Endearing Pain. Colleen Peters

than teaching this year, I donned a chauffeur’s cap in September to take the children to school and back each day. The boys and I dropped the girls off at 8:15am (Victoria’s in grade 12, Renee in grade 10) and then Jackson, Nicholas and I had 45 minutes before the bell rang at Laura Secord School, where they’re finishing grade six this year. The boys and I spent that half hour before school at Omand’s Creek park in our old neighborhood.

      On cloudless days during the winter months (and we had many!), our goal was to reach the top of ‘Hobbit Hill’ before the first rays of sun did. The view across the river buoyed our spirits long into the day, even on the coldest days during Advent.

      Winter promise hanging in the air over silent river.

      Behind stark branches deep in sleep, You speak this Season’s hope.

      Word of promise spoken from eternity, there’s life in death.

      For One has come, and comes anew each day,

      brings life and light to things dead and cold.

      Shortly after the first snow fell, Nicholas found a large flattened appliance box on the hill (i.e. refrigerator carton) and five days a week that box careened down ‘Hobbit Hill’ and ‘Penguin Chute’ at break-neck speeds, with the boys and I hanging on for some screaming good rides. We incurred only minor injuries and sore stomachs from laughing so hard.

      I also joined the boys for lunch every day up until the Christmas holidays. We’d have a picnic in Aubrey Park, and only had to eat in the van two or three times when our fingers were too cold to hold the sandwiches. My boys liked to guess which day I might arrive with a thermos of warm soup. After eating, we’d swing and swing to our hearts’ content under a careless blue bowl pouring sun down on us. These lunch hours with my boys brought me huge delight, and even though it’s been good all around to have them eating lunch with friends since January, I must say that I do miss those noon hours. Three weeks ago, we bid a fond farewell to our makeshift sled, burying it under the footbridge, and resumed our morning tree climbing and bird watching. We are happy to see the Canadian geese returning, and to hear our own joie de vivre echoed in the vibrant spring chorus at Omand’s Creek.

      “At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and the purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”14

      The last year also brought the deaths of friends and family, both expected and unexpected. These farewells were naturally surrounded by immense sadness, and yet also revealed the rich aspects of Christian community that illness, tragedy and death can conjure. A distant cousin, who travelled to Winnipeg for a funeral, alluded to this richness by suggesting that while many things separate us, we all have a strong sense of our Home. And for me, with that strong sense of Home, comes an ever-present Homesickness.