Hi, I'm Leah

Over and over again, I am tempted to do it all myself, to pretend like I don’t need others’ care, as though my humanity is a burden for the people around me. This is such a lie, and it is so obvious to everyone around me, even when I’ve deceived myself thoroughly.

Over the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about the way that places and spaces hold us. Walking through our old neighbourhood for the last time, I walked under aged elm trees, whose branches provided cover from a gentle rain. In other seasons, that park was a playground of snow, and a mountain of leaves. It was a space that held our family so beautifully over the last few years.

There is risk in the uprooting. Some parts of the plant may be damaged or die. But there is also risk in not dividing and transplanting. Old plants can become congested, overcrowded, and produce hard and bitter fruit. 

Summer has arrived on the prairies. The sun is shining and the day lilies are blooming. The tiger lilies will follow soon. I am weeding the garden beds to try to prevent anything from going to seed. And there is a part of me that cannot resist the beauty of dandelions...

With each of the babies I bore, my body changed. Only some of the changes were temporary. Years later, my hips are wider than they were before. My hair colour darkened. And there are silvery stretch marks over my abdomen and thighs, faded from their original bright...

I was listening to a podcast in the spring of 2020, three years after we lost Abbie. In a side story, the guest commented that someone once told her that the worst things take about twelve years to fully recover from. Hers was a long view that offered both consolation...

I have to remember the joy of my childhood rubber boots. It is such a messy miracle that the winter melts into spring. That water lays on soil and roots and rocks traceart beneath my feet, that water and bubbles get trapped between fragile crystals of ice.

Whether I am singing in church or rooting around in the dumpster trying to find the-most-important-thing-that-we-accidentally-threw out this week, there are piles of ashes and reasons to hope.

Photo credit: Tom Cooledge Diefenbaker Lake is a deep section of the Saskatchewan River that cuts a T-shape through the south-central part of our province. In the summer, we swim and boat on this water, and we spend hours driving around it or waiting to be ferried...

Moment by moment, the Creator gives me the gift of freedom. I have space inside myself and in the world to act freely, to make choices and direct my life as I wish.

We sit at the kitchen table, or around a fire, or on the beach and we talk about the world as we see it. And I am delighted to discover that the world does not look exactly the same to all of us. Occasionally, I leave a conversation and realize that the words have changed my world.

And so, from my resting place, I am discovering vicarious joy. I drive by bursitis yards full of flowers and I pull over and look for awhile. I can’t tend a yard like that on my best day, but it feels amazing to delight in the care and attention of the strangers who have done all that beautiful work.

Living in false stori is painful. I feel isolated and confused. I try to force my reality onto others.

I just want to say that it has been my overwhelming experience that God trusts you to live your wild and beautiful life.

Joy is a way of being in the world where I focus on what is good in the moment right now and recognize I have done nothing to earn it. Joy just is, and I can dwell in it, if I let myself.

Both in communities of faith and in twelve step groups, I have found glimpses of this God who sets us free. I love to get to a place with people where it is possible to ask the question: “Tell me about the God of your understanding.” The God of my understanding is not afraid of our freedom but delights in it.

Especially when the gift we long for is a person, receiving the gift changes everything.

In all the sifting, I am seeing the moments that make up my life.

The forest floor is a mess. Dropped pine needles, interrupted with deer droppings. Broken branches and fallen trees from the windstorm days before, layered on the trunks from seasons past. Grass and leaves and tiny flowers breaking though wherever enough light and water allows.

After a major trauma, it has been my experience that human capacity for intentional progress on goals is diminished. My therapists reminded me constantly that healing is rarely linear, and though we participate in it, we respond to life in healing ways rather than direct our own healing. I dislike this. And still, I have found it to be true. Healing is a flow of grace that comes from beyond me.

It was so surprising to me that I had to nurture self-awareness of my own sources of joy with unapologetic confidence. Of course I get surprised by new things, and then I get to add them to the list. As I age, the list is getting longer and simpler simultaneously.