For Maddie: The Legend of the Birch Tree

This Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) legend is fitting for today...   

Long ago, a boy was born into a nice family. Before he could walk, a ceremony was held in his honor; a naming ceremony.

He was given the name Wiigwaas. Wiigwaas was given many gifts from the creator. One of those gifts was to help others in a good way. He not only helped his father hunt and fish, he also helped his mother pick wild berries and tend the garden. He helped the elderly not only in his village, but in other villages. He would help make canoes and houses.

When he became a young man, he had to go to battle. In this battle he lost his life. His brothers brought his body home and buried him after they held a farewell ceremony. He was buried in pure white buckskin on a hill just beyond his village.

The following spring his people noticed that a little tree began to grow at the site of his grave. As this tree grew tall a dream came to the father of Wiigwaas. In this dream he was told that Wiigwaas was still able to help his people and the dream showed him how...

"In the springtime, you can take the sweet sap from him to make syrup; you can peel the bark off to fashion containers for keeping food and eating; you can make canoes and you can use the bark to make lodges; you can make boxes and baskets. From the strong wood you can make daabaagan, sleighs and lodges. You can make fires so the people can keep warm and cook food".

So, even in his death, Wiigwaas is still helping his people.

Today, I remember Maddie. A tiny little girl with an incredibly big personality, who captured many hearts and inspired teems of thousands in her short life. Even now, she continues to do so, and I believe in my heart that Maddie, like Wiigwaas will continue to touch lives.

I feel blessed to honour her today.

You are missed Maddie.

Purple Lupines

I'll never forget getting my first new (to me) car. I felt independent and loved that it really suited me. It was white. Not my first choice, but you can't shop for a used car with a particular colour in mind can you? Anyway, no one I knew had a white car and it seemed kind of original and made me feel like I'd be making a statement.

I was quickly disillusioned. It seemed from the moment I got that car, everyone was driving a white car. I spotted them everywhere. I'd find myself parked between two white cars, or behind one in a drive through and contrary to what I believed, it turned out a few friends did in fact also have white cars; so much for making a statement. Life's like that sometimes; and for something as banal as the colour of your car, you just chalk it all up to coincidence and imagine it was like that all along and now that it affects you; however trivially, you just... notice.

I'm feeling a bit differently about the colour purple of late. I have been for about three months. I know I'm not alone in that thought; that awareness of purple. I've read far too many tweets, posts and comments on posts to notice that many, many people are noticing purple everywhere. It's no surprise that we're all hyper-aware... after all, purple is Maddie's colour and it continues to represent her short but beautiful life. I've been wondering if it's just been a coincidence; noticing all this purple. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know...

When I was a little girl, I had this incredible faith in God. I learned and sang songs of Jesus and Disciples, my grade one teacher read from the bible everyday and told the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark and the parting of the Red Sea. I hung on every word. I believed so very wholly, so deeply. Until that miserable day in March 1977; the day my father died - I was almost 7. I can remember being so completely devastated. Why, WHY would God... who supposedly loved me take away my daddy? It was a bitter fight to keep my faith, but my father's death ultimately killed my belief in God. My days of believing that God was crying about something when it was raining were gone. Rain is just that now; rain, nothing more, nothing less. I've never gotten my faith back and to be honest, I've never longed to have it back either. I'm holding a pretty tight grudge.

Since Maddie's passing, I've made a mental note and sometimes taken photographs of the purple moments I've stumbled upon. I've even contemplated sharing them. Then I've just felt a little silly thinking about doing so, because surely it's all just coincidence. I've also avoided sharing because I wouldn't ever want to stir up any sadness for Heather and Mike… so that got me wondering why I felt compelled to share this at all in the first place.

The coincidences are many and they are daily. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people in purple, including prom night here in this very small town. Every single girl I saw was wearing a purple dress. Really! Oh wait, except that one... who was wearing yellow... The t-shirts for our summer programs at work are purple this year and I have nothing to do with that selection process, a gift I got in May came in a purple box. The most striking display of purple I've seen so far though came on June 27th. We were headed for a surprise birthday party. Lupines are the provincial flower in Nova Scotia and the ditches and hills along the highway are absolutely littered with them in early summer. The lupines on our trip were no surprise, but the overwhelmingly obvious dominance of purple lupines certainly was. In fact, there were hardly ANY white or pink ones and I'm used to seeing all three colours. I wanted to stop and take a picture of them, but we were in a bit of a hurry so I decided to do it on the way home the next day instead. On that drive home I'd kind of forgotten really, I was caught up in some song on the radio or a chat with my husband...so I forgot about the lupines... that is until we came upon a mass of them. Stopping for a photo op wasn't going to work though, because...it was pouring rain. That realization took my breath away.

Maybe all this purple isn't just a bunch of coincidence after all and even though I'm still not sure if it was God crying that day, it sure made me cry.

In the end I decided it was important for me to write this post; to show that these little purple connections help everyone (including me) to remember Maddie. We've all been so very moved by the larger than life charm and personality of Maddie. We've all been inspired to be better people, we've realized the value of community and friendship and we should all do what we can to honour Maddie's legacy.

For whatever it's worth, I've created a group on Flickr to put all my purple pictures; a place to pay homage Maddie. If you're so inclined, I ask that you join and also post your pictures of purple. For Maddie, and especially for Heather and Mike.