In The Yearview Mirror: 2022

Last weekend, I heard that January 7 is the last day of a new year that you're allowed to wish someone a Happy New Year and have it count. Well, then. I won't be wishing you Happy New Year anytime soon. But...no one said anything about the last day a blogger may post a review of the old year and still have it count, so here goes! For this reflection of 2022, I decided to choose one photo and one brief description of events per month. I found out that although this can be a valuable exercise, it is also a considerable piece of work for a click-happy photographer and verbose explainer like me. 

Note: The starred event is a type of caption for the month's photo. 

JANUARY was the month of

~ hosting the IGo Board meeting here

* fellowshipping with our friends/mentors Merle & Edith Burkholder and our Pakistani friends new to Canada - the Amar Family

~ helping some of our church family to serve a meal for the homeless in Kitchener

~ supporting our friend Bear by traveling to South Haven, Michigan to attend his mother's funeral

~ still needing a negative Covid test to cross back into Canada after visiting the US

FEBRUARY was the month of

~ subbing for Kerra a few times in her Grade 2 classroom at Countryside School

~ visiting Carlin & Kayleen and being astonished at the renovations progress in their "new" house

* relaxing with Ken at an Airbnb cottage for several days in the Finger Lakes region of New York

~ attending the funeral of our friend, neighbor and co-worker Brian Martin

~ making gyro meat, pitas, and tzatziki sauce for a meal to share with the Kenites

MARCH was the month of 

~ going to Mom Martin's house for a fun quilting and gab session with the in-laws

~ rejoicing in the lifting of the mask mandate

~ attending the REACH conference in the Lancaster, PA area, along with a couple thousand other people

* babysitting my great-nephew Chet (niece Holly & Trevor's son) one day a week and enjoying his steal-your-heart grin 

~ taking my friend Debbie to Hamilton for a dr. appt and getting the van stuck on a broken pylon in the hospital parking lot 

APRIL was the month of

~ babysitting grandson Seth and chuckling over his descriptions (on a very breezy day he told me the leaves are “running” over the lawn)
~ celebrating Seth’s third birthday at Rolin & Joy’s with both the Martin & Cressman families (first in-person birthday party ever we could have for the lad)
~traditional gathering times with The Martin Ladies at a restaurant or someone’s home when one of us has a birthday
* Oasis Church ladies enjoying delicious food, inspiring discussion, challenging games, and humorous “emotional” skits at our annual Retreat (photo featuring Yolanda L and Kerra)
~ stiff competition in Boggle games with Ken who is the ultimate winner of our YBT’s (yearly Boggle tournaments)

MAY was the month of

* a lovely in-person visit from Mom & Dad Schrock, during which Dad fixed the wooden feed truck that Seth plays with when he comes to our house
~ Ken and Ricky discussing chess moves whenever they get together, especially soon after one of Ricky’s Saturday night chess tournaments he arranges online
~ discovering Spring nature scenes (such as a mallard mother and her 13 babies!) with friend Debbie in our weekly strolls along the St. Jacob’s Mill Race Trail
~ helping Carlin & Kayleen move to their newly-renovated old house
~ an afternoon rendezvous with Sharon Kuepfer and Tina Fehr, two of my writing buddies, at a local restaurant to exchange word craft tips and to dole out encouragement for flagging spirits

JUNE was the month of

~ a fun night of games and appetizers for the Kenites at Rolin & Joy’s apartment when we finally could cash in on a Christmas gift certificate that our children had given us pre-Covid
~ the Kenites Family photo shoot in St. Jacobs, another gift from our thoughtful children
* gathering with the Leighton Martin clan for our annual Family Camping weekend at Hidden Acres Campground and adding a new group activity: a cornhole tournament
~ a trip to Pennsylvania for a two-day IGo Board meeting and a short-but-sweet visit to Carlin’s – first overnight guests at their new location

JULY was the month of

~ traveling with Rolin & Joy to South Carolina for nephew Anthony & Megan’s wedding
~ a trip to Ohio for nephew Jeremy & Amanda’s wedding (on the way we received The Triplets Announcement)
~ enjoying Kerra’s tales after she returned from a week in the north where she helped to teach summer Bible School at Slate Falls, ON
* the Tribe of Dan Reunion, held at the homes of my brothers Eric and Tom in Hayward, Wisconsin since border restrictions prevented us taking our turn to host the gathering here
~ a group of us church ladies meeting weekly to discuss another chapter in our book study (Stop Calling Me Beautiful), sometimes in the shade of the maple tree in our front yard

AUGUST was the month of

~ giving our Trinidadian friends, the Sanchez family (four people from three generations), living space in our home for several weeks while they visited relatives in our area and blessed our lives, meantime
* sharing a beautiful vacation time with our family at the Rose Cottage in Leamington, ON overlooking Lake Erie, the weekend including a traipse out to the very tip of land at Point Pelee
~ receiving difficult news of our bro-in-law Verlynn Yoder (married to Ken’s sister Laurel) being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, as well as grieving the tragic loss of 9-yr-old Everett Freeman who drowned during his family’s camping trip (he’s the grandson of our good friends and the son of the photographer at our family’s photo shoot this summer)

SEPTEMBER was the month of

~ Kerra and I having some eye-opening experiences while accompanying Esther Bean on her food delivery route to some needy people in Kitchener on a warm summer evening
~ accepting new Sunday School-teaching responsibilities at Oasis – Ken for the adult men, and I for the seven students in the Primary class
~bins and bins of apples being harvested from the Vienna Orchards, causing Ken to exclaim almost daily over this year’s phenomenal crop
~creating a fishing activity to contribute as one of the booths at our Fall Fun Fair social, which involved making fish out of pool noodles and fishing poles equipped with magnets on their lines
* a most delightful dress-up tea, to which the Oasis ladies, young and old, were invited

OCTOBER was the month of

~ helping Rolin & Joy and family move from their small apartment to a 4-bedroom/3-bathroom house in Waterloo, where we can continue saying they are located fairly close to us
~ the 60^th wedding anniversary celebrations for Ken’s parents, including an Open House and a Family Dinner, all of us incredulous and grateful that Verlynn & Laurel could travel from Minnesota to join us in spite of Verlynn’s treatment for his tumor having been so recent
~ attending the NYP Board Meetings in Dryden, enjoying chat times with missionary friends and reveling in the outdoor beauty of the north
* celebrating our 34 years of marriage, and going on a hike back to the cabin and through the brilliantly-colored forest with Mom & Dad Schrock who happened to be here right on the day of our anniversary
~ finding out that Carlin & Kayleen are actually expecting TWO babies!!

NOVEMBER was the month of

~ learning to take my tears and fears to God when we get news such as Carlin & Kayleen’s twins having Stage III Twin to Twin Transfusion, and requiring an intervention called the Solomon Procedure
~ Bear’s visit and the subsequent baking, music, hosting, humor, wisdom, etc. that hosting him entails
* Early Christmas with the Kenites at our house: two nights and three days of relaxed fellowship and games, lots of new (and some old) books, late-night discussions (Is the world getting better or worse?), and way too many cookies and truffles
~ Advent service at Oasis in which we3@home sang In the Bleak Midwinter, adding English to the myriad of languages represented in the various singing groups that contributed

DECEMBER was the month of

~ Ken & I having our anniversary get-away in Niagara-on-the-Lake, taking in a classic play, “A Christmas Carol”, going on a walk along the Welland Canal one afternoon, and playing scads of Boggle games
~ getting to do in-person Christmas events again, such as our church’s Christmas Banquet social, “Messiah” at Centre in the Square, and the traditional Christmas Program at church in which each Sunday School class shares their own mini program with the group
* surviving the Epic Storm over Christmas weekend, delaying our trip to visit Carlin & Kayleen a bit, ending up traveling there the long way since the border crossing in Buffalo was closed for several days, and having a marvelous together time when we finally got there
~ spending an evening here with Ricky & Jasmine, as well as our friends Renee (Jasmine’s sister) & Austin, and sharing a meal which involved us making our own fresh spring rolls to dip in a peanut-chili sauce
~ gaining excitement for the New Year and what it holds, while making goals and resolutions, and choosing a word for 2023: Surrender 

Into It Like a Five-year-old

I didn't even want to plan Christmas this year. Since we couldn't legally get our family together (including our local married children) all under one roof - and, more specifically, the roof of our very own house - what would be the point of laying out schedules and making any preparation thereunto? 

Looking back over it now, I see I should've "gone into it like a five-year-old".

Meaning carefree and unassuming, I suppose, oblivious to past glitches as well as present ditches and snares of comparison and whatotherpeoplethink. That's probably what my friend meant, anyway, when she used the phrase about just going into it like a five-year-old to describe how a group of ladies could successfully circle up and enter into dialogue without relational pitfalls tripping them up so easily. 

I'm guessing my friend was referring to the way a five-year-old would typically approach a current situation with a lot less inhibition than, say, a fifty-five-year-old would, due to what went wrong yesterday and what is likely to go wrong tomorrow.

Maybe if I had gone into Christmas like a five-year-old, I wouldn't have ached quite so much for the way things used to be. I wouldn't have strained my anxious eyes by peering into the future so intently. I could have reveled more in the delight of the present. 

I probably still would have shed a few tears over the frustrations and disappointments of an abnormal Christmas and New Year's. But I would've been quick to let them go in my eagerness to embrace the novel immediate. And I'm pretty sure I would've been startled by the kind of joys that often spring out of the unexpected. 

Such as...

...the way my family humored me by illustrating portions of Luke 2:1-20 in our traditional reading of that passage before the opening of gifts. This involved a Q&A about political figures, a "multitude" of stuffed animals, piano playing, colorful computer screen backgrounds, and a real live child (who didn't exactly enjoy being taken upon a lap when Mary "laid him in a manger", and started wailing!) all in a Zoom meeting with a rather shaky start due to an unstable Internet connection. 

...the pleasure we got from helping to put a touch of hominess into someone else's Christmas. A number of the Trinidadian guys who work for Martin's had to stay in Canada over Christmas because their government was not yet accepting the workers back into their own country. Martin's appointed Ken to purchase and deliver gifts to this group of men who were spending the holidays in a country not their own, apart from their relatives and friends back home. Ken decided on a few small items such as a flashlight and a Canada toque, and I baked cookies to add to the gift for each fellow. Kerra and I joined Ken in packing the 60-some bags and I got the privilege of writing the individual names on the tags. On the day before Christmas, I enjoyed traveling with Ken to his Vienna workplace and handing out the gift bags to some very appreciative "stranded" workers. 

...the fun of having Ken join me in the kitchen to make Christmas Dinner. There were only three of us in the house on Christmas Day. Kerra was still in her mandatory two-week quarantine following her entry into Canada from Faith Builders, the school she's attending in the States. She wasn't supposed to be working at my elbow in the kitchen just yet, so Ken offered to help me create the meal we wanted to be special for Christmas Day. He thought we should add mashed potatoes to the menu I had planned  (ham and butternut squash and salad), and he offered to do the peeling to make that happen. He also peeled apples for our dessert - apple pie. He made the filling while I made the pie crusts. Teamwork with him like that in the familiar space of my kitchen makes my heart so happy.

 

...the discoveries of bird life in our woods on Christmas Day. We3@home decided to take a walk together that day, since it's okay for someone in quarantine to leave the house and get outside for exercise periodically. Ken and I wanted to show Kerra the cabin back in the woods. We had described the cute little structure to her, but what we didn't think to tell her about were the cabin birds, and the possibility of chickadees eating right out of her hand. Before we even got within view of the resident flock though, a huge bird swooped in pretty close to Kerra, startling her into a shrieking question, "What was THAT?" When I saw the "bird as big as a crow, but with a red head" later, high up in a dead tree, I recognized it as a pileated woodpecker. What a treat to be able to watch this fantastic bird doing its mealtime drill for quite a while. It was also a treat to introduce Kerra to the perky little chickadees near the cabin, too.

...the inspiration I received from various things that I've read and heard in recent weeks. I especially resonated with something that podcaster Nathan Rittenhouse said, in commenting on the aspect of hope during Advent in this crazy Covid year: "Real, legitimate hope brings us peace in the present... Celebrations of the goodness of what will be [don’t] negate the beauty and the blessing of what is in the moment." He pointed out that the angels sang with joy the very night Christ was born, that Simeon, when he held the Baby in his arms, was grateful right then, and that Mary pondered those current events in her heart. Knowing what Christ has done for us and what He will do for us need not hold us back from celebrating Him this year's Christmas. "Hope for the future does not exclude joy in the present; in fact, it opens us up to a level of gratitude that brings us peace in the present." 

I think that sounds like a blessed way to approach the New Year, too. While I'm longing for the time when Covid regulations will be behind us, I don't want the negatives of the past nor the bright expectations of the future to obscure the beauty of what is right in front of me. 

If going into the new year like a five-year-old means entering 2021 with a childlike heart full of wonder, count me in.

What are some ways you've experienced the recent season "like a five-year-old"?