I am the first to admit, the older I get, the more jaded I become.  Growing up, I learned quickly promises may be made but people would do things to ensure those promises wouldn’t have to be kept.  They might sabotage a vehicle so it wouldn’t start to avoid having to attend a social gathering they didn’t want to attend.  Or they’d pretend being sick to excuse themselves (and our family) from having people over or going to a dinner they had arranged for all of us to attend.  Other times, circumstances such as poor weather and extreme cold prevented an event from happening, which would be disappointing but understandable, considering the circumstances.  And then there were promises made by classmates … “if you run across the flooded school yard, even if you fall, we won’t laugh.”  And so, wanting the group to like me, I ran across the half frozen mud puddle, stepped on a frozen piece of ice and felt my foot slip out from underneath me.  Of course the whole group of people watching laughed then ran into the school.  Two teachers met me at the door.  I’m not sure where they found the towels and change of clothes for me to wear but I was sent home with a note explaining I’d fallen in a mud puddle during recess.  As for my “friends”, I asked them why they laughed at me when they said they wouldn’t.  “Well, it was funny” the spokesperson of the group said.  “But you promised!”  I reprimanded with a voice filled with hurt and anger.  She laughed again.  “It wasn’t a real promise, my fingers were crossed.”  So I learned the hard way that promises could be made, and broken, with no repercussions.  It is a lesson I’ve carried with me all of my life.  And, perhaps one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in my life thus far, I gained that day,  when I vowed to myself I would never make a promise to anyone that I couldn’t keep.  Not even a promise to myself.  And since that day, I’ve had plenty of reasons to question whether someone had something crossed while they made pledges and promises to people that simply never came to fruition.  As my mind sifts through the many people who I know broke promises, I reject examples from people who seem to make a job of lying…. Lawyers, politicians, celebrities and the like.  I think these just might be people who always cross something so they never have to be held accountable for anything they say.  In those instances I would say don’t just look for people crossing their fingers, they’ll cross their toes, ankles, legs, arms and eyes to get out of taking responsibility for their words.  And when that fails, they’ll simply apologize for the “misunderstanding” and walk away, wiping the incident from their memory as they do so.

There is nothing more spectacular than being able to observe the night sky without light pollution and buildings corrupting the view.  I think I was maybe seven or eight years old and I woke up in the middle of the night, having heard a sound that interrupted my sleep.  My eyes were drawn to the sky outside my window - the night was bright with millions of stars, the Milky Way and dancing Northern Lights.  The scene is burned into my memory because I remember thinking, “There really IS a God.”  Not even humans can fabricate such a scene or manipulate computer technology to create a similar real life experience.  Since then, I’ve been quite spell bound by the night sky.  Phenomenons such as Hailey’s Comet, moon eclipse, harvest moon rise and meteor showers keep my eyes focused on the heavens and what I’ll see next.  But it’s not just the sky at night that holds my attention.  The daytime sky can be equally as awe inspiring and unpredictable.  

I’ve learned to appreciate, through my own experiences with physical limitations, how important the World Wide Web is for a person who isn’t able to be as mobile as they once were.  I learn a lot of information by being able to remain connected to the world and my community through the i sterner and search engines.  If you regularly read my column you know I reference doing internet research and reading articles often - it’s how I keep up with the news.  More often than not, I find news is depressing.  Countless people lose their lives by accidental drownings, accidental shootings, accidentally being left strapped in their child car seat … a lot of accidents where carelessness supersedes people taking care or exercising common sense.

I’ve known this week was looming ahead of us and that I’d need to prepare well in order to successfully meet the challenges of being present for it.  My daughter requires surgery.  She’s had an ongoing issue since birth and had her first surgery when she was three months old.  Now she’s fourteen.  And she has three younger brothers who adore her.  So when something happens with her, it happens to all of them.

It doesn’t matter to me who you are or how “together” you feel you’ve got your life, all of us have mental health issues of one kind or another.  Whether your concern is for yourself and your own safety or a family member or a close friend, all of us carry something that is a burden, a stressor or a concern regarding something.  It becomes one of those things that begins to eat away at us until we are forced to either do something about it or we allow it to consume us.  And we’ve been through a lot, you and I.  We have shared many events that have affected our mental health and still leave a negative impact to this day.  When I say September 11th or reference 9/11, what emotions and thoughts surface for you?  For me there are three thoughts that come to mind; the collapse of the World Trade Centre and subsequent acts of terrorism that occurred that day, it’s the day John Ritter’s daughter was born and a few years later, it’s the day John Ritter died.  Even though New York is far removed from us, for years afterward there was a jet that came to Prince Albert and the pilot flew so low it reminded me of the much larger jet plane that flew into the second tower … the jet plane here really bothered me.  And I got to know the plane’s schedule and made sure I wasn’t anywhere near the city when the plane came in.  Since the pandemic and isolation occurred I haven’t noticed the plane here anymore.  But then I’ve been distracted by other concerns.