Never Underestimate

It's solidly summer now, but my brain is still in teaching mode. I have the honour of facilitating the summer session for the Queen's University TL Specialist AQ and both the York University TL Part 1 and TL Part 2 AQ for July. My sister spent a few days with me and my family this past week, which made it challenging to juggle all my responsibilities, but it's amazing what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it.

This idea of "never underestimating" people started to emerge in June. I seriously doubted that my school's Quiz Bowl Team would be able to pull off back-to-back victories. I think my low expectations inspired them to prove me wrong, and my students won the Fiction competition. 

I haven't written much about my mother here on my blog, because I think it's important to keep some personal details private. In January of this year, she was admitted to the hospital, and in March of this year, she moved into a long term care facility. Imagine my surprise when, during a visit in June, I arrived during dinner time to find her feeding herself! This was a big deal, as prior to this, other people had to feed her. The latest surprise happened this week, when my sister and I paid mom a visit. We added a few more posters to her living quarters, and I was flabbergasted when my sister, who was sitting beside my mother as I mounted the posters on her wall, exclaimed that she read the words on the poster out loud. We thought she had lost her ability to read. We also gave her some toys, and she took us aback again by accurately counting the appendages on the stuffed octopus we got her. My mother has a great sense of humour and spent a lot of time goofing around with her latest presents.

There are two other older women, one who is 89 like my mother and another who is 84 years old, who have been defying the odds and flourishing despite some health setbacks. I am amazed by their resilience and positive attitudes, and I consider myself fortunate that I've been able to spend some time with them. 

So, even though I know there are exceptions to this mantra (such as the terrible fires in Northern Ontario right now), it seems to be that "where there's a will, there's a way".