I must have written this entry of my blog a half a dozen times and ripped it apart about 100 times.
It’s been well over a year since my last posting which to be honest was never my intension whatsoever, but here we are a year and some months later.
If it hadn’t been for our pastor and dear friend, who reminded me of my love of writing and the healing power it gave me I would still be struggling and maybe eventually stop writing altogether.

2019 hasn’t been a very kind year to our family. Jayson was going through a terrible time in his last year of junior high dealing with kids not so kind and trying to work with his hairline anger issues proved to be a full-time job alone.
As a mom, my first thought is to go to the school and start kicking some ass believe me if I was a 13 year old boy you can bet that’s exactly what I would have done.However coming from a teenage boy’s point of view having your mom go to the school to kick ass doesn’t come across very well at all.
Even Grace was up against a mean girl when she was constantly paired up with her during school assignments because everyone refused to have their child work with her. I usually like to give a child the benefit of doubt when I first start to get to know a child, however as the years progressed and the older she got it became more and more difficult.
So the only thing I could do for Grace was to hear about her day and give her the best advise I could give her to empower her.
I made it my mission to be available for all her field trips in hopes to add this girl to my group to keep an eye on her as well as any group assignments they may have were done in our home.
As the school year came to a close and summer just around the corner, little did I know how much worse it was going to be.
in late June. our beloved dog Maddy had to be put down at 16 years old, for awhile her age was showing as her hips started giving her problems with arthritis and eventually it became difficult for her to climb the stairs without assistance.
The day we decided that she had had enough was really sad as she had had 3 Grand Mal seizures and it took her a long while to regain her balance to walk.
So that evening Kevin and I along with the kids took Maddy to the vet, said our goodbyes and laid her to rest.
She was a huge part of our lives and she has been missed dearly every day.
Not 2 weeks later I got a call that had changed my life.
For the past year or so my father was battling a persistent cough that we all assumed was a cold that just wouldn’t go away.
This past July my father went in for tests to determine what was going on, only to find out that there was a mass on his lung.
Further tests confirmed to be stage 4 lung cancer, unbeknownst to me my brother was going through a routine exam when a  cancerous mass was discovered in his kidney.
I felt like the air in my lungs had gone out of me as my father explained his and my brother’s diagnosis.
Words escaped me and I barely could comprehend what was going on as I tried to grasp the words my dad was saying.
As I got off the phone to my dad I was grateful that the kids were out at friends houses so that they didn’t see me break down.
I called Kevin at work,  the words however wouldn’t come except cancer, David and dad were able to come to mind.
I barely remember Kevin rushing home to be by my side, it was then that he held me in his arms and let me fall apart until I was able to pull myself together before the kids came home.
My mind was numb for a long  time after, between my father and brother’s diagnoses I couldn’t get home fast enough.
I booked a flight home so I could be there for my family when my brother went for surgery and father went for further tests in the first weeks of August, however I never made the flight.
Not two weeks before I were to fly out I had a freak accident resulting in me falling down a flight of stairs breaking my left arm.
I suppose you could say this was a blessing in disguise, as weird as that sounds under the circumstances.
First of all I could have very easily broken my right arm with it being my dominant hand and all and the kids could have taken off to friend’s houses leaving me alone in the house.
My first thoughts went to the kids, I wasn’t sure how Jayson would respond in a crisis situation considering how much he hated hospitals.
However he was amazing and took charge of the situation straight away,Kevin was notified, paramedics called and off to the hospital I went.
When I got to the hospital waiting in the hall, it hit me that I wouldn’t be able to make it to Kelowna.
I blew it, I was more upset that I was letting my family down over the fact that I broke my arm I just wanted to cry.
They say bad luck comes in threes, so I suppose you can say I took one for the team.
Kevin arrived after work (there was no point in leaving work in my opinion) as it took awhile for them to take me to x-ray and confirm that yes it was indeed broken.
I went home with a very loopy head from liquid gravol and a prescription for pain meds in my hand.
For the next couple weeks, flights were cancelled, credits were given and for the next 2 months I slept in a seating position which was surprisingly not too bad.
During this time I kept in contact with my family on the progress of my brother and dad’s health.
I was relieved to hear that my brother’s surgery was a success and the cancer was contained in his kidney.
For several months, my sister made the three hour drive every second week from Kelowna to Grand Forks in the meantime keeping me informed on any updates.
I was concerned about her and wanted to let her know that although we had a typical big sister/little sister relationship growing up I wanted to let her know that I was here for her.
I knew that she was going through a lot so I kept asking her “How are you doing”?
Eventually she was able to confine in me what she was feeling, I knew it wasn’t easy for her to do but I feel honoured that she felt comfortable telling me.
However I felt a sense of guilt being so far away, unable to do my share while my brother and sister took to helping our parents even though being realistic there really wasn’t much I could do considering it was mostly physical thing that needed to be done.
So being my sister’s support had to do for now. Christmas came and went and soon I made arrangements to fly out for a month, this took a lot of planning on mine and Kevin’s part and now that the kids were older I felt confident that things would work out.
Now don’t get me wrong we’re talking about a teen and preteen kids, so yeah there’s always concern.
While I was away Kevin and I kept in contact with each other every single day, even after I had made arrangements ahead of time for appointments and weather conditions I still worried that something would go wrong.
Although we had a couple hiccups things went relatively well, however I can’t see myself ever being away from my family for as long as I was again and wouldn’t want to be.
I arrived in Kelowna January 1 and spent the first week with my sister and brother in law before we made the trip out to Grand Forks, pick up our parents for their various doctor’s appointments and my mom’s upcoming eye surgery.
It was nice to spend that extra time alone with her before we jumped into everything that was going on ahead of us.
The next week we made the trip out to Grand Forks to see mom and dad, I had mentally prepared myself for the drastic change in dad’s appearance. I hadn’t seen my dad since the May long weekend seven months prior so when dad answered the door I was slightly surprised at how much the cancer had aged him. It was a two second reaction but to me he was the same old dad
A few days later we all went to the hospital, my sister taking mom for her eye appointment while I stayed with dad as he went for blood work.
We all met up again to talk with his doctor, for the result’s of dad’s latest tests that he had done the previous month.
The doctors were very pleased with the results and were very optimistic that he would be able to resume with chemotherapy the following week. Another bonus was that they had found that the tumour in his lung had shrunk 50% .
Everyone was ecstatic over this good news including his doctors, even though it had shrunk we knew that he wasn’t out of the woods and still considered terminal.
We were pretty happy that dad could resume his chemo treatments after having to stop due to complications the previous month, this was a win in our books.
A few days later, we made the three hour trip back to Grand Forks and waited for the hospital to call to set up treatment.
Chemo was scheduled for the following week, January 16 dad of course was ecstatic.
He named his tumour “the bastard” much to my mother’s dislike but it suited it perfectly and it was time to deal with it head on after so many delays.
My sister had gone back home after a few days, so it was just mom, dad and I at the house spending time together and getting dad whatever he needed.
I wanted to spend as much time as I could with dad perhaps make up for the time I had wasted in May. I will be the first one to admit that I’ve made so many bad choices for myself in the last few years but I was doing better, despite of making a public ass of myself in front of my family on that particularly long weekend.
I was looking forward to spending the day with dad at the hospital I wanted to spend that time just being by his side talking, maybe play a game or just read a book while he had a nap.
Unfortunately it was never meant to be, on January 15 2020 my father passed away.
Out of respect for my family I won’t go into detail of his passing, instead I will tell you that I had feelings of guilt, and helplessness knowing that if  I hadn’t been downstairs to give mom and dad privacy earlier that evening, maybe I could have been more of a help than I was.
Looking back I knew there wasn’t really much that I could do and the good thing was that mom wasn’t alone at the time however, I was not the daughter she wanted at that moment.
To clarify, my sister is the take charge type, and has always had the ability to know exactly what to say to our mom to calm her, much like our father however mom and I share the same type of personality and like most times I never know what to say.
Perhaps it’s why writing comes so naturally to me because I can express myself better with the written word.
My sister and brother in law arrived the following day as the roads were too bad to make the trip out the previous night.
The relief I felt to see them was overwhelming to say the least, she was here and would know what to do.
Over the next few days things started to move like a blur I was trying to find a way to help in anyway I could but didn’t know how to really fit in as my siblings who had known the routine of the house much more than I did so trying to do whatever I could wasn’t as easy as they made it look like.
I have always been the quiet and very much the awkward one in the family unfortunately even as an adult those tendencies never really go away.
Since moving to Edmonton 20 years ago I focused most of my energy on my marriage and my desire to start a family of our own, so I suppose I had disconnected somewhat from the rest of the family.

Until next time my story continues

Post Script 3 months later
During my time in Grand Forks there were many times where I had felt judged, trapped and attacked.
Everything from the way I raise my children to the choices I made for myself to even my disability which wasn’t a new thing for me. I had known growing up it was a sense of embarrassment to one family member whom I had tried for a very long time to get their approval.
It only took me 42 years to accept that I no longer wanted nor needed it and I’m ok with it.
As siblings we all have different memories on how we were raised overall it was a good childhood but there was a lot of pain along the way as well.