I haven’t known Erin Miller for very long, a year or so maybe.  For some reason, she invited me to be friends on Facebook.  We have much in common really, in spite of our 17 year age difference.  Life experiences bring people together, commonalities make us close.  I guess that’s what happened here. 


I lost my son Shane in 2009.  Erin lost her son Chad Miller in 2014.  Our boys lived completely different life stories.  Shane lived his life with a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy and all the fullest, most challenging pieces of what that means.  Chad lived life large as a very talented hockey player, and athlete.  But what they had in common was mothers who adored them, families that loved and supported every step of their short lives, friends whose lives were forever altered when the unthinkable happened.  The devastated Moms they left behind were also a common thread in the fabric of the story of their lives.  Women whose lives were forever altered having lost such huge pieces of their hearts. 


Although Facebook connected us, we didn’t actually meet until late last fall, after the launch of her foundation #MillerStrong17.  Before we escaped the harsh Canadian winter by heading south, I messaged Erin when I was heading into Winnipeg.  We met and the connection was instant and deep, as we realized our shared experiences.  

A couple of months ago, Erin sent me a page from Chad’s journal.  She hadn’t known that he kept one until after his death, but in discovering it, she’s received an ongoing gift of words, wisdom and love from him.  The page she sent to me told of his love and admiration for his Mom.  How ‘Strong’ she was.  About her having had him when she was only fifteen.  Of all she did and gave to ensure that he had the amazing life he was living.  Of her strength in being able to ‘keep giving love, and giving life’ regardless of the circumstances of their lives or what people might believe.  Erin asked if I might be able to write a song reflecting some of what he had shared through his own words.  The result was my newest song, simply titled ‘Strong’.  


‘Strong’ is in honor of Chad, but is a tribute to every single person who has walked through the fire and come out on the other side.  Singed by the flames of life, altered by events and in reality, changed forever…but ‘Strong’ because of it.  


There was a time I really hated when people would refer to me as strong.  “You are so strong, being able to handle having a child with a disability.  You are so strong in the way you supported your loved ones through cancer and their eventual deaths.  You are so strong to be able to share your experiences.  And the ultimate….what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…or the Big Guy only gives you what your’e strong enough to handle.”  There comes a time when you just want to shout ,ENOUGH ALREADY!  I really don’t need any more strength!  


But in reflection, strength has been the gift that has allowed us to come out the other side of the imaginable.  It’s what’s allowed us to offer hope and inspiration to others who just don’t know if they can get through the next hour, day, week.  It’s what has supported us to move forward into the new now that is our lives, and offer support to others that may need to borrow from the strength that has gotten us to where we are today.  


That is what the hope for ‘Strong’ is.   I want those that hear it to know that strength is within them as well, and that there are many of us walking this road alongside them. There are so many people making the best of life’s worst situations, keeping our heads above the waters of grief that threaten do drown us.  Scarred people who are changing the world in little ways with the hope of leaving it a better, gentler place for others following in their footsteps.  People who have found  their own ‘strong’ and are using it as a force of good for others. 


#MillerStrong17 is in its infancy, but as the #MillerStrong17 family continues to grow its reach and numbers, the strength of those numbers has the potential to elevate the vibration of this struggling world, one person at a time.  Together, there is the potential to make change through finding and using our own strength and utilizing it to its best purpose.


As Rumi said, “we are all just walking each other home.”  May we each take whatever it is that makes us ‘Strong’ and resilient and use it to make this journey the best it can be for each person we meet along the way.   May we find ways to support each other, lifting each other up and offering a lifeline when we can.  May our love enable others to find their own sense of ‘strong’ when they don’t think they have the ability to get through one more day.  You can!  You will find…you will know…then you will be ‘strong’ and your story may be the one that others will rely upon to know that they can get through life’s worst moments as well.  

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​So, I will be the first to admit that I never expected that part of my journey would include becoming an author of children’s books...but here I am, with four under my belt, and two that I helped publish.  Interesting how life unfolds, isn’t it?
 
It’s another opportunity that I have to attribute to Shane and his teachings.  It started with him needing a voice of his own, when life circumstance didn’t allow that for him.  So , to assist with that, I started creating books for him when he was a child.  Books that he could take to school just to share his story and experiences at a level the other kids at that particular time could understand.  It worked beautifully!
 
What it also did was help me to understand that children are the place to start in making change in our world.  Being able to plant seeds in the fertile grounds of their open minds is where our greatest possibilities for change can happen I believe.  Not to brainwash, but simply to help them know and question those things that the adults around them may not have had the opportunity to know themselves, because, admit it...we grew up in a different time.  A time where people with disabilities were hidden away.  A time where the Residential School system was never talked about or acknowledged.  A time where bullying was accepted, because that’s just what kids do.  A different time, but not necessarily a better time by any accounts.
 
Fast forward twenty years, and I decided to self publish those little books, at least two of them.  Shane’s Big Adventure 1 and Shane's Big Adventure 2.  I did that so when we talk about them in presentations, they are available to purchase if attendees choose to have them as an example or a tool for promoting acceptance, inclusion, understanding and possibilities for all children who live life differently. 
 
When I finished them, it came to me that Bianca’s experience with Tyson in helping him to understand what Orange Shirt day was all about would make another great story for kids, to help them better understand its meaning.  That also has become a great resource to share...basically the same things...acceptance, inclusion, understanding and possibilities, and to help them understand their roles in being part of reconciliation and healing Canada’s past. Tyson’s New Orange Shirt has helped with that I believe.
 
Most recently, upon gifting a copy of that book to some of my other grand-kids, the discussion came to what could ‘we’ write about if given the chance?  Lynden suggested that as we talked about Orange Shirt Day with Tyson, maybe we could talk about Pink Shirt Day with his family.  Thus began the next project.
 

At first, there was a challenge to think about how to address the topic of bullying, but then it came to me that as a writer, talking about what we know can be beneficial for ourselves and our readers.  It was then I decided the best approach to this topic was to tell my own story, and the result was ‘You could Be the One’.  I only now realize how cathartic and healing sharing my story has been for myself!
 
‘You Could Be the One’ allows me to tell the story of my own childhood, where I was bullied terribly in Elementary School.  I was a new comer to the area, I was chubby, I was alone.  All things I didn’t understand or know until the bullying began, and it was incessant for a long, long time.  I was so lucky that each night I got to get away from it, go home to a Mom and Dad who worked so hard to rebuild my spirit and keep me moving forward, and for a time...get away from it. There was not the technology available that haunts today's kids when the bullying starts.  
 
Then the day came when the bullying stopped, and it all happened because an older girl saw what was happening to me and said enough is enough.  Her name was Sharon Myran.  She became my hero, my guardian and my example in life.  She saved my beaten little heart and helped to make school fun again, a place I wanted to go...because my friend...my first friend..was there.  She changed my world for the better.
 
‘You Could Be the One’ shares my story of Sharon.  It shares how maybe you could be the one to stop bullying when you see it, or if not, be an ally to the child being bullied in whatever way you can.  It also offers the hope and insight, that even though bullying was and is awful,  it will end.  Life does get better, easier, kinder with time.  Sadly, so many kids don't live to know that, and take irreversible steps in the midst of the pain they are suffering. 

​Maybe somewhere, someday, one child will read this book and it will plant that seed of hope in them...to hang on and ride it out.  My bigger hope is that it will plant the seed of kindness in others, so that bullying will become a thing of the past.  It’s a big dream...but each dream has to start somewhere.  

Whether you look at your life as a journey, as a highway, or as any number of other analogies, one thing that is true for each of us is that life is not lived in a straight line.

We set out on this trip, believing in our heart of hearts that we will go from point 'A' to point 'B' by following the master plan that we've created in our minds. That we will get the education, then get the career, the partner, the children, the possessions, the (you fill in the blank) and eventually end up where we saw ourselves being when we first created this plan at age fifteen or sixteen.  

But life doesn't go in a straight line, nor does it often follow the plan that we've created.  It takes on a momentum of its own, often taking us to places and experiences that in our wildest dreams we would not have included on the map. Some are breathtaking in their beauty.  Others are devastating in their heartache.  Many times, these unplanned bends in the road ahead stop us in our tracks because we don't have the vision or the courage to see beyond them.   In our brokenness, we can't see that no matter how sharp or unexpected the bend ahead of us is, that the road does continue.  That beyond our line of sight, there are places and experiences and people that will once again take our breath away. That will allow us to feel joy and passion for life once again.

Grief often leaves us stuck and staring ahead at the road that has disappeared from in front of us because it is not how we pictured the road that we would travel to be.  We look at our map, and it doesn't show the sharp curve we've encountered. The grief can be caused by the death of a loved one. It might be caused by the end of a career, or the loss of trust you had, or for financial problems that you never projected.  In fact, grief can find us through over forty life experiences.  Grief can settle into our lives when the unexpected happens and changes how we experience our world.  When that does happen, we are often not prepared.  Why? Because in general no one is taught how to deal with grief.  We are not taught the tools and actions that will lead us through the pain, and along that winding road so that we can finally see that the “bend was not the end.” 

Our society does not prepare us for how to handle grief and losses, so when they befall us, we are often left broken and afraid that we can not continue.  We can't see the next portion of the road ahead because of the pain that blinds our vision. Let me assure you that there is hope after loss.  There is joy after pain.  The road does continue, and you can get into the driver's seat of your life once again to travel it.  The Grief Recovery Method provides tools and actions that allow you to take responsibility for that which you can control, and it helps you to find a sense of completion for the things that you can not.  In being able to do that, you'll once again be able to move forward along this road called life.  You'll once again be able to take in the sights and smells and sensations that make each of us feel fully alive while we journey through this precious gift we call life.  Are you ready to get back into the driver's seat of your own life?

​Four months into our transition, there are still as many questions as there are answers.  With that, I have found that I need to live in the questions…because I know the answer will come eventually…and if I strain myself to know it, I may push myself beyond what I’m able to appreciate and understand at this point…so I live in the questions.

Here are a sampling of them….

1. What was it that so pushed us to make the decision to move at this stage or our lives?  Yes, I know it’s been a long time dream…a life time dream to be more exact.  I was born here, I breathed this air until I was six, and I cried every time my parents took me to be near water after that…because the water I knew here on the Island chased me and played with me when I ran.  The water along the lakes in the prairie did not.  But was that enough?  Was that what called to my heart all of these years ?  Was that what my father heard call to him when he left rural Manitoba in 1953 to come out this way and join the Royal Canadian Navy?  Am I my Father’s child…because a part of me says he would think me crazy for the choices I have made…but another part of my soul tells me he understands completely and celebrates my choices…now. 
2. Why could I not be content with the life that had been established where I was..by who I was when those foundations were laid? There is most likely a contingent of beings that see all that we had where we were as perfect.  A lovely home, in a beautiful part of the province of Manitoba that most could not even imagine.  A house, a yard, a view…but why,  I keep having to ask myself…was that not enough to make me feel content, completely...at home..content?  Often it was, more than often it was…it was a grounding space where I felt my roots reach deeply down and connect me to more.  But then the flash would come and remind me that they were not necessarily my roots that were taking hold.  Instead they were the roots of my late husband’s dream of what would be the future of the farm that he and his father had established…so the internal conflict began.  As I grounded myself in that place,  I came to the realization that ‘wait a minute…I do love this, and I have lived out that dream for years now, but when I look at it at a deeper level I see that the dream I was living was someone else's dream, someone long passed.  The closing chapter of that dream, in the long run,  was him selling the farm and embracing the life of freedom and travel he envisioned for himself one day …the same life that I have chosen to embrace.  So why the feeling of guilt for living my own dream?  Note to self…we live others lives way too often for our own good.
3. You’ll miss the kids.  What will they think!!!  Yes, yes and yes…I am not sure.  We do miss the kids…every minute of every day.  But when we spend time, whether here when they come to visit, or back in Manitoba when we end up there…the time we spend together is absolute gold.  It is different from the time we spent together before…where one foot was in the office, and one was on the playground with them.  Now, when we are there…we are all there.  Maybe not as often, or as regularly.. .but more intentionally than ever I think.  And my greatest hope is that they will see that we’re not always just ‘there’ but instead that we are here…and with that, will expand their own horizons and opportunities…because LIFE should not be lived in one, rooted place.  Yes, we need roots…but just as importantly we need wings…to journey, to explore, to learn, and to grow.   Way too many people don’t know the value of living a life beyond their perceived borders and limitations…and that makes for such small, narrow minded views of such a vast, incredible world. So I begin see that what was growth for myself…what was part of our big adventure, was also the chance to create an opportunity for growth for our kids….?  And we are seeing that.
   

The #Future starts today, not tomorrow. How often do we forget that?
How many times to we put off doing the things that we most love, spending time with the people we most love, pursuing the passions that we most love believing that we don't have time today.  Thinking that tomorrow the time needed will magically appear and we'll get at things then.
But the old saying goes, tomorrow never comes, and it's true isn't it.  Tomorrow turns into another busy today, where the same reasons and excuses hold us back from doing what calls to our spirits.
With that in mind then, what are you going to do today, that will take you a step closer to the dream that lights the fire in your heart? What will move you in the direction of living a more full and passionate life? What you've always imagined your best self to be? You owe it to yourself to do something today...don't put it off until tomorrow.

It started in December of 2012.  I was on my way home from my training as a Passion Test facilitator, and had been doing much deep thinking about what was truly meaningful in life, or more specifically, my life.  That can be a dangerous thing for me to do.

We were a matter of weeks away from Christmas, and I had yet to do my shopping, but I tend to put it off because I really just don't like it.  It wasn't just that Christmas had become so hard with all the losses over the past few years...my parents, mother-in-law...most deeply my son.  But as I reflected, it had been a long time since I'd enjoyed it.  I remembered back to my days as a child, and in my twenties, and Christmas was so special.  We would wait all year, knowing that then might be the time we received those things we wanted so badly.  And that would be if 'Santa' was able to afford it, as it wasn't always the case.  That was when we'd receive the new clothes, the toys, the crafts...and you played with and cherished them until the next Christmas came around. 

But the world is different now.  We've become so disposable, and so unwilling to wait for anything.  What we want, we get, so that come the holidays there is very little left on the wish-list.  Add to that how incredibly commercial it is with the push by advertisers that the wish-list has become so big, so expensive or so technical, that it becomes a financial burden for families for months to follow, and in some cases years.

I thought about our large, combined family.  For years we'd get each of the grandchildren something useful, or smaller, clothes or a toy.  Then because we don't see them as often, or don't know what their individual tastes are, we'd give each of them a card with $50 in it so they could go and buy themselves something.  But as I thought about this habit on the trip home from San Diego, I became very sad, realizing that the habit was only widening the distance between them and us, as we never followed up on what it was that they chose to purchase, who they were becoming, if they even appreciated the money that was received.  My heart told me it was time for change, to bring a different meaning to these large family gatherings, and a stronger connection to those we love.

There was another catalyst to my wanting to make change as well.  Whenever I am away from home, I worry, as I'm sure many others do,  that in our absence someone will break in.  It's not that we don't have insurance to cover everything we have...stuff is replaceable.  But what I always tended to worry about more was my 'treasures', those things I've held on to as the family historian, or the pack-rat who attaches so much memory to items, knowing that if someone came in and vandalized our home, those 'treasures' would likely be destroyed and they were not things that I could replace.

The final thing that had me thinking was that I'd spent the previous two years in the clean up of my parents estate spending days on end going through the boxes and shelves of a home that held our family history for four generations.  With that came the sadness that so much of this 'stuff' meant something to someone. Of course there were things that were clearly valued that you could tell why, but there were more things that were kept for reasons we can't know, and there was a certain sadness of getting rid of someone elses 'treasures'.   I learned much from that process, and several things came out of it.  One being our new Christmas tradition.

I decided that year that from now on we all have enough 'stuff', and in so many cases we have way too much.  I want to pass along things to our kids that have meaning, at least for me, and I hope that in doing that I can provide a deeper meaning for them in terms of what I value, but also what is now their history, as they are now part of my family.  So I started that year, looking around the house at all of those things that I have my heart attached to, and began picking out one thing for each person in the family, our children and grandchildren.  My husband Cecil did the same. 

When we had picked out something for everyone, I then wrote each of them a letter to go with the item.  I explained to them why this item was so close to my heart, who it had come from, how I'd ended up with it...any story attached to it that I wanted to share. 

It was such an amazing experience, because as I wrote those letters and shared those memories, all of my lost loved ones gathered around me and became part of the celebration of all the wonderful memories I've had the privilege of collecting on this journey.  In sharing the stories I was able to share them with my own grandchildren and they could begin to see the people that were so instrumental in laying the foundation of who I have become.  My own grandparents, my parents, my son as well as Cecil's parents.

The second part of that Christmas's gift was creating a certificate for each of the grand-kids to fill out telling us what they would like to do in the next year with either their Grandpa, myself or both of us, that we could do together to create a memory.  This part made me very nervous, I will admit, because we could have had 12 kids all say they wanted to go to Disney world, and we'd have had to find a way to make it happen, as we'd opened the door.  But they didn't, instead we had wishes like going to a movie together, going put-put glow golfing, a camping trip in the summer, having manicures together, me teaching one to play guitar and a day of baking together.

I had been very nervous that they would look at this decision at our Christmas gathering and wonder what in the heck I had in my mind, passing along all this old 'stuff' and not receiving the expected $50 (which note to self, would have worked out a lot cheaper in the end, but we wouldn't be where we are now as a family).  Instead, everyone felt it was our best Christmas ever, and the best part was it lasted so long into the New Year as we arranged dates to follow through on all that we'd promised we'd do together.  That time spent together has created an entirely different connection, and I'm loving it.

One of my greatest memories is from after the day Haley and I had our baking day, making cupcakes for Grandpa's birthday at a campground in Kenora.  The family knows I'm not a baker, but we did it, even though some of the cupcakes turned out a little dark you might say.  She said not to worry, she's just put more icing on those ones.  When we were done she asked me if we were going to do certificates again the upcoming Christmas, so I asked her if she thought we should.  She said yes, that was the best Christmas ever.  That coming from a nine year old was a compliment that warmed my heart so much, and so we did. 

I love so many things about that decision. I love that we are challenged to keep that list in mind, and arrange our lives around making sure it gets fulfilled and the time we promised is spent.  I love that when the kids come to my house now, they are looking at everything differently and asking the story behind things, engaging in a completely different way.   I love that we are creating memories, because from where I stand now, looking back, I remember so little of the things that people gave me, but so much of the memories we made together. That is what I want for them. 

Last year, to make sure everyone had something to unwrap, we got each of the kids a gingerbread house kit..the one year old right through to the eighteen year olds.  I made sure that we had lots of extra decoration and had everything set up, so that after the tobogganing, eating, snowmobiling and unwrapping was done, everyone headed down to the tables in the garage and we spent the next two hours putting together those little works of art.  The kids loved it, the adults had no choice but to help, and we as a family had fun...together.   To me, that is what the spirit of Christmas is about.  

Thanks for letting me share.