EDITORIAL
We were children
I went to Fort MacLeod, Alberta (pop: 3000) this week to deliver a Response Ability Pathways training. So what? Right? I agree. Why should anyone except me and the people who were there care at all. Well, no reason really.
As a part of preparing for the training, I decided
to let the participants know that, when I was very little, I had lived
in Fort MacLeod. And so I dug up an old picture of me and my older
brother Jim in Fort MacLeod in 1949. Yup, I am that old — 1949! That’s
the year, not the address.
Anyway, below is the picture of Jim and I when we lived there. It is the
only one I have. It’s very Canadian, don’t you think.
That’s me in the bottom right corner — I do look like I wonder what the heck is going on — here and in life.
So
what? Well, here is the thing.
As I prepared for this training, I kept going back to the picture because I was having trouble reconciling the image there (me as a puppy) with me as I know me today. I had a lot of trouble looking at the picture and saying something like, “Hey, look at me at age 2.5, or whatever I was!” I just could not connect that little kid with me.
Simple, maybe even stupid, but there you go.
You see . . . it was me, but it is not me. It is me, but it is not me. That kid, I decided, could never turn out to be me. But he did. Weird, I thought.
In the end, after all my reflections on the ‘me, not me, who is he, etc’ this is the only thing I am left with.
We really never do know who these kids are going to turn out to be, do we? I mean, really, who would have guessed? Not me, at that age. And, you know what? Not me now, either.
So, what about, I wonder out loud, the kids you are working with — who are they going to become? And what role will you play in that becoming?
Do you ever wonder about that?
I mean, there you are — you and that kid — and what you do can influence who that child will be all those years later. I think it is an awesome thought.
And potentially, at least, an awesome
responsibility.
Thom
Winter in Quebec.
February 2010