The Search

**5**

Invite Jesus into your heart, my Sunday school teacher says. I do. Over and over again I do, but if I never feel a change, how can I know it worked? What does it feel like to have a grown, bearded man, robed in blue and white, living inside my heart? Is he wearing a crown of thorns when he enters in?

**11**

Give your life to Jesus, the camp speaker says. Surrender all you are. Commit your life to him. I do. Over and over again, I pray, I read the Bible. I fast. I am baptised. What does it feel like to be dead to the natural man, alive in Christ? If I don’t feel different, am I doing it wrong?

**15**

I choose my story, the Christian author says, I choose what I want in my story, and I know what I don’t want. I don’t want sin. I don’t want attractions towards women. I don’t want to be gay. I make the choice solid. I commit fully to God’s plan, not my desires. I am happy, right? I may not know who I am. I write dark poetry about being alone. I think about hurting myself, a cry for attention, but surely God is attentive to me. I don’t need, nor deserve the attention of others. If God is with me, must I feel so alone?

**18**

I’ve been promised a personal relationship with God. I seek to know this being I follow. I plan to isolate myself from others. I don’t need human relationships, I need God. I imagine sitting on the floor, hiding beneath over-the-ear headphones on my first day of Bible college. I can’t afford the headphones that I imagine, so I settle for the earphones that come with the MP3 player I buy for this purpose. I sit and observe the other students. I am not here for them. I am here to know God. As the year passes, I do meet the other students, I write about the Trinity, but God never shows up. Where is he?

**19**

At Bible camp, I watch as parents show up with a cake for their son. No one knows it is my birthday too. No one celebrates me. Surely the God who formed me, who knit me together in my mother’s womb, surely he know. That ought to be enough. I can quote the scriptures, but I cry in the basement, alone. Does God see me? Can’t he send some one my way to cheer me up?

**20**

I head to Bible college again; different school, different city, new friends. I’m still seeking for that relationship with God. I still avoid getting too involved in social aspects, but I do enjoy community with my roommates. I attend a new church, but find only performance and noise. Is God in the textbooks? The hymnal? Can he really speak directly to me?

**23**

At work I share with youth this good news that I’ve been promised. There is a loving God who can help every youth overcome every challenge. God can help in all situations. In my secret thoughts I wonder why God helps some frantic wealthy woman find her car keys, when every day there are children dying of hunger in Chad. I wonder, if he doesn’t care about the children dying across the world, why would he care about my dad, dying of cancer? Why does God help others, but never me?

**24**

And why doesn’t God comfort me after my dad passes? Why do I try so hard to be righteous, but feel so alone? I’ve memorised scriptures, I’ve written papers, I’ve prayed, but it has made no difference. I wonder if I can find comfort somewhere else. I wonder if sinful living is the path to choose. Yet, as I list vices, none of them appeal much to me. I go through Christian motions, but my heart drifts from the hope it once held. God makes no difference in my life. My belief in him isn’t what makes me a good person, so why believe in him?

**25**

I’ve given up, and yet, I am drawn back by missionaries who once again promise a relational God. They are patient with my questions, sure in their answers. I want to believe. I want to believe in the hope they offer. I want to believe there is goodness and reason in the messiness of life. I desire again for evidence of this being, count every song that pops into my head as a sign. Get baptised, the missionaries say. I do. I participate in community. I accept who I am, a little bit. For the first time say the words, I’m gay. I wonder why God still wants me to marry a man. His plans seem to work great for everyone else, but are they really what is best for me? Why can’t God have a personal plan for me?

**27**

I go on a mission to put off thoughts of marriage. I go on a mission longing to connect with the spiritual, to hear God’s voice, to heed his direction. I go on a mission hoping my commitment to serve God will earn me a personal experience with him. I go on a mission believing that God, who has so often remained silent in my life, will speak into the lives of others. I learn again to hide my sexuality, to fake spirituality, to assume my thoughts are from God. I learn how dark anxiety feels. I remember how lonely I can feel in the presence of people. I don’t give up. The weight of responsibility presses on my shoulders, but I push against it. I choose to be joyful, I find life in music. At times I journey with others, at times I fight alone. Does God ever take my side, or does he just watch from the sideline? Why, after all my effort, don’t I see miracles?

**30**

I love her. I intend just to be her friend, but I love her. More importantly, she loves me. I feel that love. We could just be friends, but I know what I want. It is not the voice of my Sunday school teacher, the voice of the camp speaker, the voice of the missionaries, nor that of any other religious leader. It is a voice from within me. Our love is tangible, and I want to give my whole self to this woman. Do I love her more than I love God, my bishop asks me. Yes, and I’ve felt her love in ways I’ve never felt the love of God. We have a very personal relationship. She cares about me and validates me in ways I only hoped God would. The choice is easy. I abandon the religion which makes me choose, and we marry. Does God rejoice with me?

**31**

We don’t hate God, and we don’t hate religion, so we choose to explore churches willing to accept our relationship. Something within me always draws me back to churches. It isn’t the music nor the sermons. It isn’t the theology which I spent years studying. As I search for God, I asked, can a community be God to me? Can a church be Jesus? I had sought tirelessly for a relationship with God, but had I missed the point when I overlooked human relationships? Perhaps to feel love from God was to feel love from people. My wife and I searched for such a community until we found a place where I can believe that God is love, because it is a community of love. A place where I can believe that God cares, because they care. A place where I can believe that God accepts me, because they accept me. So, I have found the love, compassion and acceptance of God, without any certainty that there is a divine being. Perhaps I could have found this earlier, but it wasn’t what I’d been looking for. Promises of magical intervention, lofty visions, had my eyes focused away from the Christlike love of others. How can I spread this love?

Eyelash

We had transformed our basement into a theatre. The large room at the bottom of the stairs was divided into a seating area and the stage. The rooms which linked around the basement felt like secret passages and acted as our backstage. I sat with Celine it what was an undeveloped laundry room turned into our hair and makeup studio. I would have objected to the idea of makeup, but I knew I didn’t have a say. I had already heard her articulate the importance of stage makeup, and it was opening night. As she applied mascara, she commented on my eyelashes. They were long, and she said beautiful, and I didn’t care. “Someday,” she promised, “you’ll be grateful for them. They will catch the attention of all the cute boys.” I shuddered at the thought. She discredited my discomfort, and guaranteed that when I was a little older, I’d be grateful for my eyelashes, I’d want to know how to apply makeup to them, so they would jump out and capture the attention of men.

Age came, but I remained indifferent to my eyelashes. Beauty was something I hid rather than embraced. Baggy clothes offered a picketed fort of protection from where I could fire warnings at any male who got too close. More often than not, however, I just hid. I was glad that I was so successful, most of the time. Occasionally I’d wish someone would notice me. Honestly, I was always longing for attention, but I didn’t want the sort of attention I would garner by wearing makeup or stylish clothes. It didn’t seem to matter how much my age increased, my desire for the attention of cute boys, or men, never came to be. And just as I felt uncomfortable when Celine complimented my eyelashes, I continued to feel bothered every time someone suggested that I am beautiful. That suggestion had me worried that I might attract the attention of a man.
However, when SJ tells me I'm beautiful, I do not retaliate. When she tells me, my defence system is not triggered. When she tells me, I don’t think for a second that what she is actually communicating is, “don’t worry, some day, some boy will be attracted to you.” When she tells me, it is never with the suggestion that I wear mascara, fix my hair, or engage in any other activity to enhance my looks. She is talking about me, just as I am. When she tells me, she speaks both of my interior and exterior qualities. When she tells me, she believes it. And sometimes, when she tells me, I almost believe it myself.  When SJ tells me that I am beautiful, suddenly I care. I don’t want her to ever change her mind. I look at me in the screen and wonder if my nose is too pointy, if my wrinkles are to pronounced, yet I know SJ thinks I am beautiful. I also trust that as my wrinkles become entrenched, and all my hair turns white, she will still find me beautiful.

A footprint, a moment with my father that shaped me.

Sometimes I avoid telling stories about my dad because I'm avoiding what could be awkward.  Some people don't know that he passed away three years ago to this day, and other people, like me, don't know how to respond when the loved dead are spoken about.  But, I want to talk about my dad.  I want to share our stories.  Here's a bit of one:

Every year my dad took me on a camping/backpacking trip.  Before leaving we’d prepare the weekend’s menu and head to the grocery store.  While my dad tried to decrease our food weight, by avoiding anything canned, we had a few luxuries of our own.  We bought tomatoes for our sandwiches.  These we packaged each in their own Tupperware with paper towel for cushioning and wiping our fingers on.  We always had steak the first night.  My dad would freeze the meat, the boil-n-bag corn and any other freezable food.  Then, early in the morning we would add the frozen food to top up our backpacks and drive to Jasper.  As a young child my favourite part of the shopping trip was going to the bulk section and creating my own trail mix.  It consisted more of Swedish berries and gummy bears than of nuts or dried fruit.  We took fresh fruit as well.

Late in the evening before we’d leave, I’d help my father sort and pack all we’d purchased into our packs.  He’d crack eggs into containers and leave the shells at home.  He washed the apples and pulled off their stems and stickers.  He stuck each sticker to its stem before tossing it into the garbage.  I put my bulk candy into a single bag to create my trail mix, and he mixed up his own gorp. 

My dad fully believed in no trace camping.  Whatever we carried up the mountain we would eat or carry out.  We took granola bars with us, but left the boxes at home.  Every item we brought had a purpose, or, if possible, like the paper towel wrapping the tomatoes and our plates with high side, more than one. 

On a warm afternoon we journeyed through the woods on a broad path up a gentle hill.  We pulled out apples to munch upon while we walked.  I kept in step with my dad and we made our way speaking only through steps and crunches.  He ate around his apple’s middle and then bit off the top of the core.  He chewed the crunchy matter and went in for another bite, right at the core.

“That’s gross.” I said

He shrugged and continued crunching and walking.

I had eaten my apple down to the core.

“Might as well eat it all,” my dad said. “Otherwise you’ll have to carry it out.”

“Do I have to?”

He repeated what I assumed to be the national park’s motto “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

I considered my options as he tossed the last of his apple into his mouth.  Stopping I swung my backpack off of my shoulders, found a bag of garbage and added my core to the other items I was carrying out.

Piano

When I was six I took piano lessons.  I enjoyed the first year, but when I moved on to the second and much harder book, I complained until my parents took me out of lessons.  I wish they made me continue, not because I long to be able to play the piano well, but because I wish I developed the perseverance to not give up when things get hard.

Polepole

Reaching 5895 meters above sea level, Mount Kilimanjaro is the world's tallest free-standing mountain and the highest peak in Africa.*  At the tender age of thirteen, I along with my sister and my father, set out to conquer Kili.  Eager, and with spring in our steps we began the journey, three and a half days up, one and a half down.  We carried only our day packs and were ready to run with the gazelles up the constant incline.  Our guide, however, warned us against such sprints.  His advice was simple, "polepole" - slowly.  The idea was that going slowly at a sustainable speed would be quicker than a binge and purge approach.  It's the story of the tortoise and the hare.  It worked.  Our trek was slow, but it was consistent.
Polepole.  I am often overwhelmed at how much I have to learn, how much I have to grow.  I have goals of being totally humble, completely faith-filled and perfect.  While those goals are great things to aim for, they are not achieved over night neither are they achieved sprinting.  Polepole.  I hope that every day I can become a little more humble, gain a little more faith and move closer towards perfection, but the journey is long, the destination is still far away.  What matters though is that I am on the journey, I am taking steps, no matter how polepole, in the right direction.
You might think this is a poor analogy if I tell you that I never made it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.  However, even in that there is a lesson to be learned.  The goal set out for us was to summit for sunrise.  My sleep, uncomfortable in a dorm of strange men and women, was cut short when I was awoken a little after one and beckoned to begin the journey heavenward.  It was dark, the steep trail lit only by our head lamps.  I was tired, grouchy.  Our goal, which had previously been hidden from us by the clouds, was now cloaked in darkness.  There was greater urgency than in the previous days.  If we were to make our goal, we had to keep going.
I couldn't keep up.  I didn't feel well.  Whether it was because of the altitude, the physical exertion or the lack of sleep, i do not know, but I felt miserable.  I begged for a break, and in the darkness I sat down.
I couldn't do it, I told them, and then I was told that I didn't have to.  I could go back to the scary dorm room filled with strange men and go back to sleep.
The choice was mine - conquer Africa's highest peak or go back to bed.  That was a big choice for little 13 year-old me.  I knew hours of hiking were still ahead.  The summit seemed to be nothing more than a fictitious promise, and surely the sunrise couldn't be that amazing.
I'm convinced I could have made it.  While altitude sickness seems to be the most honourable excuse, I think I was just tired.  Had I gotten up, taken just one step and then another, polepole I would have made it to the top.  However, my sister, rather than encouraging me along, gave me a ultimatum.  Now or never.  "Let's go, and if you can't, then you go back and let us go on."**  I went back.  I spent the night coward in a corner of the dorm room hoping and praying that the men wouldn't touch me.  So much for sleep.
My sister and my dad when on to summit the world's tallest free standing mountain while I stayed behind.
I'm thankful for the people who haven't left me behind as I journey to become more like Jesus.  I too often I'm pouty, I sit down and complain that I can't do it.  Every time I do, someone comes along and tells me to get up, to take another step, to look back at how far I've come, remember the strength I've been given thus far and to carry on.  Little by little, inch by inch, do whatever I can do, and if all I can do is sit there for a minute or two, that is better than retreating.  I love that the Gospel asks us just to do however little it is that we can.  What matters is that I am on the right path, not the speed at which I am progressing and while I want to sprint towards the goal, I can't.  It is too far away, but everyday I can learn something new, I can put into practice everything I've learned and step by step, polepole, I'll get closer to my goal.  Will I succeed?  Ultimately the choice is mine.  A choice made up of a thousand choices.  On Kili the choice was mine and this is no difference.  I'm just thankful for those who have made the choices easier, who have encouraged and supported me and reminded me that I am where I need to be.  I'm on the journey, I'm on the right path, I'm going in the right direction and that's what matters.



*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro
**I feel like I should defend my sister.  She's great and we had a lot of fun together hiking up Kili.  She was also a teenager, grumpy from not getting enough sleep, and well you can't expect much patience from a 16 year-old.  She likewise has made little steps towards greater change, so when she decided that we should run 15 miles a couple years ago, and with less than a mile left I just wanted to give up, she wouldn't let me.  She encouraged me every step and told me I could do it.  It turns out that she was right, but I couldn't have done it alone.  Thanks.

Ferry - God - Mother

We waited in a forever long lineup of cars.  After hours of driving through the mountains, we stopped to pick up a second car for my mom to use, and then headed to the ferry terminal.  Soon we would be on Salt Spring Island.  In the long line, we disembarked the vehicles, stretched in the parking lot, breathed in the salt water and stood on tippy-toes trying to see the ocean.  Then the cars up ahead started to move so we jumped back into the vehicles.  Me, my sisters and my dad in the van; my mom following right behind us.  Excitement grew inside of us.  We would soon be aboard a massive boat.  I love, have always loved boat rides.

We were waved ahead, started to drive on to the boat, but when I looked back, I realised they had stopped my mom.  I panicked.  Our van was the last vehicle to get onto the boat.  I might have cried as I realised that we were leaving my mom behind.  I think I demanded that we go back to be with her.  We couldn’t leave her behind.  My dad did what he could to assure my sisters and me that we would wait for my mom on the island.  That she could catch the next boat over and everything would be fine.

I’m not sure I agreed, but everything turned out fine.

I’m on the other side of Canada today.  The ferry has just pulled in and soon I’ll have to stand in line to board.  I’m sad to be leaving New Brunswick.  I met a lady here, a lady who showed me that the nurture from a human is far greater than anything mother earth has to offer me.  She’s not a woman I’ve known for long, but she cared for me, looked out for me and mothered me when that’s what I needed.  As I prepare to leave NB, I feel the pain of leaving her behind.  I want to cry, catch a bus in the opposite direction and go be with her.

The announcement tells me that it's time to board.  The ferry will not wait for me, it will not mother me.  Though the waves of the ocean may rock and comfort me, nothing compares to those who have nurtured and mothered me.

Chocolate Ice Cream

This is a story from when I was three.  It is accurate according to my memory which may not be accurate at all.

It was a bright sunny day.  My sisters and I and two of our friends were playing house in my back yard.  I had to get the “food” which was leaves from our May Day tree.  Against the fence ran a bench.  I stood upon it, leaned against the fence for balance and reached up to pluck the leaves. 

An angry swarm of wasps came rushing out from the other side of the fence.  Apparently they didn’t like having their nest disturbed.  I panicked, screamed swung my arms wildly. 

“Stay calm,” my nanny Gail yelled as she came rushing out of the house.  “Don’t swat them, it will only aggravate them.”

My arms couldn’t stay still, but my feet couldn’t move.  Gail picked me up off the bench and rushed me into the house.  There we assessed the damage.

I was three years old and had been bitten three times: once on my arm, once on my lip and once on my pinkie.

Gail lectured me about how one ought to behave around wasps as she held me and comforted me.

“Did you swat one away,” she asked.  “Is that why it bit your pinkie?”

“No,” I lied.

I was afraid to go back outside.  The following night after dark my father and my sister took a spray and went to kill the wasps.  It was past my bed time, but my other sister and I sat nervously by the window.  We ate chocolate ice cream and feared for their lives, at least I did.  I was terrified that they’d get bitten just as I had.  The fear made me feel sick to the stomach.  Yet, they went willingly, to ensure my safety, and for that they were my heroes.  When they came back unharmed I was filled with relief.  Only then could I go to bed in peace.

Dad Day

Two years ago today my dad died.  They've been a long two years.  Sometimes I feel like it's been much longer.  Other times I awake from dreams of him, that seem so real that I am no longer sure if he is alive or dead.
I don't spend lots of time speaking, or even thinking, about my dad.  I'm always hesitant to share stories about him, especially with those whom I'm not sure if they know that my dad has passed away.  But today is dad day.  I get to think about my dad, tell stories about him, enjoy the memories and be a little sad.  Still, I have to function, I have things to do, I don't get the whole day just to mourn.
There are many stories I could tell about my dad.  This is a story about when he made me feel like the most important person in the world.  When I was 7ish, my dad read Heidi to me.  That summer the two of us went hiking.  Half way up the mountain we entered a sloped green field, beautifully alive with wild flowers.  We sat down to have our lunch, and my dad told me that I was Heidi, and he was Peter and we entered into the world of pretend.  It was lovely.
It's dad day, one more story:


My dad also ready the Little House on the Prairies books to me.  I was rereading one of them and I think those books may have been what inspired me to ask my dad to tell me stories about his childhood.  He would make excuses, saying that he wasn't good at telling stories, or that he couldn't remember any.  This always make me a little sad, but he'd read to me, and for that I am so thankful.  I told my dad that he had to take me to Bolivia, the country where he spent a large portion of his childhood.  When I was 18, we went to Bolivia, and there I finally heard stories about his childhood.  We went hiking and came across these large rock formations.  I wish I could remember what they were called, but I believe the name reflected the idea that they were guards.  My dad shared with me that as a kid he was never allowed to climb the rocks.  I tried to get him to climb them, but he claimed to was too old.  Rather he lived his childhood dream vicariously through me as he encouraged me to climb the rocks.  It was great.  He encouraged me all the way up, helped me to find handholds and took pictures of my accomplishments.  I'm so thankful for all the times my dad let me be a kid and climb trees and mountains and rocks, and dig holes in our back yard and get dirty and just play.

remembering

One year ago from today my daddy died.  It's been hard for me to talk about him, and hard for me to share the memories I have of him.  So today, I want to share a story.
When I was a kid my dad would read to me every night before bed.  I looked forward to story time, and he read many books to me.  I remember when he read to me The Black Cauldron and he would call me Gurgi, the fluffy creature.  But that is not what this story is about.  This story takes place in the years before he read The Black Cauldron to me.
It began one night after he had read to me, and was reading to my sister in her room.  I was probably supposed to be sleeping, but I had to get my stuffed toy down from above the window.  I stood on my chair, but I couldn't quite reach it.  I grabbed my pillow, placed in on my chair and reached and reached, and did a little jump to knock it down, and me down.  I ended up on the floor.  It wasn't a far fall, and it wasn't all that painful, but as I made my way back to my bed I noticed that my foot was bleeding.  I started to cry.  I was crying to get the attention of my dad who was in the next room.  He heard me, but thought I was just crying to get attention (I was kinda) and so he let me go on crying for a while.  When I didn't stop he came to check on me.  He realised the cut was quite deep, so after cleaning off the blood, and giving me a band-aide he called my mother who was out curling, and asked her to bring home suture kit.  I fell asleep long before my mom got home.  When she woke me up at 1 am to give me stitches, she realised that she had forgotten the freezing...  So, I got a couple stitches in the middle of the night with no freezing.
I realise that is isn't primarily a story about my dad, so I am not sure why it is the one I chose to tell other than I was thinking about it the other day as I told a different story about my dad to a friend.  Sharing that story was one of the first times since my dad's passing that I felt comfortable as i relayed a memory of him.
Today I didn't write the story I told my friend, because it is located here: The Cavity

A Pretty Blue Car With An Old Rusted Dent.

A youth I work with told me about how one day she had gotten drunk, stolen her mom’s car and drove 20 minutes to the next town.  On the way back home she was pulled over by the police.  She had been driving a stolen vehicle, while drunk and she does not have even her learner’s licence.  When they called her mom her mom was furious.  She went into the youth's room and started ripping things apart, throwing things on the ground and otherwise trashing the place.  It took days for her anger to finally subside.  When the youth told what had happened, she was repentant and regretted the thing she had done.  She was working to gain back her mother’s trust and mend that relationship.

I was reminded of a time 4 or 5 years ago when I was still living at my parents house.  I asked my dad if I could borrow his car to go pick up my friend, and he willingly agreed.  As I backed out of the garage I heard a crunching sound, the sound that is made when a car hits the side of a garage.  As I was looking behind me it was that noise which alerted me to the fact that the front end of my dad’s car was crunching into the garage door frame.  When I returned to the house with my friend, slightly embarrassed, my father let me be.  Once the time had come for me to take my friend home, I approached my dad, and confessed that I had dented his car.  He nodded, I think he knew.  “Can I borrow your car again so that I can drive my friend home?” I asked somewhat timidly.  I am sure he made a joke that questioned my driving ability, but he let me drive his car again.  There was not a moment of anger, no display of disappointment.  No desire to shame me or to punish me.  When my dad’s friend came over to fix the garage door track, my dad sent me out to help.  That was the extent to which I had to make up for what I had done.  (And I am pretty sure I uselessly stood and watched and did not help at all.) Someone else fixed my mistake, and my dad drove around with a dent on his car for the rest of his life.  He wasn’t one to worry about what others would think.  He didn’t have the need to appear perfect.  He didn’t go around telling everyone that I had dented his car.  He didn’t need to because he didn’t care if people thought it was him.  He was content with what he had, even if that was a dent on his car.

I am now driving my dad’s car, a car with a dent.  A dent that reminds me of my mistake and my dad’s mercy. A dent that reminds me that appearances don’t matter, but love does.  A dent that reminds me that broken garages are easier to fix than broken people, but sometime we have to do our best to mend the wounds from other’s mistakes.  It is a dent that reminds me that what really matters in life is people, not possessions.

 

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:1

I am grateful for the opportunity I had to follow my father’s example.  He was a follower of Christ, kind and compassionate, gentle, calm and forgiving.  I hope that what I have learned from him I will be able to pass on to others.

The Cavity

I thought I might say something at my dad's funeral, but I didn't know what to say. I read some of the memories my sister had written, and they made me cry, but I was still clueless as to what I should say. Then I realised that I was afraid to remember. I was afraid to remember because then I would realise my loss. Eventually I wrote (and then read) the following: When I was 6 my dad took me up Mount Cavity. He knew his children well enough to know that it would be a mountain I would love, and Karen would hate, so, I reckon, that is why he took me up there by myself. It was steep, cliffy and there were a lot of rocks. He had previously been up there, probably when he was around 16, with his brother Stan. Every year dad would take me on a camping trip. We would stop for breakfast at Smitty's, and on these trips my dad would tell me stories about his youth, and about his brother Stan. He had many fond memories of the time he and Stan had spent together in Jasper, but I was always too shy to ask about Stan, who had died before I was born, except on those trips where the conversations naturally flowed. The hike up the cavity is steep and involves a fair amount of short climbs, but I was fearless. Coming down I grabbed on to a loose rock and slipped. My dad was below me, as he always was, ready to cushion a fall, and he did, but I still ended up with a nasty scrape on my knee. It was about to rain and my dad wanted to get down before the rocks got wet and slippery, So he told me not to look at my knee, gave me an Advil and we carried on down the mountain. I still have a scar, and remembered that event clearly. This September, my dad, regressing in health, wrote a bucket list, and on it there was a family trip to the mountains. Thankfully we were all able to make it out to the mountains. We went on three hikes, the last one was up to the Cavity. As we hiked up, we came to the place where I had fallen, some 16 years ago, in a mountain full of rocks, there was something distinct about that place. It was a place where memories had been formed, a place where dad had protected me from greater injury, and got me to get up and press on through the pain. It was also there that I learned the lesson to always check if a rock is secure before using it to bear weight. It was something that my dad had told me before we started on the hike, but a lesson I had to learn on my own and would remember through our future scrambles. Falling did not take away from my confidence in scrambling. I always knew my dad was below me, ready to catch me, and would do everything he could to keep me safe.

Over the weekend I went to Jasper with my parents, both of my sister's and their husbands. It was a last minute family trip. We went on 3 hikes, all of which I had done as a kid with my dad. I am thankful for those father daughter camping trips I went on with my dad where we would hike, camp, and when I got older, backpack. Those are some of the times when I really bonded with my dad. We hike up the mountain Cavity, which was far more of a scramble than a walk in the park. I thought my dad was a little crazy for taking me up there when I was 6, but I still have a scar on my knee from that first trip. The hike up Cavity yesterday was dangerous. It was windy, and rainy, so the rocks were slippery. Looking from above, I watched my dad try to navigate an alternate route which only left him stranded on a rock wall. I hoped he would not fall.
My dad and I did a lot of scrambling, For a couple years we hiked into a campground called waterfall where two waterfalls met. One year we scrambled up beside the one waterfall, and the next year up climbed up the other waterfall. I think it was the first year when my dad and I had climbed different routes up a cliff. From the top I got out the camera and took a picture of him. "Good thing you took that picture" he had told me later "The rock I was holding was loose. That might have been the last picture you ever got of me." I shuddered, not liking my dad to talk like that.
The next year we climbed up the other waterfall. we came across some large rock piles let by glaciers. (I think they have a fancy name, but I don't know what it is now). We walked a couple of Kms to the far side of one, and on that end it was gently sloped. we walked up it with no problem and started heading back along the top. The problem came when we had to get off of the pile. The sides around us were a steep collection of large and small rocks. Everything was loose. My brave dad started down on his feet, but it wasn't long before he lost his balance and tumbled down the mountain. I thought he might die, but he was okay. I sat atop of the rock for a long time, terrified of going down. I thought about the song that said "your love is a mountain, firm beneath my feet", and wished that this mountain was at all firm. Eventually I made my way down.
We took a lot of pictures this weekend. And I thought about the time my dad had said that it was good I had taken the picture because it might have been the last. We found out a week before our trip to Jasper that my dad's cancer has come back, and with a vengeance. He seems healthy, but the tumors are beyond operable, and treatment can only delay the inevitable. He's made a bucket list, and on there was a trip to Jasper. Jasper is an important place for him. Take a Picture of dad on the mountain, this might be the last mountain he climbs. Take a picture of all of us together, who knows if we will all be together again. Take a picture of dad skipping rocks. Who knows if he will be out at a lake again. Take a picture of dad and his daughters because soon they won't have a father. Take a picture, it might be the last chance.

So, now I am feeling pretty hopeless and kinda depressed. I don't feel like doing anything, but I think the more I do, the better it is for me. I am feeling rather busy with school and work amongst many other things, and I can't do everything. Hopefully someday I will learn how to balance it all, but first I feel like I might crash.