We grabbed a floatie and a life jacket and I ferried her to the foot-shaped rock. She stood next to me in a line with the other kids. I said “Do you want to jump?” and when she said “I jump!” I didn’t second-guess either of us. I took her hand and on the count of three jumped into the ocean, her hand still clasped tightly in mine as we surfaced. I’m not sure if she actually jumped or was pulled into the water by my tight grasp, but when I came up she was beside me with a bewildered but not unhappy expression, and she said she wanted to do it again.
In years past we would have only been spectators to this event. All the kids out on the favourite foot-shaped rock in the bay that fronts their grandma’s cabin, calling out for someone to take a picture of them jumping. My kid perched by my side on a log, already in pyjamas as we approach her bedtime, earlier and held to more strongly than the other kids. We would watch and talk about what the kids were doing, or something else entirely. We were present but did not include ourselves in the activity itself. An assumption was made that this wasn’t something she wanted to be included in. Not to mention it required my participation, and getting in cold water has never been my forté. I am learning that these assumptions do not serve either of us.
The fact of the matter is that I need to be willing to try new things if she is going to try new things. She likes her comfort zone and so do I. Our trips to Hornby Island have expanded us both. They have been an ongoing measure, year over year, of how we grow ourselves and each other.
Every summer, since Charlotte’s second summer, she and I have gone to visit our friends on this island. Her first visit was June 2011 when she was 16 months old. Patrick was working so I decided I would tackle the (sometimes 9-hour-long) journey on my own. After all, I had been doing a lot of parenting on my own while Patrick took various work trips, and this was simply an extension of that. It felt different, however, when I pulled up to the ferry terminal with my 16-month-old, minimally communicative child in the back seat and confronted a significant bout of anxiety (several months later, in retrospect, identified as a panic attack). My anxiety manifests as a feeling of nausea, which leads to further feelings of anxiety about the prospect of having to vomit. As I sat there with C, parked, feeling nauseous, alone with her for a potentially nine hour journey, the anxiety grew. For the entire ferry ride, thoughts ran through my head about how I could care for her on my own, especially if I might end up sick.
The worries of imminent sickness did not come to fruition, of course. The tricks of the mind that I had not quite learned to manage dissipated as we arrived on the island and I smelled the comforting wafts of ocean air and arbutus trees. We made it to the ‘Hornby House’ and carried out our first little vacation, just the two of us venturing out into the unknowns. When we departed that summer I drove the windy island road to the ferry terminal with the windows down, music on, and tears in my eyes. I’ve departed Hornby in this way many times since.
It is easy to think that one will always be the way they are now, forgetting our capacity for growth. Would I always struggle with this anxiety when venturing out into the world with my girl? The answer was no, but I didn’t know it at the time.
The second summer was post-nervous breakdown, post-therapy, post-learning to take care of myself. You can see in the photos that C was all smiles and that felt like a reflection of the progress I had made with my mental health. My friend now had her own toddler to care for and nap times were rarely in sync, so I ventured out on walks with C in the carrier that was starting to get a tad small for her slight, but no longer infant-sized 30-month-old body. The walks did us both good. Sometimes I shed some tears thinking about the journey we were on and the journey to come. We were still in the middle of a lot of assessment at that time, and I was confronting the delays that were now assumed to reflect a bigger story than moderately falling behind in some gross motor and communication milestones. But…she was walking this summer. And she smiled for the camera when I said ‘say cheese’. And she looked for people and items around the Hornby house when I said ‘Where’s ….?’. There was progress. Every summer, there was progress. With her and with me.
It was easy to think she would always be the way she was then, but every year, just like me, she grew. One summer, aged 5, she spent her entire time at the beach walking the stretch of sand and going up to strangers to ask ‘How are you?’ and I wondered if this was to be our fate for all beach trips forevermore. The next summer, at the same beach, she walked here and there stopping only momentarily to plop herself in a tidal pool, while still occasionally seeking out strangers to acquaint herself with (this will be an everlasting love), but it was not the same as the summer before. And when she was eight, she finally decided that sitting in the sand to dig with a shovel and make sandcastles of her own was a great way to pass the time. She doesn’t pace the beach much at all anymore, and in fact I have to work to get her off the towel. On one beach walk this past summer she took hold of a kite that was offered to her and strolled along while it floated above her. Her first time flying a kite. I have learned that each summer holds its own surprises, still.
Helliwell Park is a gorgeous 3 kilometer walk on Hornby that was done with little ones in carriers and strollers in the early days, with thoughts of how most of the children who accompanied us would one day do it without assistance. But what about my girl? Would her stamina and strength grow to the level needed to do the loop with the group? It did and she did, when she was eight. And this past summer, at age 12, we prodded her along the cliffs with songs and snacks in a similar manner as four years ago. The pace and pathway of change is unpredictable. This, we know for sure.
And what about me? How have I changed since those first wobbly trips across the ocean and up the island, three ferry trips in all, hours of travel to escape the everyday and zoom in for a while on what has changed from one summer to the next? My changes do not present themselves in the same way her added words and steps, sandcastles and kite-flying do. But I know it is happening when I leap off that foot-shaped rock into what may or may not be very cold water, her hand in mine. My growth is inspired by her and a need to lead and follow. I have learned that every year she will grow in ways that I won’t see until next summer, and I will grow in ways that can’t be seen. We are so grateful to have had the chance to learn this here, on this island, every summer.
