I am blessed with an amazing immediate family. We are small (my parents, brother & his wife, and their two sons and a daughter), but we have strong ties that persisted when I moved away to live with the soldier I ended up marrying in 1999.
Life was good. He had a life with a purpose, and I fully embraced that. When he was added to a deployment to Bosnia the year we were supposed to get married, we moved our wedding up and spent that first year mostly living in different countries and time zones. He often called me at 2:00 am, because no else was using the phone over there at 10:00 am. I started drinking coffee, just to keep my eyes open at work the next day. That was 2000.
His father in New Brunswick sent me some beautiful roses for my birthday that year. I felt special.
When my husband got home, they attached him to the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF). It was just a name to me.
Then September 11th Happened
If Canada responded, he was going to be in the middle of it. That was the start of a whirlwind of three more overseas deployments, 1.5 years travelling with the Strathcona Mounted Troop, and finally a 3 year posting to a different Base. We lived one year, one experience at a time, and waited for life to slow down.
Change came in unexpected ways
In the end, change came to my life rather than his. I transitioned from being fiercely independent to needing a cane occasionally in 2016, to needing it most of the time outside the house. It was progressive, so destined to get more problematic. I talked with my immediate family openly about it, and they helped me make some decisions about what mattered most.
Remember those roses in 2000? Since then, my sister-in-law had 3 little girls I had never met, and not knowing how quickly things would progress, I had to go. Without him. To meet his whole family on the other side of Canada. With the cane. But I didn’t want to have regrets. I didn’t want to look back wish that I had done things differently.
First I needed to find the right cane. I am not that old. I was not that disabled yet. I felt a little bit like an imposter using one, so I wanted something special (read not old lady-ish). So I used Google and social media and found Top and Derby:
They know how to make a cane look appealing:
And I was ready to go. It was pretty intense, not knowing what to expect, but I felt right at home. Here is a picture of me with my father-in-law from that first trip:
Getting to know my three nieces was so incredible. They love to have fun, and made me feel entirely welcome to join them.
They did a lot for my self-esteem, getting used to the way my life was changing. Best decision ever. I have been there three times now, and now that they are getting older, I appreciate so much that I went when they were still little and had time to spend together. I found my second family. Who knows where life will take us all after 2021? I have a feeling we are all going places.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 