Departures

Sorry for (yet another) long absence. I feel I am always apologizing for that, but this time I was REALLY overdue. I feel like I should explain why, and get some things off my chest in the process. (Warning, this post is going to be a bit different than most. It might get a bit personal...and not really about Benin. So if you're just here for Benin/Ship stuff, feel free to skip this post!).

 I lost some family in the past month.

 My grandfather passed away in early December. This was, in many ways, a blessing, as he had been unwell for some months how, having lost much of his function to a stroke. They had also found some cancer in his bowel. Thus, it was not a matter of if, but when.

As I try to find the words to describe my grandpa "Sam," I hesitate. It is hard to do so without sounding calloused. As my cousin put it at the funeral, our grandpa was not the kind of rosy-cheeked hug-able grandpa who lets you sit in his lap and sneaks you cookies. He was fairly the opposite, in fact. He always spoke his mind; he could be harsh, even cruel, if you disagreed with him. His sharp tongue was his greatest tool.

It was not the only tool he wielded, though. He taught my dad how to fish, how to hunt; he even helped him build our home in North Bay. He was a masterful craftsman. He left us all with beautiful pieces of furniture, a part of him left behind in my home which speaks more love to me than he ever said out loud. And as he passed these skills on to my dad, my dad has also passed many of them on to me. When I share those moments with my dad, I'm indirectly sharing a moment with Gramps too. Grandpa had a tough-as-nails exterior, and a few even tougher layers beneath that. But deep down, if you could peel back those layers, there was a soft heart in there somewhere. He tried to hide it, but it was certainly there.

The hardest part of losing him was not knowing the state of his heart, which was so hard to get to. He would speak with disdain of how my dad "went all religious." I still hold on to a sliver of hope that the love and forgiveness we tried to show him somehow found its way through all the layers to where it mattered.

 Just before New Years, I lost part of a different family.

Henry was one of my classmates at Summit, which I still consider to be one of the most important formative experiences of my life. In this year full of extreme outdoor sports, Henry was a bit of a fish out of water. A missionary kid who'd spent most of his life in Uganda, he could be socially awkward, and didn't have much of a knack for the kinetics of paddling and climbing. He was very analytical and technically minded, though, and always wanted to understand the "why" before learning the "how." Summit was the tightest group of friends I've ever been a part of. We trusted each other implicitly, and grew to be more than a community, but truly a family. When asked how he got that to happen, Kai (the director of Summit) said, "Easy. I just get them to risk their lives together" (I should add that we literally signed a waver on serious maiming and death on our first day). When you've literally entrusted your safety, indeed your life, to another person (and vice versa), it creates a trust and bond that's hard to describe.

That's me on the left there, with Henry backing me up. His comment on this photo: "Considering I'm holding
a person's life and health on the other end of that rope, I look remarkably perky, don't I?" 

Henry was the gentle giant of our Summit family. Both of us being night owls, we spent many a late night up in the library discussing life, God, and sometimes the sci-fi/fantasy stories we shared a love for. I am heartbroken that he's gone, and heartbroken for his family. A little smile comes to my face, however, when I imagine what he must be doing now.

So, I've been processing all that over the past month. And I'm sorry for rambling, but I feel like I needed to take the time to acknowledge their lives, and the important roles they had in mine.

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time too.

Now, as my departure date approaches (only 7 weeks! Holy smokes!), I promise I will be updating more faithfully from now on, and can't wait to learn more about Benin together!