A brief moment in HEAVEN with my dad!

Imagine this!

These lilacs but times billions on the tallest trees, so tall you can't see the end to them, blooms so large and fragrant it's beyond imagination! There were cherry blossoms, roses, peonies, Lillies, all growing so large and beautiful. The smell was a mixture of all of them and was the most amazing smell I have ever known.

We were at his house with mom, Aunt Benny, Uncle Al, Joyce, Bruce and Mike. It was winter at my house when I left to go there and when I got to his house it was spring. We all sat outside in his yard chatting and laughing. Then I saw it, all of this beauty and I said "Dad, come here, you have to see your yard from this perspective." He walked over to me and looked with me and said "Those are lilacs, it is beautiful here." And that's where the dream ended.

Since his passing I have been asking him for a sign that he is there and he is ok. I have been a bit frustrated to not have a sign yet. I convinced myself that when the sign comes it will be so big and evident that there will be no question it was him. Last night before going to bed I had an AHA moment. I realized he was never a BIG SPLASH kind of guy so I was looking to hard for a big splash. I had a little chat with him and told him that I realized I have been expecting too much and would just wait for anything and appreciate whatever comes my way. He always told me to slow down, life doesn't have to be so dramatic and busy, it's not about the big stuff it about the little moments.

Then he entered my dream with a little moment that was more powerful and vivid than anything I have ever experienced.

I woke with the greatest feeling of peace and love knowing for sure that he is with me and now I can actually feel his presence within me and around me. This experience has changed the grieving process for me. Thank you Dad. I got your message and I know without a sliver of a doubt that you are happy in Heaven. P.S. I will also tell mom about it because I know the lilacs were for her.

Beautiful mess of grief

Ah, the best laid plans. Monday was a new start, fresh week, time to get back to life. At least that was the plan. What did Monday really look like? I walked around like a zombie within my own home not sure what to do-there was lots to do I just couldn’t figure out where to start and didn’t have the motivation to do any of it anyway. I ended up driving to town in a stupor, picked my son up from school, he drove me home and I went to sleep. When my daughter got home from work I apologized, I had nothing out for dinner and I had been 100% unproductive all day. She said “one step at a time mom”! How brilliant is that? So Tuesday I took her advice, I had to write myself a list of what needs to be done and do them one step at a time. Sounds really productive right? Well it was, but the list consisted of all the little mundane daily things like shower, brush teeth, take medication, eat, take out meat for dinner, put mascara on, empty the dishwasher. It was like learning to walk again. In the midst of all these mundane things I have moments of sobbing and moments of smiling at the sunshine. This morning I woke with a wonderful sense of happiness feeling like I could take on more than the mundane. I was able to do all the mundane without a list and I added 2 work tasks to a list.

Each day since losing dad my feelings contradict themselves in such a beautiful messy way.

• I want to sleep for the next 10 years but I don’t want to fall asleep because that means I have to face the next day without him and reality slams you in the gut as soon as you open your eyes.
• I am so happy for dad to be free of pain and with my brother but I am so sad for myself and everyone else who loved him because now we have the pain
• I am so angry I want to throw things, I am angry at cancer, I am angry at God yet I feel such a sense of peace and thankfulness that God answered my prayers to take him quickly and peacefully whenever he was ready, I look out the window at the beauty of the snow and feel peaceful.
• I wanted the service over so we could have closure but I didn’t want Saturday to end because then it’s really over.
• I want the comfort of family and friends but I don’t want to see them because it’s so sad to see their pain
• I want to question Gods timing but I also want his comfort and direction.

People say the more or prepared you are the easier it is. People are wrong. I had two years to prepare, there was nothing left unsaid, no rock unturned in the preparation process for me. I have no guilt, no regrets just a grand sense of being blessed for the time I had and how it all just happened as it was supposed to. My dad left this world feeling loved and knowing we would all be ok. He told us what he wanted and we made sure it happened. How much more prepared can you be? 

Well what I have learned is that having a service once a person is gone is not for the deceased, it’s for the family and friends left behind. When people say “ he is not in pain anymore” I want to say “ no shit, we are the ones in pain” as selfish as that sounds. I am not grieving because he faced death, I am grieving the loss of his physical presence that I haven’t experienced in my 44 years. I had thought about asking dad if he wanted a celebration of life while he was alive but I didn’t. I now know that’s what I want. If I am lucky enough to know death is near I want my family and friends to gather around with me and share memories so we can laugh together and say farewells. Afterward I want them to gather with the intention of supporting each other through the loss, share how they are feeling and coping and grieve together.

Grief is part of life, we can’t escape it and we can’t be prepared for it. We have to honour it as it happens, embrace the beautiful messiness of it. I keep telling myself “dad would want me to pick myself up and dust myself off” I have tried to breathe away tears and keep going with my day. The truth is we can have the messiness of the ugly Oprah cry, snot and all and the strength to get on with the day. We can pray for them to return and appreciate their legacy, we can feel empty and have a heart full of memories, we can wish for yesterday and look forward to tomorrow, we can throw something in anger and then look out the window in peace and gratefulness. 

At the top of my list for as long as it is needed will be “ embrace the beautiful mess” followed by whatever I can tackle that day.

Losing my dad

When we lost our grandmother I wondered how we would ever be able to move on without her. Slowly we did, we got used to the new way of life. Then we lost my brother and again I thought it was impossible to go on without him, but we did, we got used to a new way of life. They both left a hole in my heart that has taken time but is slowly healing. I expected the same when my dad passed. I thought it will be hard, it will leave a hole and we will get used to a new way of life.

Each loss is different because it's a different relationship. The loss of my dad has left my whole body feeling hollow. I literally feel like a shell and I need to decide what to fill myself back up with. It has left me rethinking and redefining my life. Who am I? How have I lived? Have I made the right decisions about relationships? career? Am I living my life to the fullest like he did?

When I was a kid, many of my cousins spoke about dad being their favourite uncle and I could never understand why, after all he was just my dad. What was so special about him? As I grew older I paid more attention to the WHY, especially over the past 11 years since we thought we would lose him to heart disease.

What I learned is he was humble, he was kind, he was funny, he loved unconditionally, he put family first, he was forgiving, he respected others and demanded respect for himself, he gave his all to everything he did, he was human, he had good morals and values, he worked hard, he was wise, he told it as it was, he was generous and selfless - the list could go on. All of these things combined made him an incredible man. Of course he was not perfect, he had his moments of making mistakes as well all do but he always had good intentions for himself or for us.

A couple years ago I challenged him because he was very adamant about certain people (very few) that he would not include in his life. People that I thought deserved a chance. If he was such a forgiving man, so kind, all these things that made him the favourite, why be so determined about these people? He told me "actions honey, they don't respect themselves, they are too leaky a vessel to put too much hope in, spend your energy on the ones who deserve it and appreciate it" To him that was almost everyone he knew, but those few he was right about.

That's why he was the favourite. After 44 years of this kind of powerful presence in my life, this type of role model, it's not surprising that my body feels hollow. I looked to him for wisdom and direction almost daily in life, now I have to just consider what I think his wise words would be in death.

The process of redefining myself and learning who I am without that presence in my life is going to be long. I am lucky that off the top I know that I have chosen my relationships well and those don't need any changing.  I love my career although there is something missing in that. As far as living life to the fullest, that's going to take some time because I have lots of time left.

I am going to continue to pay close attention to how I spend my days. I will not rush the grieving process, I will let it happen as it needs to and take care of myself. I will do my best to carry his lessons with me and be the humblest person I can be. I will put all of my effort into everything I do and all of the relationships I cherish. I am releasing all negativity and absorbing all of the beauty and positive energies around me.

There is a great sense of peace that I feel with his passing. I know he is in a good place with my brother and many other loved ones. I know his pain is gone. I know he suffers no longer. Even with that sense of peace there is still this wrenching pain of missing his presence. So many generous people have offered to do anything I need from them. These offers are with great intentions and a full awareness that the only thing that can fix this pain is to have my daddy back in his chair and not even God can give me that. I will never again offer "if there is anything I can do, please let me know" to someone in mourning, not because I am not willing but because I now know that it is a process that we all have to go through, loss is a part of life and a personal process and nobody ever takes people up on that offer for that simple reason. No amount of kindness or pity will fill my hollow body back up, only time, love, kindness and forgiveness for myself will do that.

For anyone out there that is facing grief, don't be afraid of it. Embrace it, celebrate the life you once had and be a frog, you can't move backward, forward is the only direction. That's what this face will always remind me of, never give up!

Namaste!

Living an EPIC life in the face of death

My dad is dying.

He was diagnosed with Stage 1 lung cancer in 2016. He had surgery, chemotherapy and was given the all clear in 2017. He continued with 3 month check ups and CT scans and seemed to be doing really well. On June 21st this year we found out that it had returned and it is terminal. I was in the room with him and mom when the Oncologist told us this news and I had to leave the room so he didn't see me cry. How would I ever let go of my dad?

Of course right away I wanted to have conversations with him about what he wanted, what's on his "bucket list". I thought we could take him to Tombstone, AZ like he has always wanted, we could go to a Nascar race one last time. His answer was "I want to take care of your mother and sit by my river."

See he has lived his EPIC life. He did all the things he wanted and his greatest pride is that he fought hard to have what he has. He and mom faced so many struggles to have the home they have and the legacy of family they have created. They walked through fires of hell together and their bond has only gotten stronger. He chose the life he wanted and he made it happen. Now he is satisfied with where he is and accepts the reality of his diagnosis. His only other wish is that people don't pretend and talk like this is not reality, he doesn't want to hear "hope" or "maybe you will have a miracle" he wants to be real and have the conversations he needs to have with others. I admire him for that. I am trying to support him and mom to live the time he has left their way.

The struggle for me is how do I live my EPIC life in the face of his impending death. I wake every morning and think about "when". My greatest fear is that day, that moment when we have to say goodbye. Since June 21st I have been struggling to find a balance. Do I work? Do I just spend every day with them? What am I going to do without him? How will we ever support mom when they are like one person, she is losing half of herself? Then yesterday my sister in law reminded me "live in the present, he is still here, stop thinking about the future" best advice ever. (thanks Angele)

I still have a job, I still have a beautiful home that needs my attention, I still have amazing kids, grandkids and extended family that I can enjoy. Today is today, I need to find the time for all of it. Work, home, family, time with mom and dad. So today I am creating my new plan for how to balance all of those things because life changes. I can't accomplish everything I was doing before. I can work less hours, make time for family things and visit mom and dad instead of sitting around all day wondering how to get all of it done full time. Small amounts of each is the goal.

Living an EPIC life is about taking the good with the bad and appreciating with mindfulness all that you have, using your experiences to create the future you want. I know I don't want to be in a slump, waiting on "the day" and my dad wouldn't want that either. This is a natural part of everyone's life and we need to find a way to live with it, feel it and celebrate the time we have.

I can continue with all of the things that I love and still be there for dad and mom. I can take a deep breath when I think about the future and accept it as it comes, one day at a time.

Explore you
Picture It
Intentional action
Check in and change

Right now I am doing a lot of exploring me and how my dad's influence in my life created who I am today. I am picturing how I want to spend the rest of his time with him, I am being intentional in all of my interactions with him, and I am listening and checking in and changing as I need to so that I can stay positive and feel he gratitude that I have for his involvement in my life.

I am chosing to continue my EPIC life in the face of death, starting today.

Jordan graduates college - how a One Page Profile helped her succeed!

When I was first introduced to One Page Profiles I fell in love with them. I immediately saw the value that they could have in so many areas of life for people. Being a mom with young children in elementary school my first instinct was to help my kids create profiles for school. My daughter was in Grade 8 that year and my boys grades 6 and 4. I didn't really stop at just helping my kids develop profiles, I decided that I would offer to do a One Page Profile workshop in each of the their classrooms and help all of the students create them. I was blessed that my kids were in a really small community school and that I knew all of their teachers really well. The school was excited to allow me to bring this fun exercise to their students. And so, we did it, we created profiles with all three classrooms and had a great time. Everyone saw the value in the profiles and the students learned so much about each other.

I took a bit of a different focus in the Grade 8 classroom. I knew these students (including my daughter) would be heading off to high school the following September so I wanted them to really focus the information in their profiles for their new teachers and support professionals. So we developed high school One Page Profiles. In addition, we created vision boards for their 4 years of high school and added this to their profiles.

I supported my daughter, Jordan, to be really specific with her profile so that it could be really helpful in supporting her goals in high school. When she started Grade 9 we emailed it to all of her teachers, vice-principal and guidance department.

Here are the ways that it really helped.

1. She was very clear about her desire to be an Early Childhood Educator as part of her vision. She also mentioned that she struggled with Math and wood require some support. She did not do really well in her Grade 9 Math class and her teacher recommended at the end of the semester that she drop down to a lower level of Math. When the guidance counsellor saw this recommendation she called me and said "I see this recommendation but I also know, based on her One Page Profile that she wants to take ECE in college and if she drops to a lower level of Math she won't meet the requirements for college acceptance. What can we do to help her stay in her current level of Math?" Of course I was very happy to get this call and excited that the profile made it's first impression. We found Jordan a tutor and she attended regularly to learn Math in a way that made sense to her. Jordan completed all of her Math requirements and was accepted to college for ECE.

2. Jordan experienced great anxiety around public speaking in elementary school. She would get physically ill the evening before she had to speak to her class and often couldn't attend school the next day. We knew this was a really important thing to share with high school teachers as classroom presentations are part of the high school curriculum. Her French teacher was the first to offer support in this area. He said he had read that this is an area for growth on her profile and that he wanted to support her by having her speak the first time just to him, then she could invite a friend for the second time until she was comfortable speaking to the whole class. She wasn't getting out of doing it, but he was supporting her to grow. During college she comfortably spoke in front of her class and at public events. Of course there was some anxiety, as there is for all of us, but her growth in that area was immense.

3. Jordan's father and I separated when she was 6 years old. Her dad moved away (about a four hour drive from us) and she only got to see him every other weekend. She very much missed her dad and struggled a lot when she came home. She would be very down, sad, and missing her dad for a few days of the week after she got home. We thought it was important for her teachers to know this so that they could be mindful of their expectations of her during that time. This was extremely helpful for Jordan, just the simple awareness of who she is!

4. My girl struggled with anxiety and a bit of depression so it was tough for her to enter a large school  and try to navigate a whole new world. She was out of her comfort zone. Whenever she is feeling really overwhelmed or stressed she likes to be able to call someone that can provide her some reassurance. So we put that in her profile and her teachers would allow her to leave the room and call someone when needed. Seemingly small, by very significant for her in terms of successful days.

Jordan went on to update her profile each year of high school and then for college. She has created a number of profiles for different purposes. She experienced the value to the profile and recommended to her college professors to have all of their students create them with a purpose of support during college and during placements. She invited me to teach her college class about them and now they are a requirement in the ECE course for all new students.

Here is Jordan now - Early Childhood Education Graduate, Class of 2018

She graduated from her Early Childhood Education Program at Canadore College in North Bay, ON yesterday. She has a full time job at Parry Sound District Social Services in a daycare.

Of course her hard work and perseverance is the key to her success. Her and I both are very thankful for the role that her One Page Profile has had in this success. Had we not offered it at the start of high school her path to graduation may have had many more bumps.

I am so very proud of Jordan and her pride in her own accomplishments radiate from her. Job well done Jordan. There are so many more amazing things ahead and I know she will incorporate One Page Profiles into her future.

Watering the rocks - why value based recruitment is so important!

I am passionate about my work. I get excited about the potential for inspiring people to create change through my presentations around person-centred practices. I have never been a fan of public speaking but when I get to share these messages I am not shy at all to get up in front of groups and talk for hours. It's not the status of being a "good trainer/facilitator" that is fulfilling (although flattering) its about the message and people taking the message and creating action.

Recently, I delivered four of the exact same training session in two days to four different groups of agency staff. The training was around Person-Centred Thinking and ensuring that we understand the importance and value of making this mindset habit when supporting people in any human service area.

The first three sessions went really well, people were engaged, participated and truly had some aha moments leaving them with great ideas for action for the future. The fourth group left me deflated. For the first time in all the years I have done this I wondered "why am I standing here doing this?"

Was it my facilitation style? Was it because it was an evening session? Was the room too hot? Why could I not get through to this group who work for the same agency as the past three groups?

I was watering rocks!

These were not bad people. They were having fun and seemed to enjoy each other in conversation. They just had ZERO interest in what I was saying (well 75% of them anyway). WHY?

They were told that attendance was mandatory.

They were all casual staff who picked up possibly one shift a month.

They were staff that have no investment in the agency they work for.

Simply put, they did not care what I had to say, they just wanted the 2 hour session over with and they wanted the food that they anticipated would be provided but it was not. They want to satisfy any mandatory requirements to keep their casual job for the extra cash. It was up to the full time people to worry about what my message was.

I was watering rocks!

These people, as every human, have amazing talents, abilities, gifts and capacities in some area of life or many. I am sure they are human service workers because they are passionate about helping people. Also, as every other human, they were thinking about the "what about me" question we always ask; "what will I gain from doing this?" The gain for them was not to see people live fulfilling lives with their own choice and control it was to meet mandatory requirements to keep their jobs and get a free meal. They were hired based on education, competency, experience in the field.

As I stood there attempting to get their attention so I could help them see the importance of this work I got more and more frustrated with them. When it was over I realized I needed to ask myself the question "why am I doing this?" I have great intentions and I share my message well but how many people actually leave and use what I teach them. A small percentage. Training is a wonderful thing to motivate people but it can't be offered as mandatory, it must be accessed on interests, values and passion for the subject.

We need to employ people whose values are in line with our purpose, Maybe the neighbour who used to be the garbage man values the work of the organization more than the people who are hired through current hiring approaches. Value based recruitment, get people who value your mission, value your purpose and are truly invested in seeing success. Better still be sure that the work you do is in line with your values, this will have a domino effect on your wellness.

Stop watering rocks, find the flowers and give them nourishment to bloom. And don't forget to fertilize yourself along the way.

CHOICE - a basic human right that none of us have!

For the past couple of months my brain has been consumed by change. It feels as if every event I attend, every conversation I have with family, friends, coworkers is bringing me to the place I am right now. The conversations are molding together to build motivation in me. They are confirming the belief that all things are connected and there is a peaceful way for human kind.

In April we held our H S A Canada annual Gathering and the theme was CHANGE! This started my thinking around how change can happen and that in order to truly accomplish the goal of having people live truly fulfilling lives with choice and control, we need to make a change in our systems that support us. This was followed by a forum that I attended a couple of weeks ago facilitated by Dave Hasbury. (www.cocreation.ca) where we discussed what Independent Facilitation and support for people with Developmental Disabilities could look like. He had a very simplistic and gentle way of pointing out that even though we have worked hard in human services and we have done a good job, we have learned and changed as needed by society. So why are we stuck now? Now we know better and we can do better. Our system is not working for people and we need to change it.

About 10 years ago I was at a Provincial event where we were asked what our vision of human services is in 10 years and my answer was " that people get the supports they want and need from wherever/whoever they want with the financial freedom to do so and we don't have specific agencies to care for specific human service needs." You can imagine the strange looks I got and even some chuckles but I was ok with that, it was my vision. Today I see that others are seeing that vision also.

Now this is much bigger conversation than just human services. It is all systems, all things or approaches created by systems for people instead of by people for people. Here are the reasons I think it's backward.

1. Systems hire people to support people - we are raised to believe that our future is what we make it, we grow we go to school, choose a career, family etc. Hopefully we get a job in the career we spent thousands of dollars to earn a degree or certificate in. We are hired by an agency to support people. Where is the choice for the people we are supporting?

2. Our government spends billions of dollars every year in base funding to ensure that agencies have the money to pay support people, managers, directors, Executive Directors etc. These are our tax dollars and people supported are often not happy with the designed supports. This is system led, not people led. What if people were their own Executive Directors? They had the money (from their own tax dollars) to recruit and hire people they want and direct the supports they want and need so they can build a life of choice.

3. We have policies and procedures and quality assurance measures that systems create with good intentions but these things eliminate choice an control from the lives of people they support.

4. Systems have control instead of people.

5. As consultants and trainers in person centred approaches we are teaching people how to use approaches to share control or power with people because as systems we automatically have control. We will never be able to give people total choice and control this way.

So why hasn't change happened? Because change is hard. Change is scary. People have to be motivated to change and see the benefit in the change for their lives. So if today the government announced they are going to undergo transformation in human services and change to an individualized funding model that puts people in charge of their own lives what would happen? We would have thousands of employed people in the streets opposing this idea because naturally we think about our source of income first - they can't do that, what about me? A totally legitimate question. My answer would be there will be plenty of jobs in the same field it will just look different. You will have a job, people will always need support and they will need someone to help them manage that support. I would follow with the question "What is the primary reason you do your job?"  I would probably hear income as a primary reason, again totally legitimate. What about a secondary reason? Is it status? (still legitimate if that's what you value) or is it because of the sense of personal gratification you feel from seeing people achieve success defined by themselves? If your third reason is the latter, it might be time for personal change as well.

This change is happening in our world led by great minds and talent. Helen Sanderson in the UK had a status, she led an international organization that provided training and consultation and was respected and admired internationally for her work. She could have held on to that status/position and continued the work she was doing but she didn't. Helen Sanderson Associates still exists but Helen has left the lead of that to competent people internationally. She moved on to supporting people again, front line, where she could really see and feel the difference in people's lives. wellbeingteams.org is her new passion and it reflects exactly what Dave Hasbury suggested we need in terms of change in Canada. These are self managing teams with personal budgets to hire the supports they want and need. Of course she still holds a status but I believe the work is more important than the status to her.

The time for change is now. If we don't create this change we all face a future of needing support that has control over how our lives progress. I certainly want to control my own future. Just because systems are in place doesn't mean we have to accept them the way they are. We can change and create a model that provides people with the basic human right to CHOICE!