I had a chance this week to travel across a part of Ontario where a tornado touched down 2 weeks ago. It totally demolished a house (see pics) - just one house beside the shop where the owners worked. A friend and I and stopped by 10 days later, to go into the shop and to see the house. It was being rebuilt and the progress they have made in less than 2 weeks is amazing! We built our own house and did it in fairly good time(according to our electrician brother in law and it took over 4 months - others in our subdivision were between 9 months and a year). How are they doing this?
They belong to the Mennonite community, and it's quite common to rebuild quickly. My friend, who is from the area, said it was common when a Mennonite barn burned down, that it would be rebuilt and restocked with animals within the week. Wow!
And so I am reflecting on rebuilding... we are at the cottage at Sauble this week (stay tuned for sunset pic's). We get a week with our now 'adult children' which includes a son in law, and in some senses we are 'rebuilding'... not that there are problems to overcome, but that we need to be in a different place as parents, and sometimes that's tricky! Our kids live on their own now for the most part, do their own days, have their own relationships... this is all awesome! They are also amazing people to be able to spend time with. Our rebuilding comes when we attempt to connect in new ways, to honour the next stage of family, to move forward into for us, some unknown territory.
I am now 10 days out from radiation and so I too begin to rebuild. My skin is healing well, less sore and itchy, and my energy is slowly returning... But more than a physical 'rebuild', I am also starting to move away from defining myself and my days by cancer. While I never was 'fully immersed', cancer has played a huge role in my life and my psyche over these past months. I am starting to have more conversations that don't include the topic of cancer, and I am beginning to see the 'me' I want to build to over the coming year, beyond cancer.
It strikes me that the Mennonites, in their rebuild, didn't spend hours moaning about why the tornado hit their house and not their neighbors; in fact, in the shop, a Mennonite girl told us smiling that the two women who lived there weren't home and so are fine, and most neighbors didn't even realize a tornado went through. They likely surveyed the damage, got a vision of what they wanted to do, enlisted their community and began to rebuild. And in that rebuilding, new life, new conversations and relationships, new experiences await.
They belong to the Mennonite community, and it's quite common to rebuild quickly. My friend, who is from the area, said it was common when a Mennonite barn burned down, that it would be rebuilt and restocked with animals within the week. Wow!
And so I am reflecting on rebuilding... we are at the cottage at Sauble this week (stay tuned for sunset pic's). We get a week with our now 'adult children' which includes a son in law, and in some senses we are 'rebuilding'... not that there are problems to overcome, but that we need to be in a different place as parents, and sometimes that's tricky! Our kids live on their own now for the most part, do their own days, have their own relationships... this is all awesome! They are also amazing people to be able to spend time with. Our rebuilding comes when we attempt to connect in new ways, to honour the next stage of family, to move forward into for us, some unknown territory.
I am now 10 days out from radiation and so I too begin to rebuild. My skin is healing well, less sore and itchy, and my energy is slowly returning... But more than a physical 'rebuild', I am also starting to move away from defining myself and my days by cancer. While I never was 'fully immersed', cancer has played a huge role in my life and my psyche over these past months. I am starting to have more conversations that don't include the topic of cancer, and I am beginning to see the 'me' I want to build to over the coming year, beyond cancer.
It strikes me that the Mennonites, in their rebuild, didn't spend hours moaning about why the tornado hit their house and not their neighbors; in fact, in the shop, a Mennonite girl told us smiling that the two women who lived there weren't home and so are fine, and most neighbors didn't even realize a tornado went through. They likely surveyed the damage, got a vision of what they wanted to do, enlisted their community and began to rebuild. And in that rebuilding, new life, new conversations and relationships, new experiences await.