Okay two caveats as I begin this post…

1.) I cannot take credit for coining the term “birthgiver”! Lanae, my beautifully witty 13-year-old has gifted me that term. I found it one day when I was scrolling through her texts and read “birthgiver” as one of the contact names. I chuckled and asked her if that was how she identified me. She responded with, “well yeah, you gave birth to me so that seems the most accurate”! Now when I call her, she often answers with, “hello, birthgiver, what would you like”.

2.) I am a HORRIBLE gift-giver. It is the lowest of my love languages, I have very little creativity when it comes to ideas and I genuinely DESPISE shopping so that makes it tricky to purchase gifts. Having said that, my mother is an exquisite gift-giver and often has wonderfully thought out gifts that are exactly what the receiver loves. SO….my gift today is a gift of words. Something I can do well and hopefully expresses the love and gratitude I feel for her on this day that is hers.

On to the gift.

There are a lot of things I could say about this woman. She is far from perfect, she’ll be the first to admit it. She’s got some glaring weaknesses (I haven’t met a human being yet who doesn’t) but she knows who she is and she continues to work hard to accept herself just as she is. But today I want her to remember all that is amazing about her, the strengths she has and the ways she inspires others. I want her to see herself as I see her, be in awe of the life she has lived and the things she has achieved.

We’ve had more than a few conversations about funerals (I’ll share more about that later and I promise it’s not as morbid as it sounds) and we chuckle at how the stories are always so positive and uplifting, they usually make the person sound like an absolute saint even if they are a REALLY big jerk. In all seriousness, I think it’s important for the people you love to know just how much they mean to you while they are still here. They need to know the impact they have on those around them so they feel loved, valuable, and understand just how meaningful their presence is.

Our story begins 41 years ago. The beginnings are not really mine to tell. What I can say is that I am thankful for the decision my parents made to care for and cherish each other through some very difficult times and tell you that from the very start, my mom and I shared a unique connection.

Over the years that relationship continued to grow and with it my admiration for her. To be clear, I have a pretty great relationship with my dad as well, but he has always honoured and encouraged how close my mom and I have been, not expecting or pushing for his relationship with me to be a mirror image. When I was younger, I remember many of my friends and classmates lamenting how horrible their own moms were. They would say terrible things about how mean they were. I couldn’t quite understand how people could talk about their parents that way. My mom was pretty great and even through the moments of discipline I had no doubt that she loved me and what she did was in my best interest.

As a teenager and into my young adult years we had our fair share of disagreements. Obviously we didn’t see everything eye to eye…remember how much I hate shopping, well that definitely did NOT come from my mother. She is an avid shopper, with great taste and we often clashed when time was spent in the mall together. However, in so many other areas she was my biggest cheerleader. I can’t remember a basketball game that she wasn’t in the stands. My grade 8 coach identified her by her loud whistle. He often commented, “oh, Charlene is in the building, I can hear her whistling”! My own children know when they need to come running based on that whistle, it has served her well.

When I was deciding on which university to attend, she had such big dreams for me but I had my mind made up and it really wasn’t until just a few years ago that I realized how much she would have liked me to think bigger. When James and I got engaged at the ripe, “old” age of 19 and prepared to be married 8 months later her and my dad made the choice to celebrate our decision rather than argue that we had so much left to learn before we were ready for marriage. When I was preparing to give birth to my first child she graciously agreed to attend his birth (and then told me she wouldn’t be available for any more births because she couldn’t watch her daughter suffer through that much pain). When I went back to school to finish my undergrad, she kept telling me I could do it and at the same time went back to school to finish her masters. When I went back to school again to finish my teaching certificate, she was the first to say how proud she was of me. She’s always been that way with me, giving advice or an opinion but ultimately quietly encouraging me to choose my path and then journeying it with me. I’ve never heard her say, “I told you so” when things went sideways.

I have not always been the best daughter. I think all children are blind to the sacrifices their parents have made to give them the best life. I’ve said some hurtful things, I made some hurtful choices, I’ve been oblivious to some of her own pain, grief, sorrow, sadness, and struggle. But she has never held that against me. She’s been patient and kind. Ready and willing every single time I come back to her with that moment of “a-ha”, that’s what you were trying to tell me.

In the last 10 years, my respect and admiration for her has grown significantly. Her job has been one of sadness and walking a path with people that many could not handle. She has sat at the bedside of many as they take their last breath, walked beside grieving family members, counselled medical professionals as they care for the sick and dying. It hasn’t been easy on her, she’s taken on some burdens she probably didn’t need to but she’s done it with grace and love, out of service for those who couldn’t do it for themselves. Remember those conversations about funerals? We had to find ways to help her deal with all the death and sometimes it meant a bit of black humour. Not for the faint of heart that’s for sure. But through it all, hearing her heart for the people she serves helps me to know just exactly why all four of her children chose careers in areas of service and why we each chose spouses who feel a deep desire to serve others in various capacities as well.

I am thankful for her continued zest for life, her passion for learning (which I’m 100% sure I inherited from her), her open-mindedness that allows for deep and meaningful conversations, her willingness to try new things, her dedication to relationships, her love of family and the joy she takes in seeing us all succeed. I am thankful for the sacrifices she’s made in order to help us out and her desire to be genuine, honest and truthful even when it’s not easy.

Happy Birthday mom! You are such a gift to me and I hope you know how loved you are on this day and everyday.

The last few years have involved a few relatively major changes in my life. James and I have both hit the big 4-0, we graduated our oldest and sent him off the university, we celebrated 20 years of marriage, we both began a relatively intense process of deconstructing our faith, we opted to leave a church we have both been a part of since our early teen years, and we got a dog. That last one doesn’t register high on some people’s “major change” list but it certainly does mine!

Interestingly enough, I really didn’t think that any of these things, individually would be life-altering but having them all happen in the span of 18 months really threw me for a loop. The two most impactful experiences were definitely helping Sam navigate his way through his final year of high school and beginning to exam my faith from a different perspective. I think the latter kind of requires a post (or 100) of its own but reflecting on Sam’s grade 12 year is a bit more manageable in one go.

The Beginning of the End

Looking back, the process for graduation really does begin so much earlier than grade 12 with simple things like extending curfews, giving more responsibility at home, finding first jobs, etc. However, these things didn’t quite prepare me for both the tangible, practical chaos or the emotional chaos that comes with that final year. For those of you who know Sam, you understand that he is a solid kid. He’s got a passion for sport that is hard to match, he works so hard and never gives up. Despite sometimes feeling overwhelmed by classes, he gives his best and usually comes out relatively unscathed. Grade 12 was no different for him. He balanced classes with football season, then basketball season, and finally rugby season. All three seasons ending with provincial trips and culminated with an opportunity to play university football. Along the way we had some tough conversations about what would be best for him. I’ve had this conversation with some good friends about the reality of letting your kids make decisions that will impact their future and how difficult it is to truly step back and let them move forward into this unknown domain of adulthood.

I think we all remember the feeling of turning 18 or 19 and feeling absolutely confident that we were capable of making good decisions and no longer wanting the input of our parents. I mean, I remember that feeling… Looking back, I have to give kudos to my parents for their ability to step back and take their hands off trusting that all will be well. I thought because of the great example I had and all the mental preparation I’d done that the next step of releasing my oldest into adulthood would be easy. Boy was I wrong.

Sam’s last football before his team headed to the provincials. He played an amazing game!

I wasn’t prepared for his last high school football game, I wasn’t prepared for his grad lock-in, I wasn’t prepared for his last high school basketball game or taking him for a prom suit fitting or receiving MVP at his last high school rugby game. I definitely wasn’t prepared to watch him march through the gym, all handsome, for prom night. I was probably the least prepared to see him cross the stage and receive his diploma for graduation and then hug him close in his cap and gown as he grinned from ear to ear at having finally accomplished this milestone.

When all that was said and done, I felt certain that the emotions would settle but I wasn’t prepared to leave him at his dorm, drive away and have no way of knowing if he would be in that room every night, safely tucked away for a good night’s sleep, fully fed, happy, socially connected and ready to take on the world with the support of …?

First Weeks of training camp! My kid was struggling with some minor health concerns and they left him bone-tired. He really should have been flat on his back fast asleep but he put a smile on his face and kept at it.

Obviously he’s fine, he’s GREAT in fact and yes he is all those things that we hope for him but I don’t get to know as much as I did when he lived out the joys and challenges of life right under my nose. I have to be okay with hearing a fraction of what I used to and trusting that when he needs us, he knows where to find us.

I’m thankful that he still loves to come home, I’m hopeful that all my children will still love to come for a time until they fully settle into their own homes one day. That will likely bring an entirely new gamut of emotions which I hope I’ll be ready to face. The landscape of parenting is changing and I’m trying my hardest to enjoy all that comes with it.

I’m not really one to write a huge, long birthday post every year for each of my kiddos.  I hope that they know they are special and loved without that.  In fact as they get older I imagine they won’t always appreciate having the details of their lives and birthday bashes splashed across my blog, accessible to the world.  However, there are moments that I feel the celebration of their birth is really more about my unpacking where they’ve come from and where they are going.

Lanae is my third child.  In so many ways she fits the mold of “birth order”.  She’s a middle child!  I can see that she sometimes feels forgotten, ignored, unimportant.  She yearns to shine bright but I see the crushing of her little heart overshadowed by two big brothers and a baby sister.  I know she’ll be fine.  She’s resilient, beautiful, amazing, smart and host of other wonderful attributes.  But she’s also my sweet, sweet little girl.  I long to hold her close, protect her, tell her she will succeed, she is loved, she is worthwhile and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she hears me and believes me from now until her last breath.  But I see in her a niggling of doubt.  A constant pain of uncertainty, insecurity, if you will.  And I pray that she will overcome that.

You see she is the child I prayed I would get but never fully believed I would.  I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way to those who have faced issues of infertility or who have lost a child.  What I mean is that her arrival bestowed upon me the immense privilege of experiencing life with a daughter (and in fact, granted me the opportunity to experience it twice).  After the arrival of our two boys I pondered what life might look like in a houseful of boys.  My outlook shifted a bit as I tried to wrap my mind around that.  When I first found out I was expecting our third, I had in my mind that this little one may be the completion of our family.  James told me we would be finding out the gender because he knew he could survive three boys, but the possibility of four boys was more than he could fathom.  More importantly, he needed me to wrap my head around what my life would look like long before the child arrived.  He had no interest in a wife delivering a healthy, wonderful little boy only to be overcome with disappointment because he wasn’t a girl.

But, of course, God always knows the plan.  I sometimes wonder if he doesn’t look at us with a minor smirk and say, “if only they’d just trust me, they’d know I already have it all figured out”.  In this case, I’m sure He did.  When we found out Lanae was on her way, it opened the door to possibility.

131214_MHP_Davenport_029When I look at her now I see this stunning, little lady.  I can’t imagine how different my life would have been without her.  Sometimes I struggle to “get” her.  She’s intense!  She’s affectionate but standoffish.  She knows what she wants but sometimes struggles to go after it.  She’s so, SO precious.

My privilege in raising her is recognizing the ways she is herself.  I can pinpoint exactly who she looks like, oddly a total “mini-me” of her Uncle Cam, James’ youngest brother.  But I can’t pinpoint those obvious character traits that place her more in relation to my side or James’ side.  However, I am reminded through that, that she is her own person.  She’s exactly who God created her to be and while she may find along the way that she favours certain relations in her life, I think she’ll be a much happier, content individual when she settles into the fact that she is herself.  Perfectly made for a purpose at this time in history, in this family, as Lanae Daelyn Davenport!

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY SWEET CHILD.  You are LOVED!!

Someone asked me that today.  It was a heartbreaking question in the wake of a tragic circumstance.  Both of us sitting on the sidelines of someone else’s tragedy but feeling the soul-crushing loss deep in our own souls because we live in community and we share each other’s burdens.

It doesn’t end, my dear.  But it changes for those of us on the sidelines.  Our heart scars bear testimony to what we witnessed and life goes on.  What changes is the pit in our stomach goes away and the memory of the tragedy doesn’t haunt us in every moment.  We daily are reminded, often in the little things, because it’s impossible to forget.  The tears don’t flow every time we relive the moments but the heaviness remains in the memories.

Sometimes I remember something about that day or week or month and my mind relives the entire process.  Sometimes it stretches that scar enough to make it hurt and other times it feels like the pain of a wound reopened.  It’s never far from my mind, easily retrieved from the corners of my mind to be understood and not understood all at one time.

Sometimes it’s in the witness of another’s circumstance that we are brought back to the gut-wrenching knowledge of our own loss.  But as time passes we are able to pick ourselves up much quicker.  To find the joy in the places we know we can, to continue with the life we’ve been given.

I felt that today after the question had been asked.  I stood in the pew in our morning worship service, thankful as always to be surrounded by people I love and who love me.  My children crowded into the chairs beside and in front of me.  Sunday mornings are often mornings of remembrance for me.  I still can’t define why this is the case but I often find myself thinking of little Ryker as I worship.  This morning my heart was full but he wasn’t far from my mind.  Then a dear friend shared her heart.  She shared of God’s mercy in the midst of tragedy and I was thankful for the reminder.  But seconds later I felt the opening of my heart as my youngest son, hurdled the chairs in front of me, into my arms and sobbed, great heaving sobs into my chest.  He felt it too.  The reopening of a that wound, the recognition that suffering on this earth doesn’t ever end.

We find joy because God has shown us mercy but the sorrow never ends.  It just changes.  It is there for us to give back to Him daily.  To live with the peace that one day it will be taken from us.  But until that day it reminds us that we cannot travel this earth alone.  It brings us back to His feet, seeking comfort.

Dear friend, it will end the day we come face to face with our Creator and alongside those gone before us, are able to lay ourselves at His feet.

I’VE BEEN BUSY…

It has been a few weeks since I’ve touched the pages of this blog.  I could say it’s because I’ve been busy and that would be true to a degree…I’ve been busy reacquainting myself with my children after a very long year of being tied up with studies, I’ve been busy galavanting through the natural beauty of the province I live in, I’ve been busy reconnecting with friends whom get neglected when the chaos of school and extra-curricular takes priority, I’ve been busy, busy, busy.

OR PERHAPS I HAVEN’T HAD MUCH TO SAY.

I love blogging.  I love journalling. It gives me a chance to look back and see where I’ve been, how my journey has unfolded and perhaps give me insight into where I’m headed.  But there are times that life goes quiet.  I contemplated an update about how life was going in our home earlier in the summer but it seemed a bit silly to spend time sitting in front of a blank screen and imagine some important words to share when really life has been pretty average.

AVERAGE BUT AWESOME!

Okay “average” makes it sound like we’ve done nothing and that’s not entirely true.  James and I navigated an across the world trip for 12 days that was amazingly successful and enjoyed that opportunity immensely.  Our children survived and even more than enjoyed their time with both sets of grandparents.  We’ve done some pretty cool small trips with our kids this summer.  I took the kids to Whistler at for a few days with friends and we enjoyed the sights of a magnificent piece of nature that I haven’t seen in 13 years.  The six of us also headed to Seattle for a day and night for a Mariners game and to stay in a hotel.  It was only one night but our kids were ecstatic to have our attention for 48 hours and the thrill of a hotel with a pool never seems to lose its appeal.  We did the PNE for a day and I took the kids back to Whistler with my parents to experience the peaks of those beautiful mountains.  We stayed in “our own backyard”, so to speak, and enjoyed all it had to offer.

We’ve also spent a great deal of time with family, cousins and friends just basking in the glorious weather and the joy of being spontaneous!  Sleepovers, BBQs, bowling, swimming, etc. have been incredibly fabulous.

WHAT’S NEXT?

As our summer has drawn to a close we’ve faced some serious uncertainty!  Many families on our side of the Coast are in the same boat.  The usual anticipation, anxiety, and excitement has turned to a seemingly endless summer.  While my kids are not really upset by the whole situation, I feel the wearing on them and the need of return to routine.  We’re trying to make the best of a situation that appears to have no end.  A return to the routine of extra-curricular activities, the addition of a few “educational” endeavors at home and the hope that school will return to regular session VERY soon.

As we get back to some of the normal things we do I’m hoping to add a few more thoughts to my blog!  Share some of the joys of parenting, marriage and eventually joys of my new journey of teaching.

Passage of Time

Today marks the anniversary of Ryker Leif’s birth and death.  To be honest I wasn’t really sure how I’d feel today.  There are certainly less tears shed as time has passed.  They still come on occasion but less frequently.  I thought perhaps the day would pass as every other day has with the acknowledgement that there is still grief but the sharp pain of it has passed to a dull ache.  But truthfully the past week has brought different waves of sorrow.  I have seen countless pregnant bellies, newborn babies, and toddlers.  I’m not sure if perhaps I’m uber aware of them at this moment in time or if the Spring has truly brought about so much new-ness of life.  Whatever the case I feel acutely aware of the should have beens.

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I’m pretty sure no one ever told me raising boys would be easy!  In fact I’ve never heard anyone say raising any child(ren) would be easy.  I do feel privileged, in a way, to have the experience of raising two boys and two girls.  You see, there is an interesting dynamic that occurs between brothers and one that occurs between sisters.  I could probably write a series of books for both, but for the sake of today’s post I’ll focus on all things “snips and snails and puppy dog tails”!!!

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The day is looming and no amount of stalling will halt it…Next week will mark 6 months since we said goodbye to a precious little boy and let a piece of our hearts go with him.  I speak from a different place than his mommy and daddy but we still share the sorrow and grief of missing him deeply, feeling his absence in the most remarkable way and never knowing when his memory will surface. Continue reading

Living with the blur

We all know there are times when you just aren’t sure exactly what the plan is and you don’t even know where to start to figure it out.  I feel a little like that these days.  I have nothing to complain about in the big picture of things so I won’t do that, but I do often wonder what the bigger picture actually looks like.  This week has already been amazingly interesting and it was only Tuesday night when I started this and it’s only gotten more intriguing, although, I guess in fairness there isn’t much in my life that’s just quiet and slow-paced.  Most of my life is lived in a bit of a blur and while I know there is constant encouragement from various places to just slow down and live in the moment I literally feel like this stage of my life is somewhat out of my control when it comes to the pace.  I know I can choose to add things or not but quite frankly there is little I can take away at this point.

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NEW THINGS

Okay so it’s been way too long since I updated my blog!  A few things have happened along the way, probably two of the most significant events include starting school and becoming an auntie again!  Funny thing is that both happened on the same day…weird to say the least.  Over the last two weeks both of these events have given me opportunity for a great deal of reflection and added an element of emotion to my life.

At this point I don’t think I’ll have time or energy to get into too much detail but there are a few things I would love to share…

ON BECOMING AN AUNTIE AGAIN…

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