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March 18, 2001
I had an interesting weekend. Having been off work this whole week because of the motorcycle accident, I was very anxious to do basically two things, first of all, to see Shauntelle, and second to get out of the house. Fortunately, I was able to accomplish both of these objectives this weekend. Friday afternoon Shauntelle came over and we had supper at my house, and then we walked over to Rick and Lucy's house. We did go to her house on one other occasion but no one was home at the time, much to our disappointment. This time we phoned of course, to make sure the trip was not in vain, and then we made our way over. It was a long anticipated meeting, for although Lucy had met Shauntelle before, it was quite some time ago and even though I had shown Lucy some pictures, she didn't really recodnize her. So we went in and sat down at the table while Rick was getting something to drink. He looked at Shauntelle and she looked at him and they exchanged a silent greeting, and I wondered if he would say anything. He didn't, and after a bit of greeting at the table, Lucy finally said to me, "John, you're going to have to introduce me to your friend again. She looks familiar but I just can't remember her name." So I exchanged glances with Telle and said, "I'm sorry, Lucy, this is Shauntelle." There was a brief pause and then her mouth fell open in a sudden recodnition and realization. I honestly wish I had a camera at that moment but I doubt I will ever forget the expression on her face. The whole story came together at that point and so Lucy looked over at Rick and asked if he had known who she was. "I don't say anything," was his reply, although he did acknowledge that he had known who she was. So the four of us sat at the table for a couple of hours and talked about a lot of things. I still can't get over how small the world is that Lucy's husband would work for Shauntelle's dad. Sometime I'm going to have to make a list of all the connections I've encountered, this summer especially. Anyhow, Jaimee was in the area and asked if we wanted a ride back to the house and I figured it would beat walking so she came and picked us up from Lucy's house and then we drove Shauntelle back to her house. It was close, we had 2 minutes to spare before her curfew but next time I'll make sure she's home a bit earlier. Bo had phoned me up and was at his dad's house so I got Jaimee to drop me off there, which is where I spent the majority of the rest of my weekend. We had fun but it did have its downs too. I got there that night and we sat around watching TV and movies. I slept on the couch that night with Shauntelle's sweater. The next morning we got up, went and saw a movie and then got lunch at Peters' Drive Thru. We spent several hours that afternoon watching TV, (The Simpsons mostly) and listening to his dad's stories, killing ourselves laughing. That man has had a pretty funny life... Lynn made us supper and shortly after that they all wanted to go play Name That Tune at Woody's in the south. After supper though, I was really feeling upset to my stomach but I went along anyways. The night seemed to drag on forever as the smoke was thick and the music loud and as everyone around me got drunker and drunker, they got more and more wild and although some of their antics were funny, I was trying to hold my stomach in me. I went outside several times, the first time to call Shauntelle to ask if I could come and see her. I just wanted to get away from that place. Her mom wouldn't let her meet me at the 7-11 or come sit at their kitchen table for a bit so I decided to try and save what little power was left in my phone and went back inside for a while. After another half hour I couldn't stand it anymore so I went for a walk outside to try and let the cold air clear my lungs. The smoke was so thick in that building, I doubt I could have felt more choked if I had been smoking myself. I ended up in the Tim Hortons with a cup of hot chocolate and some Timbits to try and settle my stomach. It sure didn't like something I had eaten that night at Bo's house. In fact, the only thing I had to drink that whole night was the hot chocolate. I wanted to go to Shauntelle's house so badly, I didn't care if I would have had to sit there and have her dad grill me for half an hour, anything would have been better than sitting there watching my friends get all crazy and ridiculous, dancing around the bar on each others' shoulders. Bo and Mike almost got into a fight with around 8 guys there so we finally decided to leave. I love hanging out with Bo but not when its in a place like that. Everyone just acts stupid and tempers fly and people get hurt. I felt so sick. After my Tim Hortons' snack I wasn't doing so bad but I was tired and although I decided to stick it out this time, after being a wet blanket on several other occasions, it was Bo's friend from Lethbridge who finally told Bo he was tired and wanted to go home. With the threat of a fight breaking out growing and now his tired friend we finally left the place and I drove us back to Bo's house. The partying continued until late into the night, with Sean on the piano and many merry voices, sound rose up in the house with more volume than pitch... I found a quiet room and lay on the bed with a phone in my hand as I pretended I was somewhere else and talked to Shauntelle. I eventually got moved into Andrea and Ashley's room for Sean wanted to retire for the night and Ashley was going to be on the phone to her boyfriend most of the night too. Andrea just sleeps through anything so we weren't bothering her at all. They slept on the bed as I lay on the floor at the foot, wrapped up in a blanket and a couch cuishion for a pillow. Waking up is never a pleasant experience on a hardwood floor. You find all those sore points on your body that you slept on during the night which have been tenderized and don't like to be touched. So I got up and we went to A&W's for breakfast with the kids. Not long after that Bo drove me home where I found Jason trying to replace the alternator belt in his car which had broken on Friday. He was just finishing actually and wondered if I would want to ride his bike over to his house. Thrilled to get back on anything with less than 4 wheels, I agreed and so I rode while he drove all the way to his place down in McKenzie Towne. I was given the tour of his new place and then we came back here where I sat down to tend to my mail and write this memoir, although I'm pretty sure that is not spelled correctly. Pronounced "Mem - War" however it is spelt. So that is my weekend. Although my hip is still bothering me, I do believe I shall go to work tomorrow. I just can't afford any more time off. Its been pretty good, but I still have to go to the doctor because it doesn't seem quite right yet. Now that all the swelling has gone down and everything's had time to settle, I can objectively tell what is different and what is not right about it. It feels as though there is a bulge on the tip of the bone or something in the hip. Whenever I try to jog or run it becomes really noticable. So we'll see what the doctor says about it. I hope its going to be ok, really all I want from the insurance company is money to have the bike fixed. I've decided I don't even want a new one, I just want my old one fixed up. It was an awesome bike. I miss it more with each warming day. Anyhow, I'm going to sign off. Hopefully that covered everything new in my life at the time. Much more to come, for life continues to go on...  March 08, 2001
A childhood poem, rhyme, song, ditty, whatever you wish to lable it has been circling my head for these past several hours, a poem I've heard from the time I was just a little boy. Time goes by so fast. It goes like this: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord, my soul to keep. But if I die before I wake, I pray thee Lord, my soul to take. I was in a motorcycle accident this evening. I was driving along 36th St. heading south towards Memmorial Drive. As I approached the intersection of 4th Ave., I was slowing down as the light was red. There was a vehicle beside me, also slowing down to stop at the lights. Well as we approached the intersection, the light turned green so we started to accelerate back up to speed. As we entered the intersection, the car beside me slammed on his brakes, and I looked over to see a red car comming strait at me. Three choices popped into my head during the millisecond I had to decide my course of action. I first thought of the brakes. No time. I would have stopped in front of his car and he would have hit me. Accelerate? Not enough time to speed up fast enough to clear the car. This vehicle was going to hit me. Last resort? Jump. I lept off the bike, simply trying to jump as high as I could off it. As I cleared the bike, the car caught my foot, throwing me into a spin in the air. I flipped around, landed on my right hip and did an awkward cartwheel along the right-hand lane of 36th St. Not sure where the bike was, if it was comming towards me, I knew I had to get out of the street, and as I rolled past a "Crosswalk Closed" sign, I grabbed hold of the bar and used it to half swing, half pull myself up. I couldn't breathe. My lungs would not move, I could neither pull air in nor force air out. I stood there bent over, one arm on the sign holding myself up, staring at the ground trying to force air into my lungs. Slowly after many attempts the breathing came back to me and I looked around for the bike. At first I could not even see where it was, but then I caught sight of it lying on its left side, one headlight still glowing on the ground. People were everywhere. Are you allright? Are you ok? Trying to make light of the situation, I simply answered, "I've been better." Several people told me it looked awesome, how I flew off the bike. Others offered their support as witnesses who had seen the whole thing. "He was totally in the wrong, he ran a red light!" they said. "Do you want to sit down?" "Come sit in my car! You must be in shock." Oddly enough, I felt calm during the whole thing. Yet there was this overshadowing gloom that my bike was totalled. I didn't even go over to it, they were saying I should leave it for the police to come and examine the scene. There was gas everywhere. It could blow up. The guy who had hit me had parked his car in the road so I don't think anyone could have hit the bike. Someone phoned 911. We waited. An ambulance came, asked if I was allright, offered to take me to the ambulance to see if there was anything broken or if I was breathing allright. I explained how I had been walking around and moving my leg and that everything seemed to be allright and that I didn't want to find some bill in the mail for $250 for making sure I was alive. The paramedic chuckled, said it was up to me but he said he didn't think I was in any serious danger having the symptoms I described and seeing how I appeared to be fine. Police came, asked for my license, registration, and insurance. I had to find the registration and insurance, the folder had flown out from under the seat. It had some oil and grime on it. I gave the officer my license and he asked me to sit in the back of his car. I wrote out a statement. They asked if I wanted the bike towed or if I had some friends who could put it in a truck to get it taken away. The fire crews moved the bike up onto the sidewalk. My handlebar was stuck. Jason and Shauntelle both phoned me fairly shortly after the accident. I had to get them both off the phone so I could talk to the police. They got our statements. He told me I could go, it was ok to take the bike. The officer wrote me a certificate so I could get the bike repaired. I phoned Blair. They said they would come get me. I phoned Shauntelle and told her the whole story. We talked for some time, right until Blair and Dad showed up. I had to let her go. We loaded the bike into the van and drove to the Medicenter over by the Whitehorn Safeway. The doctor said it wasn't likely anything was broken, but he wanted me to go get a urine sample done tomorrow so they could make sure my kidneys were allright. My right kidney may have suffered an impact and they wanted to make sure that there was no internal bleeding, or any other kind of abnormalities. That had to be done tomorrow. So there is my story, what happened tonight, and the reason I mention that poem is because right now yes, my hip is sore, but worse than that my stomach feels strange. I origionally thought I was just hungry but I have since eaten much and the situation has not changed. I don't know what is wrong. But the thought has crossed my mind that if I fall asleep tonight, as I probably will, I may not wake up in the morning. I've heard of these sort of things before, where there was no external appearance of damage of any kinds, and the next day the guy is dead due to internal bleeding or something. So if I die, I wanted several things to be known. First of all, to my family, extended and all, I love you. Every one of you. Mom, Dad, Blair, Uncle Bruce, Auntie Becky, Christy, Craig, Mark, Maria, Auntie Susan, Uncle Jim, Auntie Annette, (I may have spelled that wrong... Notepad does not have a spellcheck...) Julie, Jamie, Jacquie, Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Mymy, Uncle Ron, Bethany, and Rebecca. I think that is listed in order from closest physical location to farthest, it just seemed easiest and least favoritism-implyable. That may not be a word but if I'm dead tomorrow, what does it really matter? Nothing matters but our relationship with God, or lack thereof. And I will be honest, for there is no better policy. (I know, having tried several others) I have not been living my life for Him recently. Every time I start to get close to him, Satan attacks with a plethora of temptations, each one more enticing and desirable than the last. I think I've overcome them all when I'm attacked from another side, and yes, I struggled for some time and tried to fight, but I could not do it. I gave in and gave up. And while I would like to think that God did not 'cause' this accident tonight to happen, I would be a fool to think that he isn't using it as a message delivery method for me. God has a still, small voice but sometimes it takes having to jump over a car at 55km/hr to stop and think about what really matters. Perspective is something we tend to lose, more than our keys, more than our socks, more than our minds. Its very easy to get into a habit of seeing things "our way." Much like selective hearing, our perspective can be focused on anything we choose to include and ignore. And sometimes, often times, it takes a significant event, (Like for instance, say, a tornado or a motorcycle accident) to force us to throw off our perspective and see things for how they are, not how we want to see them. This is a hard thing to do. A main reason we narrow our perspectives is because we don't like how things are. We try to ignore them, blindly refuse to accept they exist. But I think of it this way. I have a chair in my room. Its brown, has 5 wheels, an adjustable seat. No matter what I believe about that chair, it exists and is brown and has 5 wheels. But maybe I don't like my chair, it doesn't match my furniture so I want it to have 6 wheels and be blue instead. I can believe in my mind, and think it is and tell everyone that it is a 6-wheeled, blue chair. But nothing I say or do or think or believe, will change the fact that it is a brown, 5-wheeled adjustable chair. And this is the same with God. He exists, and he is who he says he is, and nothing we believe about him will change any part of his being, his character, his love, his discipline, his forgiveness, his grace, his compassion, his mercy, his authority. By refusing to accept the truth, we are only fooling ourselves and setting ourselves up to be disgraced. Because when all your friends come over to see your blue, 6-wheeled chair, who is going to be the fool when they see its real color and wheel configuration? God doesn't change. Truth doesn't change. Fact is fact. I hope you can think about this. We only live once, and the choices we make now will decide where we spend eternity. When I was trying to get my Seadoo, I went through hoop after hoop after red-tape and runaround. It was a tremendous struggle. No one my age had ever tried to buy a Seadoo on their own before. No one would insure me. I couldn't get the Seadoo without insurance. I couldn't get insurance without owning a house. It was problem after struggle after impass. I reached the point once when I said if this doesn't work, I'm just going to say forget it! I can not buy this Seadoo! But when I persevered and went on, got all the certificates and courses I needed to get insurance from a company we found in Ontario, and I started that beauty of a machine up and took off in the water, all those problems, the months of frustrations, all seemed like nothing. It was all worth the while, and I know that if we persevere now, "fight the good fight" and honour God with our lives and our resources and our time and our talents, living for him whole-heartedly and not letting personal desires for frivilous persuits interfere, when we get to heaven and receive our reward, it will all be worth it. Don't believe me? Buy a Seadoo! Better yet, Trust in God. You will not be disappointed. BACK to Journal Index |