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"Will I Recognize Mum and Dad?"

Imagine having just turned five years old and being told you were sailing off to Canada without your parents. Fortunately for John Jarvis in 1940, he had a big brother named Michael, 10, who was going too. Little John had no idea where Canada was. The family lived in Southport, a seaside town close to Liverpool. With increasing bomb raids in the area, Mrs. Jarvis wrote to friends and relatives in Canada searching for a place to send her boys. When a Mrs. Foster from Grimsby, Ontario, expressed willingness, Mrs. Jarvis explained that with private evacuations, she’d not be allowed to send any money to Canada. Instead, she planned to follow the children as quickly as possible and find work.

No sooner had she sent the letter than one arrived from CORB (Children’s Overseas Reception Board), informing her that Michael and John had been accepted into the government program. The boys were on their way to Canada by the time Mrs. Jarvis received another letter from an aunt in Calgary, also agreeing to take the boys. She spent the next several months trying to arrange a visa and passage to Canada for herself. None was granted. Not during wartime.

John stuck close to Michael on the voyage to Montreal and Toronto. Staff at the reception center put the tired, ill little boy to bed. Soon, they went to Grimsby to live with Mrs. Foster, an English immigrant with a grown son serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. The boys settled in nicely. Though their parents naturally missed them and worried, every time bombs dropped, they knew they’d done the right thing.

John’s memories included the peach farm on which he lived, school, wiener roasts on the beach, rabbits, hollyhocks, jumping in piles of maple leaves, and having to daily swallow a vile fish liver oil potion called Scott’s Emulsion. He recalled visits from members of the Children’s Aid Society where he met with them privately in the family parlor to ensure he was doing all right. To John, these were merely annoying interruptions to playtime. At Christmas, he was allowed to choose the tree. He and Michael received lovely gifts.

A 1940s Christmas

When Mrs. Foster sold her farm and moved into an apartment, however, she found life with two growing boys more than she could handle. Michael went to live on a farm a few miles away, while John went to a family with six children—also surnamed Jarvis. John felt at home with the family who practically adopted him. As he grew more Canadian, heartily singing along to “Oh Canada” at school, memories of home and family dimmed. His parents seemed more like a distant aunt and uncle who sent letters and occasional gifts.

RMS Rangitata

Just before his tenth birthday, John was shocked to be told it was time to go home. It seemed like the whole town came out to say goodbye to him and Michael, yet he couldn’t grasp that he wasn’t coming back. They travelled to New York where they boarded the RMS Rangitata for the voyage to England. When they reached Liverpool, the boys leaned over the railing, holding a photograph of their parents and studying the throngs of people on the wharf, worried they wouldn’t recognize each other. With a huge sigh of relief, they spotted them.

Adjusting back to life in England proved a challenge for John, especially at school. He kept in touch with both Mrs. Foster and the Jarvis family. At sixteen, he joined the Navy but it would be forty years before he returned to Canadian soil for a holiday where he visited his old friends.

You can read a fictional account of the CORB children's adventures in my new novel, "Even if We Cry," available for pre-order now. Click on the book cover to order.

3 Thoughts for Care-Givers

A month ago, I thought my days were full. With a new book launching and all that goes with it, a weekly writing class to teach, plus my regular homemaking tasks, I had pretty much all I could handle.

Contrary to what is often touted as biblical, God frequently gives us more than we can handle. If he didn’t, we’d soon come to believe we don’t need him.

In my case, it came in the form of my 93-year-old mother’s decline to the point of needing a lot more care. This ridiculously healthy, vibrant, and independent woman has experienced the usual frustrations of short-term memory loss for a few years now. But with a flare-up of neuropathy pain in her feet came a serious surge in confusion. Suddenly, we don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone longer than twenty or thirty minutes. When her phone died and we had to replace it, I found one as close to the old one as I could. Still, it’s proven too big a learning curve and Mom hasn't gotten the hang of it. The lifeline gadget we’d tried a year ago only confused her more.

My sister and I began tag-teaming, sleeping at Mom’s every other night and then juggling daytime duty, along with my brother-in-law, as each day’s demands allowed. We quickly realized this wasn’t sustainable and were able to recruit a little help from other family members and friends. We began looking into home care and found they offer less than I thought. The process for a nursing home is also in place, but we know that could take months. We’re thankful Mom is ready and happy to take that step and we’re trusting God for his timing. It’s a tremendous relief to know we won’t have a fight on our hands like many do.

Looking after Mom isn’t difficult. It’s only tiring and time-consuming. I needed to find some things I could stop doing to make this more manageable. My every-third-Sunday duty in my church’s Information Booth could go. Baking muffins and banana bread to tuck into Hubby’s lunches could go. The two or three hours a week spent creating scripture memes to post on social media could go. If anyone has missed them, they haven’t said. I’m not writing another book, and I’m beyond grateful that my newspaper column was cancelled last summer. That weekly deadline would be a killer now—yet another example of why I can trust God with these things.

People say, “Be sure to take care of yourself too, or you can’t take care of others.” So, in the interest of self-care, my priorities during the hours I spend at home have become: take a walk, take a nap, take a shower, do a load of laundry, and catch up on emails and other business. (There’s no wi-fi at Mom’s.) Any remaining time is spent cooking or grocery shopping or prepping for my class. Possibly cleaning something, if we’re really lucky.

We’ve been at this less than a month and already I catch myself wanting my life back. When those thoughts come, God says, “This is your life. And it’s all good.” I tell myself three things:

1.       This is temporary. (And yes, even if Mom is with us another ten years, it’s still super temporary in the grand scheme of eternity.)

2.       This is a privilege. (How many people my age still have a parent? How many are able to give them this kind of time?)

3.       I will never regret time spent with my mother. (This is something my friend Brenda reminded me of after losing her mother. How could I ever regret this?)

Who knows what this experience might be preparing me for down the road? I ask God daily to use this in my life to make me more compassionate and caring, more patient and kind. In short, more like Him.

He’s got His work cut out for Him.

Apparently, so do I.

Mom & Me