Montreal was an incredible place to spend those first six years after we moved back to Canada. That little crescent keeps some of my most precious memories.  The largest part of those memories are incredibly positive and joyous.  We were a close family of three and my parents did everything they could to instill the best possible morals and ethics they could.  But more than that really, we spent time together, like actual time exploring, learning and sharing the world and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.  

Mum was  gifted teacher.  She shared that gift with children with special needs for 32 years.   In Montreal she taught for six years at Victoria Park school, a school dedicated to the education of the children who needed someone like my mum and others to teach them all this world had to offer.  I learned there too, after hours, but that school taught me so much that’s stuck with me for all my life.  My very first volunteer opportunity came as a result of the work that mum did there.  She often brought me in after my own school had finished for the day to help her with her prep for the next day, setting her classroom up, cleaning the blackboard, oh my that was a particularly satisfying task to be honest, but really she brought me in to experience her world and her kids.  I remember how she had to crank that old mimeograph machine, with its purple ink, I can still smell it really.  The copies would come out and you had to let the ink dry so you didn’t get it all over yourself.  It actually had a hand crank in order to get it to work, you turned that puppy over and over again to get the pages pumped out and ready for the kids the next day. 

Her kids also taught me in the day to day.  I learned that not everyone learns at the same pace or in the same way.  Some need extra time and some need innovative ways of understanding.  I learned that joy can be found in the simplest of things, like painting freckles on a piano, not probably the most conventional but I remember the smile on that child’s face as he painted them.  I learned that we all have our insecurities no matter who or where we are like the student who had continued to grow far taller than all of her classmates.  I also learned the power of spending time with others, truly spending time, sitting and listening.  I think probably the most important thing I learned was that everyone has something to offer, to share with those around them and you don’t really need to look that hard to find it.  

My first volunteer opportunity came as I said as a result of mum’s work with her kids, we always called her students that, her kids.  Mum volunteered for most of her life and raised me to be the same.  In this case, I got to volunteer at the Summer Special Olympics in Montreal.  What a thrill that was for me, I remember the McDonald’s orange pop in the giant vat, I remember the athletes sharing incredible joy at their own and their teammates accomplishments and I remember being burnt to a crisp out in the hot sun but loving being a part of something so great, even at the ripe old age of six.    

I cherish so many of those moments spent with mum’s kids, what they taught me and how they affected my life as I still live it.  If we look, truly open our eyes to those in front of us, we can learn in ways we never would have expected.  

#2022AdventureIsCalling.