I took Remembrance Day off as well as Friday and made it an extra-long weekend at the cabin. The place we named “Casa Serena” (House of Peace) when we bought it in 1999. I can't believe I hadn’t been there since January due to mom being so sick and I didn’t want to be away from her.
When we drove into the driveway, my heart filled with memories of when mom and dad came for the first time, the times we laughed, the great food and the two decades of our family growing. I truly had missed my Casa Serena and my parents.
We had expected snow but instead we got plummeted with rain. But that didn’t stop me from taking a peaceful walk to watch the rain and listen to nature around me. Deep in my own thoughts I reflected on things that were important and prayed. But at that moment only one thing kept creeping to the forefront of my thoughts. A young man holding on for dear life and his family going through what I can only imagine be hell and I couldn’t stop the tears mixing with the massive raindrops.
I was also at the cabin to get the shops year-end completed and the peace and quiet allowed me to focus and get it done. But again as I pounded away at the keys on my computer, that young man kept creeping into my thoughts, and now tears hit the keyboard. Didn’t matter what I did, my reflections kept going back to him. And as I got the daily updates from his wife my heart kept hurting more. I could only imagine what it took her to send these updates to everyone that was holding on for them.
Why was this young man in my thoughts….well he was a kid that when I meet him at TELUS I knew he was special. Sure he was tough, spoke as if he owned the world and in his young career didn’t understand fully the politics of such a career. Years passed and he grew to understand what being a team player was, understood that leaders don’t just manage, and grew to the man that I was proud to coach and mentor to be my successor when I moved into a new role. More importantly, I saw him grow to be the man who proposed to his wife on an ice rink because he knew how special that would be to her. He ministered kids at his church and guided them to be better than they would be without him. And he became the father to his little boy and baby girl who he adored more than life itself.
So that weekend, I prayed deeper than I have prayed in a long time. Yes I’ve been praying for my family and for what has been going on in my life. But this praying was to my core. That the powers of be help this family get through the toughest time in their lives and let the boy who became the man, pull through.
Sunday morning the rain just kept blustering like I’ve never seen before in the valley. Water was pooling everywhere, the river was raging and the mountains were crying water from every crevices in the rocks. As we drove out of the valley it was eerie. We had heard that highway one had had a landslide so we took highway 7. Traffic in the opposite direction was bumper to bumper, and the mountainside on our right was pouring water like never seen before. I really didn’t know where it was coming from. I prayed we would get home safely and a couple hours later, safely we did.
We got home to a leak in our bedroom ceiling. Nothing drastic and water easily caught with a few pans. We wouldn’t be able to see what was going on until the weather got better. But having gone through the drive we had been through, I would gladly take this small leak. Especially when we turned on the news to find that highway 7 had had two landslides. We were the lucky ones. So many were trapped and now every road from Hope to the lower mainland were blocked by slides. Back to the young man, I had received a message that there had been some small wins and things were a little better that day. Thank god for small miracles. Amongst the devastation there was HOPE.
Monday brought more turmoil to the lower mainland. We were all fixed to our TVs wondering where another slide was going to happen and hoping everyone would be safe. I went to bed that night realizing I hadn’t received my daily update. Something in my pit of my stomach told me the turmoil hadn’t stopped. I went to sleep that night, thinking about the conversations I had had with the boy who had become my work son. The times he called for advice, the times he called to let me know his wins, the times he called to talk about the kids, the times he just said thank you. Once again I cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I sent her a message of encouragement and it wasn’t long after that the earth under my feet rocked, because the message I got back was simple “He passed away this morning”. Even though I knew this is what I was going to wake up too, I couldn’t believe it. This man of 36 years young, with a beautiful wife, a boy and a girl, had lost his world. As of yet the medical reason why is unknown and why I’m only sharing the narrative and not the people. To respect their privacy and to find a way for me to get through this.
The lessons learned is that reflection can be cruel, it can be gut wrenching, it can make you cry like no other, but it can also give peace, calming, and cherished memories that will last forever. My heart is broken for the family that are left to pick up the pieces, the mother and father that no longer have a son, the wife without her husband and the children without their father. But my heart is full for having known him and the honour of knowing he was the best he could be and that he touched everyone around him.
My motto is live life well, I’m now going to add ALWAYS. Because life is so precious and we never know when the powers of be, have a different plan for us. Don’t stop reflecting on the bad and the good. It is what makes us stronger and makes us human.
Here are some photos of casa serena and the hope it brings in our life.
Live Life Well - ALWAYS
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