Welcome to This Life

Beyond the door there's peace I'm sure
and I know there'll be no more tears in heaven.
--Eric Clapton, Tears in Heaven

Hey, you there, take a seat.  There is one right up here.  Do it, honestly this here is the perfect spot to observe what is going to take place up there.  Now, I am not going to say that what you are about to experience is enjoyable, in fact you might feel pain.  My apologies if you do, it is not my intent.  So sit, get comfortable because you are about to get extremely uncomfortable reading this.

Ladies, Gentlemen, welcome. This, is my life.  Welcome, to this life of death. It has been up, it has also been down.  I have smiled and I have cried.  And I have done everything in between.

 

My life started in Richardton, North Dakota 11 weeks before it was supposed to.  My parents were coming from Toronto back home to Vancouver.  Not a huge deal I guess.  Don't ask where Richardton is, all I know is that its in North Dakota somewhere not to far from a highway.  My Opa used to say that I have always loved road trips deep down inside because of when and where I was born.  My Opa passed away a month ago.

01.08.11.

When I was four, I started Junior Kindergarten.   And there I made friends.  I met one of my best friends there.  His name was Joshua.  He lived just a few blocks from me.  He and I had fun as kids.  Making forts and playing in tree-houses. We played soccer on the same team.  I pretty much grew up with him.  I have spent weeks at his house when I was younger and your mom didn't make me eat the crusts.  We used to go to his cottage.  Once, about a year ago, we tried to drive up ourselves, us and our friends.  It didn't turn out well.  Joshua passed away a year ago.  

11.26.09.

Its time to jump ahead again.  To when I was ten years old. I switched schools.  Josh wasn't there at school with me anymore and neither were any of my other friends.  I made other friends though.  One of them, stayed friends with me for years. His name was Evan.  The new school I was at played volleyball during recess and soccer during lunch. There were no rules enforcing it, its just the way it went.  Evan seemed to always be the one picking the teams.  He picked me first for volleyball on the first day.  And then he picked me first again for soccer.  There wasn't much question after that.  We were friends.  He and I had some great times. We went camping in grade 10 with Josh.  I'm surprised we made it through the night without our parents.  We didn't know how to put up the tent properly.  Our fire was really good though, its lucky the whole forest didn't burn down considering we weren't allowed to have fires because it was too dry. We had to make our hotdogs somehow. Evan is dead.  He died a year ago with Josh, in the car going to the cottage. 
11.26.09.

When I was 14, I started grade nine. Josh went to the same school as me again.  Evan and Mike came to the same school too.  We made other friends and our group of guys became friends with a group of girls.  For a month we hung out in a group.  And I got to know this awesome girl.  Her name was Hannah.  I have this memory.  I didn't purposefully remember it. I'm just lucky I did I suppose.  It was late September at lunch we were sitting outside on the sidewalk at school.  I sat down beside her and she glanced up and smiled at me.  We talked to each other, to others and together in the group until they all started to walk away but we didn't.  We were left just the two of us sitting on the sidewalk with our feet outstretched to the road.  She would talk and I would come up with a witty response.  
Have you ever seen a movie montage? When a guy and a girl start to fall for each other and a clips go by as a love song is played in the background? Maybe I am making them up, I'm not really sure. But that moment was like a clip from a movie.  Hannah and I were laughing together. She threw her head back and laughed to the sky, white teeth showing, face glowing. 
Hannah and I dated. From grade 9 to grade 11.  She was the best part of high school.  When it started people told me it wouldn't work.  Maybe I was just stubborn and wanted to prove them wrong.  They were right though. It didn't work.  Hannah died.  From the moment my interest sparked to the moment she was hit by the oncoming truck she was lit-up and bright.
11.26.09.

And I know these people weren't my life.  They were pretty close to it though.  They were a huge part of it.  They experienced everything with me.  And so even though saying they were my life sounds bad, like I am clingy or I can't do anything by myself.  They actually sort of were. And sometimes, it really seems like I died in that van with them.
But guess what. I was sixteen when the crash happened.  I am eighteen now. I'm still alive.  See, my Opa's death did some funny things.  Old barriers were broken down and I started to relive the past, the funeral homes, the mourning and the intense silence.  I remembered it all from the last time.  My best friends dying was part of my life.  I didn't actually die in that van no matter how it seems some days.  And I used that previous grief, that knowledge, to deal with it again this time.  Sure my grief didn't start out well, but I figured it out and I'm moving on.  So, welcome, to this life.    

It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday
and I'll take with me
the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
--It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

On Sleepless Roads.

And if you were with me tonight,
I'd sing to you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big,

God wouldn't let it live.
May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.

 Sometimes songs are sung at a certain place and you will never forget where.  Funerals are places that certain songs always remind me of.  Hear You Me, reminds me of Joshua's funeral.  His mom sang it there. Every time i see his mom completely breaking down while singing.  It's a powerful image, for a powerful song.

01.07.11.  .
11.26.09
11.26.09
11.26.09.

Love+Death=Grief

Grief is only possible if first you have loved.
The more you loved, the more you grieve.
Do not shy away from love in fear of grief, because love lives through the grief of death. 
The love is worth the grief. 
Love outweighs the sorrows. 
Honestly, it does.

I'm starting to believe
the Ocean's much like you
Cause it gives and it takes away
-Open Waters, Thrice

May they Rest In Peace

Job

One day when the angels came to report to God, Satan, who was the Designated Accuser, came along with them. God singled out Satan and said, "What have you been up to?"

   Satan answered God, "Going here and there, checking things out on earth."

 God said to Satan, "Have you noticed my friend Job? There's no one quite like him—honest and true to his word, totally devoted to God and hating evil."

  Satan retorted, "So do you think Job does all that out of the sheer goodness of his heart? Why, no one ever had it so good! You pamper him like a pet, make sure nothing bad ever happens to him or his family or his possessions, bless everything he does—he can't lose!

  "But what do you think would happen if you reached down and took away everything that is his? He'd curse you right to your face, that's what."

  God replied, "We'll see. Go ahead—do what you want with all that is his. Just don't hurt him." Then Satan left the presence of God.

  Sometime later, while Job's children were having one of their parties at the home of the oldest son, a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys grazing in the field next to us when Sabeans attacked. They stole the animals and killed the field hands. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."

  While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Bolts of lightning struck the sheep and the shepherds and fried them—burned them to a crisp. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."

  While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Chaldeans coming from three directions raided the camels and massacred the camel drivers. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."

 While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, "Your children were having a party at the home of the oldest brother when a tornado swept in off the desert and struck the house. It collapsed on the young people and they died. I'm the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened."

  Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, then fell to the ground and worshiped:

  Naked I came from my mother's womb,
   naked I'll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes.
   God's name be ever blessed.

  Not once through all this did Job sin; not once did he blame God.

The Man Who Painted.

Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return.
      They will enter Jerusalem singing,
      crowned with everlasting joy.
   Sorrow and mourning will disappear,
      and they will be filled with joy and gladness.
  ~Isaiah's Fifty-first chapter, the eleventh verse.  The Holy Bible 

Don't say you understand. Don't ask me how I'm doing. Don't force me to talk.  Don't tell me that I will be okay or that time heals all wounds. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't care if you care. I don't want your sympathy because it just reminds me of what I have lost. 

Now leave me alone. This isn't about Hannah or Josh or Evan. This isn't about me. This is about my dead grandfather. The one who visited me everyday in the hospital. and took me for bike rides and taught me how to ski.  The man who painted beautiful pictures.  This is about the man who was recently buried under the cold dirt in a cemetery plot not far from Evan.  This is about a man meeting Jesus and loving heaven.

May they Rest In Peace.

It’s time to start digging myself out.

Because the world has collapsed around me.

Light

This one will probably be all over the place. Just heads up for you there. 


When I was younger, maybe four or five, I was scared of the dark like a lot of little kids were.  I was afraid because I lost the sense that I relied on the most.  Because I couldn't see what was out there, my imagination went wild. I feared monsters and robbers, and the fear paralyzed me.

Jump forward thirteen, fourteen years, my imagination isn't the source of my fears anymore.  When I was four, I had no real experiences.  I didn't know what I should really be afraid of because nothing represented anything bad. So I made up fears, I thought that the dark would bring horrible things, I thought that if my parents left they might not come back. My imagination made me fear things.

My fear is from experience now.  I hate hospitals, I'm afraid of getting into cars, I am afraid of lights. Not lights in a house, not lights that you string on your roof at Christmas, but single bright white lights.  Sitting in the dentist chair and they shine the light to see your teeth.  Flashlights. When a car drives down the road and even their daytime running lights are on even that creeps me out.  Driving down the road in the dark is the worst.  I hate it.

I remember this one thing every time I see a bright light.

Even the most horrible events can be beautiful.  I swear the trucks lights were on.  The truck that hit the van.  The truck that murdered Hannah.  It feels wrong saying this but the moment when the world stopped spinning just a half second before the crash, when hell opened up, I saw something beautiful. 

There she was just waiting for the deadly impact looking nervous yet calm even though it seemed like she knew it was going to happen.  The trucks headlights gave her back light that lit up her hair and made her face look like it was shining.  She was beautiful. She was about to meet Jesus, why wouldn't she be lit up and shining?  
I don't know what to do with this memory.  It is horrible and wonderful all mixed in one. 

May They Rest In Peace.  

 

10 Year Old Child

Let the Dysfunction Begin 

"Remember when we were little, mom and dad used to go out and we wouldn't want them to and they would say, 'well what do you know about mommies and daddies?' And we would say, 'They always come back.'"
-8 Simple Rules

I used to love 8 simple rules.  I still do. I watch that show every time I see that it is on.  The dysfunctional family makes me laugh.  This quote has stuck with me for years.  From the first time I watched that beautifully sad episode where they said goodbye to a father and husband as characters and a great friend as actors.  Me being my impressionable 10 year old self realized for the first time through nothing other than a TV show that my mother was not actually invincible.  That she may very well collapse in isle three of the grocery store or maybe loose her life to the cancerous blood cells that were coursing through her veins.  And though I had known for over half a year the potential of her death, I still lived life as if it could never actually happen. I was ignorant to the facts and my life was still blissful.  I was still in childhood.

But that night, I sat in the house separated from my mother because she was too sick to be home and separated from my father because he was too busy spending all his time with my mom or at work.  Paul spent a lot of time in his room.  He understood the repercussions of my mothers sickness.  I was alone in the house, watching 8 Simple Rules when I saw the pain of the family and I realized that it could be me really soon, and my childhood ended, I was forced to grow up just a little bit. My childhood ended because I felt hate for the first time.  I hated the leukemia, the strange word I could barely say and couldn't begin to understand. It was from that moment, watching that TV show that the days started to connect and I couldn't live just one day at a time. I couldn't forget the day before and I couldn't stop thinking about the next. I was 10 and I had worries.  I didn't worry all the time. I could lose myself in TV or time with my friends or when Paul and I would hang out.  I could forget it some times so my childhood wasn't completely gone but I had fears and worries that people at the age of 10 shouldn't have to worry about. 
Even writing about it now bothers me and what I wrote probably didn't make any sense but when do scared 10 year old kids make sense?  For that matter when does a scared 18 year old make sense.  Because sometimes I still fear that she will relapse. And then what would I do?

Chariot

Three things. Possibly more.
1.performing arts class, What Is Up?

First assignment for those who are primary in music. SING A HAPPY SONG.

I may have cheated just a little bit. It's not overly happy.  but whatever it was hard to learn in the few days I had left. The piano was hard so the singing isn't great.

2.Also I love Australia I considered staying there.
3.University? I applied in Ontario and BC and if I still can I'll apply to Australia and California because every time I go to those two places I smile.

AND SONG

Chariot-Gavin DeGraw

Staring at a maple leaf
Leaning on the mother tree
I said to myself we all lost touch
Your favorite fruit is chocolate covered cherries
And seedless watermelon
Nothing from the ground is good enough
Body rise
it looks over me

Oh chariot, your golden waves
Are walking down upon this place
Oh chariot, I'm singing out loud
To guide me
Give me your
Strength

Remember seeking moons rebirth
Rains made mirrors of the earth
The sun was just yellow energy
It is a living promise land
Even over fields of sand
Seasons fill my burden, covered me
Bringing back
More than a memory
Oh chariot, your golden waves
Are walking down upon this place
Oh chariot, I'm singing out loud
To guide me
Give me your
Strength

You'll be my vacation away from this place
You know what I want
Holding that cup,
It's pouring over.
Oh chariot, your golden waves
Are walking down upon this place
Oh chariot, I'm singing out loud
To guide me
Give me your
Strength