I have previously written about how the church helped out my family when we first moved to Canada on Day 52. Throughout my life I have had assistance from others, so I feel that we should always give back. We have taught the kids to give back and they are pretty good at giving back. They get to choose which charity we will contribute to and we tell them we will match it. I remember the first time we did this, and the kids wanted to donate $100 for the Lions Telethon. It was basically Xavier deciding as Olivier was quite young. Xavier saves his money and is great with delayed gratification. He wanted to save his money for a car when he turns 16 and with his mentality I think that he will easily achieve it. Once he sets his mind to something he normally achieves it. This year we are going to participate in another one where you provide gifts for someone. In the past at the hospital we had done this for a family and in the end I found it was super disappointing. The amount donated was not very high so I ended up buying extra things to supplement the monetary donation. They collect money for different causes at my hair salon and it surprises me how little money she collects as well sometimes. It is not a cheap place, you would think people could contribute a dollar or two. We should be helping people out all year long, but at Christmas I feel more generous. In academia I would try and help out the students when they needed help. That is one of the things that I miss from academia, learning from students and being a mentor.
I had mentioned that over the last couple of years we had gotten close to Xavier’s goalie coach. I help him out when I can and at this point even if he was no longer the coach I would end up helping him. I want to see him succeed in life and if I can help out with that then I will do all I can to help him out. He is applying for a job now and Melanie and I have been assisting him with the interview components. One of the benefits is I share with him what Xavier does in games and any nuances we see and he works on it. I try not to dictate what I think he should work on, but highlight weaknesses into the overall plan. He worked on breakaways with Xavier last year and he was exceptional with it. He loves breakaways during games and stops the majority of them. The key message I want Xavier to learn though is that he should help people when he can. When I was in University I use to charge people quite a bit to tutor because I did not want to tutor some of the people….or it was a subject I was not in. I am a firm believer that you do not charge friends when you help them. At some point in life you will need help. People on the hockey team have offered to help out and have brought some food and offered to help out with the kids. I appreciate the generosity of people. The fact that I found it hard to write for a couple of months should have been a clear indicator that something was wrong.
Right now every day gets easier. I am fatigued though and need to take a couple of naps per day. I do not think I could sit through hours of meetings. When I pop on sporadically during the day I get called out by my team or Melanie.