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| Senator Mike Kirby - mental health advocate - big thanks and DAP! |
By Terrance Gavan
This is a little ditty about kids, life and rediscovered joy.
I wrote a song about five years back.
The hook goes: “It’s a long way from hell back to Paradise ; and I spent a lotta’ of my days dusk dancin’ on thin ice.”
It dates back to a time back in March, 1998 when I walked into Winnipeg ’s Willy Wonka Wonderland – a beautiful, provincially funded chocolate chip factory on Portage Avenue Paradise .
Since graduating from Wonka’s Post Partum Program for Loonies (Magna Cum Laude) in Winnipeg, I have taught skiing and snowboarding in Invermere, BC, managed irrigation on the Mountainside Golf Course in the Fairmont Range, moved from the peaks to the hills, and landed a lovely sinecure with Auriga Design here in Haliburton, Ontario.
To fate and lucky stars. I hit the trifecta on my zig-zagged route to a bumpy epiphany.
My best times have been spent teaching alpine arts to young techno bumpers in the Rockies and here at Sir Sam’s.
Sometimes I got lucky and made some guided choices that I will remember forever. Touchstones, exclamations and whispered moments.
Back in 2001 I was coaching Nancy Greene and we’re out one Saturday and my slowest and most timid kid was on the verge of tears. Frustration and disappointment etched on his mug.
I gave my co-coach Jeremy the nod and told my group to go ski with the advanced group.
All except for Michael.
“You’re with me Michael,” I said and we veered off the trail through the woods to the bump run.
Mike started to cry and we sat down on a mogul.
“I can’t do bumps,” said Mike.
“Can’t’s a four-letter word and we’re going to ski to the bottom, but we’re cheating,” I said. “Just follow me.” And I traversed the bumps to the other side of the vacant run. Then we sat down on another mogul.
“Easy-peasey right?” He nodded. Then we rolled over in the snow, and pointed our skis in the other direction. Never downhill but at a gentle traverse line bending through the bumps.
We did this all the way down, went up the lift and we did it again. I found my class and for the last run of the day we all did that same traverse bump run with the sit and roll over at the end of each traverse.
Mike’s best friend was a holy terror and a shredder, Brian the Bump.
I told them to run the Volkswagon Mogul Field together after racing.
Every time I saw Mike on the hill he’d come up to me and give me the run down on his day. When I had time, I skied the bumps together with the two clunkensteins.
Long story short. The coaches awarded the Most Improved Skier of the year to Michael, who never hearkened Bode Miller through the gates, but whose alpine times had undergone a remarkable transition.
And his bumps? Crakshaft runs. Mike and Bumpy. Mike always ate his lunch with me at the Fairmont Lodge. I told him to get his instructors just as soon as he was old enough.
I left to come here to Haliburton in 2002. I’m an instructor at Sir Sam’s and have seen similar epiphanies over the years. I’m a pretty lucky guy.
But not bulletproof.
Last fall some symptoms started to manifest. Agoraphobia – an old friend; a general feeling of malaise; no sleep; and a maddening inability to read even a Sports Illustrated article from start to end.
I didn’t recognize the portent of the telltale warnings, and made decision to head back to my roots in writing. I was simply chasing a fix. I was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered. But I had a toolkit of coping mechanisms for these things – I thought. You all know what thought did, dontcha’?
Last March I woke up one morning, in the fetal position, my stomach roiling with what I assumed was a recurrence of diverticulosis. I also looked out the window joining my dog Billie Jean who was watching the “Bush TV.”
“What am I doing here?” I heard myself saying aloud.
And that one I recognized. And some lights flickered.
I immediately phoned my Willy Wonka coach Chuck, back in the Alberta
Coach simply asked me the de rigueur questions.
He then said: “You will quit; and you will get to the doctor early tomorrow morning; and you will phone me back tomorrow, after you have completed both those tasks.”
Chuck is a successful real estate salesman and broker and a former Mayor of a lovely town in the East Kootenays .
He talks and I listen.
I went to the walk-in in on Tuesday morning.
I waited as lunch approached and to my surprise my own doctor appeared. She grinned and said: “you’re with me.”
Not to get too esoteric or nose-drivelly here but that’s exactly what I said to young Mike that day in the moguls.
I was in the bumps last March. My doctor and coach “Special K” watched me break down in her office.
She sat on a chair and made some recommendations which include medication, reading and some guidance.
Three months later I’m skiing some bumps. I joined the Haliburton Soccer Club executive. I took on the website (haliburtonsoccer.com) and do some fill in coaching.
Am I back?
Well I don’t know.
But last Tuesday I was back with the kids on the field.
During the game I was cheering our defense with the Man United cheer. “Di-vest, di-vest, DI-VEST them of the ball!”
Several players came up and asked what divest meant. Ah, crap I am now become a silly caricature of Kevin Spacey in Pay it Forward.
At the end I was twirling the ball on my finger. “How do you do that coach?”
“Just like you get to Carnegie Hall son … practice, practice practice.”
Then I took out several tennis balls that my dog Billie Jean had dropped in my sports bag. I juggled three.
A little guy came up to me and asked quite earnestly.
“Coach, are you a clown?”
I just smiled.
“I sure am … and it’s just great being a clown.”
Thanks Chuck and thank you Dr. Special K.
For helping me find my center again.
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