choices – Dancing in the rain!

Photo Credit to: canadaclass10.wordpress.com

In 2008 we headed West, packing our lives into a U-haul, our hearts overflowing with memories, leaving behind the only home and lives our kids had ever known. After spending our growing up years and the early years of our marriage on the East Coast surrounded by family and friends I am surprised at how deeply and quickly our roots sunk in here. My husband and I credit our jobs and a few close friends for firmly rooting us in this Western life but for our children it is their home, their friends that have become family, their sense of community and the opportunities they have been afforded to do the things they are passionate about.

It was the summer of 2008 when we arrived at our new home in Alberta and because we had a good reason for being here it began to feel like home remarkably quickly. As a family we had been apart for eight months while my husband worked in the Alberta Oil Sands so geography seemed like a reasonable thing to try to overcome to be able to be together as a family as much as possible. But even so, the sense of belonging to a place, the feeling that where we are is where we were meant to be, still depends just as much — if not more — on our attitude about the place as it does on the place itself.

Edmonton is not my home in the sense of heart and family. I am proud to have been born and raised in the fair province of Nova Scotia. I love the ocean and will always be captivated by salty air and crashing waves. Lakes, long coastlines, beaches and sand between my toes. I love my family and nothing can replace seeing them as I often as I would like but the thing about being from a family as close as mine is the security in knowing that you are only a thought away. I credit being close to my family as the reason I was able to move across Canada and create a life. When everyone else was full of warnings about everything I would hate in Alberta it was my family that said to me that they knew that I was strong enough to assemble a life anywhere. They would miss us at the family gatherings along the shore, for every imagined reason we could think of to get together and eat good food and tell tales but I would be in their hearts, on their minds and definitely on the tips of their tongues because with family, no matter where you go you never get left behind. There is an inclusion that happens within a family like mine that cannot be touched by time or distance. Instead of making it harder to leave, this made it easier really, knowing that they wished us well and had nothing but good thoughts and high hopes for our journey ahead. The vastness of the land between us would never sever our bonds.

That all being said eight years have come and gone since we landed in Alberta. I remember like it was yesterday how my husband whisked us off to Jasper immediately because he knew I would be enamored with the mountains and it would alleviate the heaviness in my heart. I was awestruck by the majestic Rocky Mountains, standing proud and tall and on guard, touching the sky with their monumental peaks and reminding me just how small we are in this great big, phenomenal world. Lakes of Caribbean blue that mirrored the lofty, snow capped summits made my heart ache for my ocean playground a little less. Like a John Green novel, slowly at first and then quickly all at once I fell in love.

There was a moment last summer that my husband and I decided it was time to move home to Nova Scotia. We want to be close to family and lead a simple life, watch our grandkids grow up. We were very excited and started planning a timeline and telling family, trying to convince the girls.

As it often does, life happened and almost another year has passed since making that decision. The bottom fell out of the Oil Sands and financially took a lot of our immediate choices away. The timing wasn’t right when things were good and it is even worse now when things are bad. Funny the wrenches that get thrown into your life, but I am a firm believer that there is a reason for everything that will reveal itself in time.

Looking back to last summer after we made the decision to move home we had taken a trip to our favorite spot in the East Kootenay’s along the shores of the Upper Arrow Lakes. It is our spot for calm and clarity, to unplug and unwind and remember the things that are really important. When I step onto the little ferry that takes us to Burton, British Columbia it strangely feels like coming home. I remember staring up at a starry sky over the lake and being overcome with emotion wondering how I could walk away and never see that place again. My husband took my hand and said “I get it”, knowingly; because his heart was ravaged as well.

Like a time aged tale of being torn between two lovers my heart is divided and may always be, no matter where our story leads us.

Unfortunately living your life and making a living sometimes pulls you in entirely different directions.

It reminds me of a saying,

“Wherever you go, there you’ll be”

Indeed here I am, and what am I to do but make the best of the story that I am in the middle of?

Another fitting quote if you will allow me,

“Wherever you are be the soul of that place”

I will be. I am committed to it.This place has been good to me and my family. The people have been warm and kind. The community has embraced us. We have had good times and great experiences. I know that it is not my forever but it is my right now. Like a line from the 1970 hit by Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills and Nash, “Love the one you’re with”

Attitude is everything!

Thousand Acre heart is a story of adoption, of heartbreak, of redemption and of two hearts being reunited in love. There is no end to this story but you can start from the beginning HERE

The day I signed the adoption papers giving Jeffrey the life that he deserved, one I was fairly certain I wasn’t capable of giving him at sixteen changed me. For years I wasn’t the person I was supposed to be. I allowed myself to be shamed into silence and in turn I didn’t enter into friendships openly and honestly. There was a part of me that I kept under lock and key for so long that I wasn’t being all that I could be. Periodically I would trust someone enough to break down my walls a little but it was rare. I liked the anonymity of living in a big city and getting out of a small town where I was ‘that girl!” but my heart never really recovered. There was a void in me that caused a great deal of insecurity and I believe caused me to lack confidence in myself and in turn make some bad choices. For all the promises I made and broke over the years the most important one, the one I made to a bright eyed, dark haired newborn baby, I kept forever. “I will love you forever, never will a day go by that I won’t think of you” I have no idea how other birth moms feel or have felt but for me, I never gave up the worry that comes with parenthood. In thinking about him everyday of his life and not knowing if he was OK I worried a lot. I hoped his Mom kissed his skinned knees and tucked him each night and loved him more then anything in the world. I also felt an unmistakable guilt over the births of our girls. Almost as if I didn’t deserve the happiness or it somehow diminished the love I felt for the boy I couldn’t hold. When Jeffrey contacted me a healing began. His love and acceptance built a bandage for my troubled heart and allowed me to forgive myself for not being in his life. Knowing that he was happy, that he had a good life should have been enough. I didn’t dare ask or expect more but what happened between us was a natural progression that neither of us could have prepared for. It didn’t take away from my love for my children or he from his parents but it added to and enriched our lives in a way that has made me feel complete. I finally felt in the drivers seat in my own life, confident of who I was and owning the decisions I had made along the way, right or wrong because they had brought me here to this moment. Jeffrey and I conversed for about seven months. I talked about him to everyone who would listen. He in turn was probably feeling a little of what I felt for all those years. Unsure of who he was, not certain of how to embrace this craziness he had been thrown into without hurting his family. It was like navigating a country road without a compass. The maturity he continues to display in regards to all the decisions that were made regarding him, affecting him but without his knowledge makes it easy to forget that he is the child in all this. His faith in goodness and his kind spirit has helped guide me. We decided that Edmonton would be the best place for us to reunite face to face. With both of our families in Truro it would place a lot of unnecessary pressure on us and it was important that the reunion be about us. Mother and child. If I was asked to describe this process I would liken it to climbing a mountain. Slow and steady on the way up, marveling at the views, taking smalls steps, taking care not to fall, holding your breath sometimes because you are not sure what step you should take next, all the while knowing that the beauty was in the climb. Jeffrey landed in Edmonton on a beautiful Friday evening in September. Kirk and I had decided that I was going to go get him at the airport. Any advice that was given to me by well wishers all suggested the same, that the initial reunion should just be Jeffrey and I. The day of I was a complete mess. A bundle of frayed nerves. I couldn’t eat, hadn’t slept and my nervous stomach had me in the washroom every five minutes. Kirk poured me a glass of wine while I talked to a friend on the phone. I am not sure how many times he refilled it but my nervousness subsided, as did my ability to drive safely to the airport. Kirk insisted on driving but was going to stay in the truck. We arrived a bit early so Kirk parked and decided to walk me into the airport and keep me company but leave before Jeffrey’s plane landed. Plans are plans but even the best laid plans sometimes fall apart mid flight. Kirk was so excited for me, so thrilled to be a part of my life changing I couldn’t imagine him not being there when Jeffrey stepped off the plane. The waiting was excruciating. Kirk and I waited as close to the doors as possible, hand in hand, giddy with anticipation, as friends and family were reunited one by one. The plane emptied quickly at first and then slowly a passenger or two here and there descended the stairs. Kirk was hilarious through it all, keeping me upbeat, trying to convince me that the young Asian guy coming down the stairs was probably my son, or maybe the Hawaiian guy, or perhaps the 70 year old plaid loving granddad. After what seemed like an eternity my boy came down the stairs. He was bubbling over with excitement about the baby that he helped deliver on the plane. He detailed the account of the events that unfolded during the flight that led to him assisting in the birth of a bouncy baby. We were astonished and intrigued. It turned out the story was bogus, but a great ice breaker. Something weird happened and it happened very quickly, twenty years faded away until there was nothing separating us. What could have been, and should have been weird was quietly comfortable. Two hours and several cocktails later nobody would have guessed that years and miles and questions had ever separated us. Well wishing friends wanting to share in our excitement met us at the restaurant intending to have one drink with us and move on. It was an exciting evening for everyone and next thing you know we were all at their home bar, with all the makings of an all nighter! There was dancing and laughter, memories that would last forever. As the sun was coming up Jeffrey’s head lowered unto the bar and his eyes closed in much needed slumber. Somehow I helped maneuver my stocky, over six feet tall boy up the stairs and to a bedroom where he could catch a couple of hours of sleep. At twenty years old I tucked my boy in for the VERY first time. I stepped outside the door and tears of complete joy spilled over my cheeks. All the Kings horses and all the Kings men couldn’t have put me back together again but finally, for the first time in twenty years I felt complete.