, what they eat, who they may fear, what size of groups they move in and more.  Sometimes their tracks are purposeful.  When one deer or elk leads the herd across a field, the ones following use his or her footprints as their path too.  The deliberate steps make travel easier for everyone following behind.  Other times, the tracks are simply an unintended consequence of daily living.
On Friday, when Jim was putting the finishing touches on his workshop, we had little Ben visiting.  Ben’s mind seems to expand more each week than mine has in the last ten years.  This week he had been helping me make muffins and he had evidence of the main ingredient, chocolate chips, on his face.  I sent him to the mirror in the hallway to take a look.  Later, as is often the case after he has been by for a visit, I noticed tiny hand prints on the mirror.  I never rush to remove these.  They just bring such a smile to my face when I see them, I’m content to let them stay put.

We, like the animals Jim studies, all leave hundreds and hundreds of ‘fingerprints’ in our wake as we travel about our lives.  Just like those left by patients who are carrying the Covid-19 virus, we don’t necessarily realize we are leaving them, and we certainly don’t think about what some of the possible unintended consequences of them are.  Ben has no ideas his fingerprints just look like love to me.

We leave fingerprints with our words.  We leave fingerprints with our actions, with our promises, with our smiles, with our acceptance, with our efforts, with our talents, with our moods, with our meals, with our traditions, with our presence.  We leave fingerprints when we listen, when we frown, when we smile, when we engage and when we don’t.  Some of these are the kind we never want to wash off, others are the ones like those I find on my glasses; ones I can’t seem to clean away no matter how hard I try.

We’re told our best defence against this quickly spreading Covid-19 virus is to wash our hands. Up until now, I’ve been assuming that I need to wash my hands because of what I may be picking up.  I now recognize that I put down as many fingerprints as I pick up.  I also recognize that every single time I come into contact with someone, I leave a fingerprint.  I want to believe that I only leave clean, even helpful fingerprints.  But I know it is not so.  I know some of my fingerprints not only leave a mark, they leave marks that aren’t nearly as cute as Ben’s, or nearly as beautiful as the ones left in the snow by the animals.

To avoid spreading Covid -19, we are to wash our hands; to wash them frequently and for the proper length of time; about twenty seconds.  This week, because I’m trying to not only avoid Covid-19, but also to practice meditation, as I wash my hands, I am thinking about all of the fingerprints I will no doubt create before my next handwashing.  I am focusing on leaving only the most love-filled, kindest ones behind. 

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What fingerprints am I leaving?’

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 wash your hands.
 
 

Last week I attended the funeral of one of my former students, Jarod.  I also learned of the death of the father of my friend, Marguerite.  One was forty-four years old, the other one hundred.  While Jarod’s death felt like a life cut very short, Marguerite’s dad, Daniel’s, long time on this planet felt like something to be celebrated.  And yet, neither death was sadder than the other.  Both left behind grieving families and friends.  As I most often do when I hear of a death, I read both Jarod and Daniel’s obituaries.  When I read that of Daniel, I learned that his mother had died when he was a very little boy, in the days shortly after the birth of his brother.  No doubt it was in these very early years he first began to develop his resilience. Reading Jarod’s I learned of his incredible love of his family’s cabin on Kootenay Lake. 

The day following Jarod’s funeral, I met with one of Jarod’s classmates from our school, now a good friend of mine, Mark.  Mark and I never lack for conversation.  We always tackle the big issues and leave the rest for the others.  We don’t spend much time chit chatting about the price of oil, or the weather, or gossiping about others.  We do ponder things that matter to us; things like whether we are spending our lives in ways that are satisfying, and if we are being who we want to be, and for that matter trying to figure out just who it is exactly we want to be.  It sounds deep, but to us it feels normal, and from my perspective, even comforting.

Usually Mark and I ‘meet’ through email, but on Saturday we were able to enjoy a rare face to face visit over coffee in a local coffee shop.  During the conversation Mark was telling me he is considering his next steps career wise.  I immediately felt I could relate to his sense of importance about this.   Although I had the luxury of spending a long, very satisfying career in teaching, before taking the leap (ok, more like a series of small hops) into coaching, I could easily remember all the feelings that came with my decision to leave a profession I had so dearly loved, and that had been so very rewarding to me.

One of the things I said to Mark was that although decisions like this feel overwhelming, and as though we need to get them right we won’t ruin our lives if we do not.  I told him about how I now talk about my 33-year teaching career.  It has been boiled down to one sentence.  “I taught for thirty-three years.”

Even I am shocked.  How, I wonder, can something that filled every waking thought of mine for all that time be boiled down into such a small, simple sentence.  I spent many hours trying to make good decisions in my career.  I thought of ways to make lessons interesting.  I agonized over trying to make each student feel welcome and safe, and spent sleepless nights when I had a hunch I might be missing something.  I searched for ways to help students discover their greatness.  I poured myself willingly into it.  I loved it.  And even after all of that, it is a simple sentence.  I taught for thirty-three years.

I have found this to be liberating in many ways, and at the same time very sobering.  If my beloved career is now one sentence, then so are, and will be, the other things in my life.  If I make some decisions that don’t turn out to be fueling my passions, I likely won’t include them in my sentence collection.  I’m realizing that most of us, if we are lucky, get about ten good sentences in life. 

I taught for thirty-three years. 

If we only get about ten of these, give or take, we need to make them all sentences worth writing.  More importantly, when we say them, we should be stirred.  Our English teachers would have, no doubt, wanted us to create interesting sentences; sentences that conveyed a feeling or ones that described a series of events in vivid detail. They would have wanted us to use a variety of sentence structures.  And sometimes even to surprise our readers.  My sentences are none of this.  But when I say them, I hope whoever is listening can see the sparkle in my eyes and hear the deep satisfaction and love in my voice. 

When reading the obituaries of both Daniel, 100, and Jarod, 44, it was easy to find the sparkles.  And after many conversations with Mark, I’m sure his recent work with the Invictus games will end up being one of his sparking sentences.  For my part, I’m challenging myself to have ten solid, eye sparkling sentences of my own to share.

I know I have most likely written more than half my sentences.  Knowing this helps me be more discerning about how, and with whom, I choose to create my next sentences.  It’s kind of my new litmus test.  I’ve already tried it out this week.  Rhonda told me she was going to ride in this summer’s Ride to Conquer Cancer and asked if I was going to join her.  Will I sparkle, I wondered for a second?  And then I signed up.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What sparkling sentence am I writing?’

To read more about my ride, or to donate, click here.

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 create sparkling sentences.

In a week when the news has been filled with emotionally charged stories, from pipeline protests, to the Covid-19 virus, to the Weinstein trial, it seems the one story everyone can find magic in, is the that of the Zamboni driver turned NHL goalie from last weekend.  Thank heavens for David Ayres.  We needed him this week. In case you missed the story, last weekend, during a hockey game in Toronto between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes, both Hurricane goalies were injured and could not mind the net.  It turns out that each franchise, when hosting a home game, is required to have on standby, a back-up goalie.  This back-up goalie must fill in for either team should their two goalies be unable to play. 

Introducing, David Ayres.

David is no stranger to hockey.  But he had never been a goalie in the NHL.  In his younger years, Ayres now 42, played in the Allan Cup Hockey League as a goalie.  More recently, he served as a backup to both the Toronto Marlies and the Charlotte Checkers in the American Hockey League.  In 2004 David became ill and required a kidney transplant.  His donor was his mom, Mary.

For a number of years, he worked at Ricoh Coliseum, now Coca-Cola Coliseum, home of the Toronto Marlies.  As manager, he was occasionally required to do maintenance and sometimes operated the ice resurfacer, hence the nick name, Zamboni driver.  While working at the Ricoh Coliseum one of the equipment men found out he was a goalie and the head coach of the Marlies started using him as a goaltender at practice when an extra man was needed, as did the Maple Leafs.

These days, he works at Mattamy Athletic Centre, the old Maple Leaf Gardens, as the building’s operations manager.  And he is on call just in case.  Just in case the almost impossible situation arises; both goalies from the one of the teams are injured and he is needed to fill in. On Saturday night, it just happened that the goalies who were injured were both from the opposing team – the Hurricanes.

It shouldn’t have surprised anyone that he arrived on the ice wearing a Marlies helmet and pads, and a Maple Leaf’s t-shirt under his equipment.  And yet the job he was asked to do was to help Carolina win.  To make matters even tougher for him, he knew full well that the odds were stacked against him.  The NHL is a big step up.  Despite having taken his fair share of shots fired from Maple Leaf players in practice, facing them in a game, where they were now the opposition couldn’t have been easy.

His ‘new’ team, the Hurricanes, were up 3-1 when he entered.  I’m thinking the Leafs saw an easy opportunity for them to catch up and take the lead, especially after he allowed two of their early shots to go in, tying the game.

But somewhere between the second and third period, he found his stride.  Players from both teams, recognizing the difficult position he had been placed in, gave him encouragement.  When players from the Hurricanes told him to not worry about it, and that they were going to play hard to help him, he reached deep down and dug out the dream he must have carried for years.  The Carolina Hurricanes managed a 6 – 3 win.  After the first two goals scored on him, Ayres never let another shot hit the back of the net.

So often in life we are told to live in the moment.  To not be looking behind ourselves, longing for the good old days, nor looking too far forward to days that may not come.  And yet, I’m beginning to think we need a blend of at least two of these.  It is of course important that we live in the moment.  But we also need to have a slightly wider-angle lens available.  We need to be able to see where we might like to be heading, who we want to be when we get there, and what we need to do today to help make it happen.  And at the same time, to do what is even more difficult; to live in the moments we are given. 

I think the David Ayres story is a perfect example of this.  While Disney may be able to stretch the Zamboni driving angle to make it seem like David was just contentedly going about his life as an ice resurfacer, and then from nowhere was plunked into goal in an NHL game, the more truthful story is he had been preparing his whole life for this opportunity.  An even more amazing truth is that when his moment presented itself, against all odds, he was able to step right into the middle of it and turn it into exactly what he must have dreamed about.

I love so many things about this story.  I especially love that even though Mr. Ayres had his dream of being an NHL goaltender sidelined for what he must have thought would be forever, and that he faced an enormous health challenge, he tucked his dream in his jacket pocket and still managed to carry it with him, keeping it warm, as he went about more mundane tasks in his life, like volunteering to coach younger players and driving a Zamboni.

All of us have dreams.  Sometimes they become faded, sort of trapped in the surface of the ice as the Zamboni of life applies layer after layer of water on top of them.  Sometimes we stop doing the little things that propel our dream forward, or at least keep it alive.  The story this week of David Ayres, serves as a wonderful reminder to us to scratch back the ice that may have covered our dream, to find a way to give it a bit of nourishment, and above all, to recognize and be brave enough to seize our moment when it happens to come our way.  In the meantime, we’d be well-advised to fully enjoy the experience of driving our Zamboni around our own little ice rink of life.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where is your Zamboni taking you?’

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 steer your Zamboni toward your dream.
 
 
 
 

There was a simple, not-really-even-news-worthy, story on the evening news this week.  Later, I saw the same story on social media.  It seems a long-time, superfan of Jann Arden, Rita Gordon, had been wanting to see her in concert.  When Rita heard that Jann Arden was doing a big Canadian tour this year, she hoped to be able to buy a ticket to go see her idol.  When she went on line to purchase the ticket, she realized that the tickets, while available, were still out of her budget.

Feeling disappointed, she tweeted out to the singer, ‘My 1st tweet goes to @jannarden . I am 30, was totally willing to go sit in the back by myself at your concert in Wpg, but when I saw the price of the cheapest tickets.. where can I sell my kidney. Your fan since 1995, Rita Gordon! Xoxo

To clarify, this was Rita’s first ever tweet.  To further clarify, she was not trying to criticize Arden, or the prices of the concert.  She simply wanted her favourite performer to know that she was her fan, and that she was disappointed to not be able to afford a ticket.

Hundreds of thousands of tweets are sent in a day.  Whoops.  I just looked it up.  Five million tweets are sent per day!  Statistically, this one, lonely tweet should have been sent, and then been absorbed into twitterland without another so much as a retweet or comment or cute emoji attached.

It just so happened that when the tweet was sent, it was read by another Jann Arden fan, Pauline Ehle, from Lloydminster, Alberta.  When Pauline saw the tweet, she empathized with Rita.  Pauline knew what it felt like to not have the money to go to see a concert featuring someone she really enjoyed.  She said she had been in the same situation in the 1990’s when she was a new Arden fan.  Pauline said, “At that time, I couldn’t afford to go to one of her concerts, so now I thought, ‘Well, I’m having a good month, why not?”  Pauline bought a fourth row ticket and gave it to Rita!

Why not?

Why not has been in the air this week.  Jim and I went shopping to buy Jim some new dress pants.  He needed to have the pants altered in length before bringing them home.  The salesperson, when ringing us through the cash, asked if Jim wanted to have, for a small cost, a permanent crease put in the front and back of the pant leg.  “Sure”, replied Jim.  “Why not?”

Little Ben has been all over this expression too.  In his case he really doesn’t fully understand it, but he when he has said a firm, ‘No’ to his dad, Matt often asks, ‘Why not?’  So now, if we ask Ben if he wants something and he does not, is answer is a firm, “No!”, followed immediately by a firm, “Why Not!”  Jim and I have taken to using this expression too – NO, Why Not!

I loved the story about the Jann Arden fans.  I loved it even more when I heard that when Jann Arden was made aware of the story, she immediately reached out to Pauline Ehle, and suggested they meet each other at her concert in Saskatoon.  I’m imagining she might have thought, ‘Why not?’

There were so many possible things that Pauline Ehle could have done when she read the tweet by Rita Gordon.  I simply loved that she not only had the idea she could buy and gift a ticket, but that she also thought, ‘Why not?’ and did it.

Clearly there are times in life when we think of a possibility and the answer needs to be no. But, there are so, so many other times in our lives when we have the opportunity to change the course of the ship we, or someone else is on.  At those times, the answer could be, ‘Why not?’ Most times it doesn’t even require us to open our wallets.  Usually, we won’t even have to go very far out of our way.  Most often, we won’t make the news with our ‘why not’.  But almost always, we’ll feel a bit lighter, a bit more like the better part of our self is steering the ship, and like we have some control over a small part of our life.

I’m trying to ‘why not’ this week.  Why not let that signalling car into the lane in front of me?  Why not send a message to a friend who has been on my mind?  Why not risk applying for that position or program? Why not wear that flashy outfit? Why not try five minutes of meditation?  Why not smile at a stranger?  Why not smile at a friend or family member?  Why not look into that adventure that has been calling?  Why not?

Why not gets us out of our routine.  It expands our world.  It opens the door ever so slightly for the chance of something wonderful to happen.  Before Rita Gordon pressed send on her tweet, I’ll bet she went back and forth and then thought, ‘Why not?’  I’ll be Pauline Ehle did the same before she thought ‘Why not?’ and bought the ticket.  I bet Jann Arden, when hearing about it and thinking about what to do, thought, ‘Why not?’ 

None of them could possibly have known that responding to this niggling little question, ‘Why not?’ would impact so many people. 

And yet, ‘Why not?

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Why not?’

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.   Elizabeth 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. If you are thinking of contacting Elizabeth, why not?