An Oliver Tribute

*this is truly such a mega long epistle. may need a nap half way through.

An Oliver Tribute.

Perhaps it was the rugged mountains hugging the valley. Perhaps it was the students. Perhaps it was the uniqueness of this life, so unknown to anything I've lived before. Perhaps it was the strangers that became family. Perhaps it was the side by siding, the skiing, and the skating. Perhaps it was all of it, all smushed together. Whatever it was - I fell in love with this Oliver life.

When I came here in January of last year, I honestly was still quite ragged from my year at the ranch. But here in this lil apartment at the end of this old handicap manor, I lived by myself. Just Jesus and I. This suite, I love. It will ever hold a dear place in my heart. If there was ever a time I should have been by myself, it was that time. I needed quiet time. I needed this. My soul needed to recharge. And it did.

It was a simple life. Just a couple families and I, doing life together. I liked the people. I liked the land. I liked the simplicity. No fanciness or traditions or moulds. It was a simple life.

Then I was asked to come back for a second school year. Right from the get-go, I knew in my heart it would be a ‘’yes’’. After summer break, back here I was. This life got a whole lot more full when I got to do the next year with a co teacher, a few more youth, and more families.

Eight months later.

And now here I sit at my favourite cafe in this region, and I reflect over this past chapter. I feel this chapter is closing…

But wait.

May I be sentimental for a moment?…

I came to teach. But it was more like I came here to be taught.

I taught division but I was taught life is richer when there's some diversity in it.

I taught language but I was taught a great deal about communication.

I taught manners but I was taught a whole another level on what truly matters.

I’m pretty sure teacher life is the most creative life - one day you are teaching sentence structure with oreo cookies and the next day you are who knows where in the mountains in a jeep and the next you are making solar ovens for a science experiment. The list goes on. It's such a creative life.

I'm quite certain the children taught me more about life than I taught them academically. We’ve all heard it but it's true - If you stop, listen, see, you can learn oodles through a child’s eyes. Standing in front of a classroom, five days a week, I was really standing before lil miracles as I let their imagination, their questions, their honesty ‘’turn over rocks’’. I started to understand the verses of ‘’being childlike’’. It inspired me to keep the door open to little excitements. Children are a magnet to life's simple joys. At lunch, on May 1st, one child hands me a bite of Christmas cake, cuz she knows I like it. In a prayer by a child you hear simplicity, ‘’Thank you for the water we have to drink.’’ They have a simple, unwavering faith, ‘’Keep everyone is the whole world safe today.’’

‘’How big is God? Like is he our size?’’ My answer to that question included a lot of ‘’we don't know’’s. And then a couple days later I heard someone talking about ‘’how big is God in your life?’’ and both those questions got me thinking…

These children reproved me. They inspired me. They refined me.

I don't want to forget about our class goals. Or about the notes, all the sticky notes, left on my desk, in language, and in math books. Oh so many notes, I will remember those. I don't want to forget about a dandelion rubbed on one kid’s face, and ‘twas a yellow face for the rest of the day.. I don't want to forget about dandelions in general. All the dandelions that are placed on my desk and their smiles are so big. I press the flowers and tape them into my journal. I smile too. I don't want to forget about our prayer circles. I don't want to forget the times we baked together. Or about a plane being made out of the program. Or how one child wrote a poem for each person in the class and then walked around and read each one their lil poem. I don't want to forget about the busy-ness of a class as well as the quietness too. I don't want to forget about the parties we had and how discombobulated the room was at 3:30. I don't want to forget about how one day after a hot lunch, where pancakes are on the menu, there were pancakes in the boys bathroom… no one knows… but we heard about it…

I never want to turn deaf to children’s comments or questions.

‘’My brain feels clumsy’’

‘’I love you to the moon and back 200 times.’’

‘’I can hide my pencil in my belly.’’

‘’I'm related to all of God’s people!’’

‘’I'm growing a tooth tree.’’

‘’All I wanna do is yawn.’’

‘’Do angels put the baby inside a mom’s tummy?’’

‘’Oh a BIG pizza!’’ eyes are wide with excitement as a child unwraps tinfoil lunch.

‘’I still remember when I first saw you, you looked a lil funny. I've never seen someone look like you before.’’

‘’I don't even know where you store all these candies.’’

‘’The strands of your hair look like they are running.’’

‘’If soft drinks come in hard cans, what are hard drinks?’’

It's a life of searching for vanishing erasers and bandaging bloody knees and researching killer whales. It's a life of keeping a hamster for a couple months and inwardly regretting you let the chillens name it. It's a life of hearing about how a dresser fell on one of them this morning. You hear about their pure excitement over their gramps coming out, their uncle's funny jokes, and which cousin is the craziest. You will hear how a dad fell off a ladder, how a rubix cube works, and how one child fell into an icy creek. It's a life of collecting cinnamon sticks and black construction paper and cotton balls and clothespins for art projects. It's a life where suddenly you are interested in collecting wasps and worms. It's a life of learning about electricity and provinces and what chlorophyll is and did you know you could colour with chlorophyll? Easiest science experiment.

I remember that moment when we were singing together one morning and suddenly this thought came, ‘’I’m responsible for these lil humans. They have been entrusted into my care. Woah. I better buckle down and give it my all.‘’

Some days you will be overwhelmed with this responsibility of being a teacher. You will almost feel yourself collapsing under the weight of it. Some days you will just be so tired of everything after school you will walk into your co teachers room with your head in your hands, bawling. Somedays it seems especially heavy to have six children with all their intense emotions and no clear direction on what to do. This work births struggles. Then you struggle with struggling. School is intense, in many ways. It will stretch you thin. And from that, growth transpires - if you let Jesus into all the ‘’red marks’’.

It's a life where some days you just do not feel like giving grace anymore. Where you go to the teacher lunge just to collect your thoughts and eat popcorn. Where you stay inside a lil longer at recess after sending them all out so you can pray by yourself. It's a life of prayer - simple as that. You find yourself praying over the most random things. It's a life of realising you simply can't do it all, you gotta pick your battles. And with that comes freedom from so much. It's daily questioning yourself if you did the right thing. It's questioning whether you are a teacher or not but then you realise right now you are a teacher and so you better be a teacher. It's a life of learning how important it is to have soft eyes when you correct a child. Soft eyes are crucial. I’m still learning that. It's a life of recess drama and shenanigans. It's a life of making a list of all the things that are stressing you out right now and the list is a half page long. It's an overflowing life.

It's a life of looking up from your desk and actually noticing that the carpet is carpeted with pencil crayons, pop cans, a black hoodie, a ranch bottle lid, paper clippings, rulers, cookie crumbs, and snotty kleenexes (that apparently don't belong to anyone).

It's a life of a zillion questions. And a jillon more.

And stories. Kids are storytellers. I have a rule on stories - only at recess, lunch, journaling time, and jobtime may we tell stories. But here I catch myself listening to a very long story in the middle of language class. Oh dear.

It's a life of laughing so hard at their stories. And how swollen the story gets every time it's told again…

It's a life of recording thankfuls onto a paper that patiently lays on my desk… the sunlight streaming in and landing on their heads of hair. How they truly try to do what's right most of the time. Their excitement over their ham sandwich. A-past-its-prime tulip was handed to me and now it's stuck in the throat of a drink bottle. Their show n’ tells. Their voices singing into a fan. Thank you Lord for children who bring their teachers gingerbread lattes.

It's a life of teaching when to blow a nose, how to use a broom, how to use a paperclip, and how to tie a garbage bag efficiently. It's a life of begging God for patience with all the demands of these lil humans, all the tummy aches and toothaches and toe aches. It's a life of realising you never knew it was possible to get this frustrated with head colds. All. the. Head colds. All the coughs. All. The. Sneezing. (that sprays everywhere). And it's 9 am and a child walks in with a thick stream of snot casually dangling from his nose. Oh help.

I will remember these lil humans who one day will be big humans and I cannot wait to see the lives they create for themselves. I will remember that spontaneous water fight that broke out outdoors, maybe got a lil out of hand, and I had to go into the boys bathroom to enforce water fights are only for the outdoors. I will remember the contagious giggles that would erupt when we played soccer. I will remember the gratitude wall they covered. I will remember how we built a beaver dam and I will marvel how when you give children one idea, the outdoors, and plastic cups, you really don't need to do anything else. Just stand back and watch their imagination explode. I will remember all the round songs we sang for the umpteenth time. I will remember the outrageously loud lunch hours. I will remember these days.

But it wasn't all about the classroom…

Here is a personal life too

Here is a life of living so close to my dear Nikki friend, to a gorgeous bike path and to Value Village. Here is a life so far from blizzards and prairies and familiarity. Here is a life where I am signed up for grocery store fliers to pop into my emails and those emails genuinely give me excited vibes. Here is a life of church sometimes in this ol manor, sometimes in an old Jehovah witness church and now in an actual church bought in town. Here is a life where there isn't any correct way to worship Sunday morning. You just come, dressed however and sit wherever and sing whatever. I love the simplicity of it. Here is a life where jeeping and side by siding and hiking and playing sports are Sunday afternoon activities. Here is a life I will always remember. Here's a life I love.

Fears have been faced. Courage has been birthed. And acceptance has been known.

Till the day I die I will always be in awe of how strangers can become family. You shake hands once, exchange names, and months later you find yourself sending them an audio as you sniffle and stumble over your words. Suddenly you are asking them to meet up in your classroom on a sunday night, cuz you need life advice. And they come, sit at your students desks and you sit on top of your desk, and who knows what all came tumbling out. At the end, hugs are shared and you hear yourself telling them you are so thankful for them. Suddenly these strangers are such special humans to you as you sit around a fire and eat pancakes with them, clumsily learn new sports with them, and dream life's dreams with them. These humans are the people you have miscommunications with. Disagreements with. The people who when you run into a bind, you think "oh I need to text them". The people who you learn much - oh so much from. You run into their house, without knocking, to grab a mail key from that exact basket you know it will be in and you walk out, hardly saying anything other than "hey!!" You go over to their place for supper and you really don’t say much because you are fatigued from the day and that's ok if you just sit there like bump on a log. You know you may not text a whole lot when you are thousands of miles apart but you know you still will think of each other a whole lot and when you do meet up again, you will pick off right where you left.

In this BC life, I've been richly blessed in the meeting-people aspect of life. And for that I'm crazy grateful.

The memories here are endless. The umpteen walks along this quiet road. On that cement my feet walk as every emotion has been flung at God’s feet. I sometimes wonder what the neighbours all heard because I didn't always pray quietly. The hum of highway 97 close by, a comfortable sound at night. The good ol flea market, Kiwanis, a Saturday tradition that my heart will miss but my wallet won't. The e-scootering, an exhilarating activity. Baldy, the ski hill with memories tucked away among the runs. The evenings we zoomed to Tonasket for volleyball. Or the weekends we headed to Enderby. Oh the basic memories of doing life here.

And this apartment. I love this home. The basket wall. (That's back in style) The coffee bar that never really quite came together. The lovely AC. The string lights in the kitchen. Our magazine stack. Our plants. All the dried bouquets scattered among the rooms. I love the quirks of this home. The inside out curtains that we never did get changed all nine months of looking/commenting on it. The overly sensitive fire alarm which goes off on the daily. The oven that burns everything no matter how diligent you are with checking it. The stained up rug. The stubborn door knob. It has a mind of its own. Everything makes it home. This apartment. To me, it feels so homey. Oh do I ever love it.

As we cruise down the highway in a topless Jeep on a Sunday afternoon and we have mud from the tops of our hair to the tips of our toes and the wind is wildly whipping past us, and we are sunburnt and full of new memories, I’m reminded. I’m reminded of the good I'm leaving behind.

Or when I'm at my friend's coffee truck…Or I'm laying by a fire at night with my co teacher beside in her sleeping bag…Or we are playing beach volleyball on a Tuesday evening and we all are laughing ourselves silly, as the sun stains the western sky…

I know I'm leaving behind so much good. I won't ever fit in here again like this… I want my spot here to stay forever…

And so…there it be... that brings me to the end of this chapter. How it aches to turn this page. How I just want to be with all my Oliver people again, all sit around a fire and sing memorized songs or hash some random thought. How do I go back home now?

With a deep ache, I turn my face eastward. I simply do not know how this next chapter will be written.

I'll keep you posted.

But for now, thank you Oliver. To the moon and back 200 times - THANK YOU. 🤍