Change happens, even when we don't want it to, even when we don't expect it, even when we don't think it is even possible. It has been a season to watch things shift, to measure growth and to remember how things were. Change can be as slow as a receding glacier or hairline, as quick as a Saskatchewan summer or a sneeze or as anticipated as a mother waiting to hold a newborn in her arms.
It has been a month of new hopes and unexpected loss. I've watched my teenage son grow about six inches in the past six months, his voice is changing and I have to allow him to be himself. I'm greeted by his classmates behind the tills of local businesses. The grinning, giggling little girls have become beautiful young women and he has earned the respect of the neighbourhood as a teenager responsible enough to take on the tasks of mowing lawns and caring for their children. My baby girl is a hero to the scores of younger children on the block and she keeps them from wandering where they shouldn't be and picking them up when they cry.
They are both growing right before my eyes and I don't want to lose sight of a second of their beautiful faces. When I see their peers after an eight-week break I'm amazed at how much they have changed, knowing their parents are thinking the same about my own little, but not so little anymore, ones.
I look around my neighbourhood where only a few short years ago there were bluffs of trees, marshy areas, ducks swimming, frogs croaking and rabbits always hopping around the corner. The view outside my windows keeps changing, real estate signs mean saying goodbye and hello again soon after and it seems our little town is experiencing a baby boom. I've watched youth bloom and friends take charge of their fitness making them stronger and happier.
I've watched cancer, thought to be beaten, rise up again in several of the people I know and take the life of a Canadian many people respected and everyone knew. Hopes changed to wondering and 'what ifs'. I've watched the disease eat people away as they faded before my eyes. There have been times of hope, and those who have overcome the pain and times when the sickness has overcome. It makes me appreciate the strides made in cancer research and makes me want to do my part to find a cure. It makes me question my own health and lifestyle choices and look even more deeply into my family health history. I don't have cancer but it is a part of my life and part of what changes the world around me but I won't let it take away my hope.
