Beginnings

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. 

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. 

~ Sir Winston Churchill

I have always loved nature. I can't remember a time when being outside for me wasn't a testament of a loving God who provided such an amazing universe. I wonder if it was all those beautiful Sunbeam lessons about the Sun and the rain and the plants that used to be the guts of those early primary manuals. Either way, whether it be the LDS church or God, taking a big breath anywhere I go helps me to know who I am and what I am about on my sojourn here. 

I was away this holiday season. It was the first time in all of my years as a mother I wasn't with my children. I was with W's family who have taken me in as one of them and they are the "salt" of the earth. They are "GOOD" people.

They live in northern BC. Plenty of people wonder how anyone lives north of even Calgary but there is a particular type of Canadian that thrives in all that Canada has to offer both in the summer and winter. These H's know just how much joy can come out of living in the north. I can't describe just how much beauty there is up there, I would do it a disservice. I was in awe and still believe it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

I haven't seen that much snow in one place unless a very bad storm had gone through Calgary. To them; it was the snow "so far".  It piles up thru to March and then melts and then spring comes and it becomes a beauty that Spring can only bring to a winter wonderland.

I dream of living in a place where the seasons are full and the landscape rustic. W continually tells of his adventures when living in Prince George and just how much he would love to live in a similar place where the pace is easier and the people, well, I don't know, the people are just different.

On the day we left, we woke early and it had snowed nearly all night. W filled the truck and we wished our hosts good bye. As we came out from behind the house and there, I saw it. Something I had never witnessed before. I can't say why I haven't, maybe because the Rockies illuminate so much over our western horizon in Calgary that it might get lost or maybe because I just never had noticed it before but there, through the woods, the moon was setting and my heart was stilled. What an unbelievably beautiful movement. 

I grabbed my camera and did the best I could to capture it but nothing in visual print could ever compare to the feeling I had of seeing the moon set. Weird I know, but wow, it moved me; changed me really. I wondered how someone could actually get to over 50 years old and never see the moon set so beautifully.

I have taken some barbs over these new relatives of mine. Someone once asked me to remove a nephew's FB feed over his hunting pictures. I have always refused. Not out of defence for his hunting but out of his defense to hunt. The H men are all alpha males. They hunt, they fish, they define "red neck" Canadian and yet each one of them has a tender heart for the women in their lives. They treat there mother like gold, and puff their chests in all it's maleness but still let there women be the women they are intended to be. The H women (including D) are clearly the strongest women I have ever met. They glue this family and they live life more fully then any other women I have known. They call  a spade a spade and expect the game to be fair. They have changed me for the better. Being in this new family has helped me heal in a way I never thought possible.