Tag: Cathy Hardy

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Be The Best.

I see you.

I turned to one of my favourite poems this week.  Ok, I only know a few poems and most start with Roses are Red and Violets are Blue, so maybe this doesn’t count, but I love that Invictus poem that you’ve seen here before.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

There is something so empowering in that text.  The mindset of continuing to make decisions about my own outlook despite whatever comes my way…that is the power of that poem to me.  I am the captain of my soul.

My sister Grace who lives in Vernon and was very active in helping with Mom and Dad suffered a heart attack this past weekend.  What? Really? Yes…out of the blue.

Ironically, she is in the ICU just a couple of doors down from Dad.

He continues to fight hard, but is up and down.

Mom wrote an email yesterday that made us laugh at the visuals of Dad being encouraged to walk with the aid of a walker, going down the hall in the ICU and stopping at Grace’s door and saying Hi Grace!  I called her on her cell and laughed with her too at that story.

We are scared to ask, what next?

Grace is doing pretty good and under excellent medical care as is Dad.

I see you.

ICU.

Yup, I’ll see you in the ICU.

I said to Mom that this was like our own personal tsunami sort of.  These forces of nature pounding our family at this point.  Of course our hearts go out to the families in Japan coping with loss from the real earthquake and tsunami and we wish them the strong HOPE for recovery and the future as discussed yesterday.

For our family, we will continue to regroup, rethink, revise and re-engineer as we move forward.

Dad and Grace…get ready for some hospital scrabble this weekend.

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Be The Best.

On my mind

AC, my sister Cathy, aka Auntie Cathy to Chris and many others wrote a very cool post on her blog today.

She has experienced the loss of a young teen-aged nephew on both sides of her family.  You can read the full post, but here’s an excerpt.

The question has come to me – how will you then live?  How will we all live?
There is a quote by St. Irenaeus that has come to reside deep within me –

‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive’

To be fully alive is perhaps the best answer I can give….to choose to be present, to choose life, to choose gratefulness, to choose to take risks in following dreams and passions…to fully live….is how I can say to these two boys I love…….Trevor & Chris…..you are on my mind

I love that concept of being fully alive.

People ask us how we carry on.  How can you deal with this kind of tragedy?

I tell them that first you choose to live and live with purpose.

We’ve said that Chris’ passion will fuel us.

I’m still discovering what that means, but living with purpose and being fully alive is certainly part of that equation.

I can’t believe it’s 11 months.

I simply can’t tell you what an aching heart feels like, but I know many of you also have known the pain of loss.

The thought that is continually in our minds and hearts is the knowledge that a pain so deep only exists because of a love so deep.  And because of that love, we will live our lives with purpose using Chris’ passion and others to fuel our journeys.

Have a Be The Best weekend…oh and Go Canucks Go against Boston tomorrow.

I’m allowed to say that right?  Oh yah, it’s my blog.

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Be The Best.

An intro to two.

I’m going to intro you to a couple of people that I don’t know.

But..with the world of social media, the web CAN be an amazing place to connect on the journey of the new normal.

The first is Steve Ewen.

I’ve never met him.

He’s a reporter with the Vancouver Province and he’s battling cancer.  It’s a tough battle.  He’s called his blog, ‘I’m sad and mad about getting cancer’.  Actually no…he hasn’t.  His blog is called, Crush the Tumour with Humour.

It’s some amazing stories of someone going through a very tough fight but remaining positive and using humour to negotiate the new normal he and his wife find themselves living.  If I can figure it out, I’ll add it to my ‘links’ section, but here’s a quick direct link if you want to check it out.  Here’s an excerpt from today:

The bad news is that the new stitches in my back has led to our surgeon, Dr. Robert Lee, limiting my arm movements for the next two weeks. The really bad news, at least for the people at G.F. Strong and the general public around King Ed and Laurel in Vancouver, is that they’ve given me a power wheelchair.
Oh. Mercy. Think of the havoc I can cause with a motor and wheels?

Keep rockin it Steve!

The second link is from Gillian Berg, the Mission mom who lost her husband and father of their four children at Christmas.  Her writing is deep, spiritual and an amazing work of strength and vulnerability rolled into one.  An excerpt from her latest:

Last night, as my daughter asked for help, begged for prayers that would take her fear away, the fear that something else might happen, the fear that she is still in danger, I realized again that like the work needed to heal the physical wounds, there was going to be gruelling work needed to heal the emotional ones.

We, each one of us, will have to choose to stand slowly, painfully upon the limbs of our broken dreams; to endure the attacks of relentless discouragement of working towards something new; to fight for something better, something healthier.

To Steve and Gillian I would say, we all haven’t chosen our situations.  It happened.  Life happens. There is no big answer to the ‘why’ question….at least not one that may be evident in this lifetime.  We”ll simply stand with you on your journey of the new normal as so many have and are standing with us.  This is a link to the first time the term ‘the new normal’ entered our lexicon.  It’s been a fixture ever since.

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Be The Best.

Seeing through listening.

I had a very unique experience on Saturday.

AC (Auntie Cathy, aka Cathy AJ Hardy) was in the remote Mission studio of Philip Janz doing some vocal tracks for her upcoming release.

She invited me to drop by and Philip was gracious to let me take a few pics  and shoot a little vid.

Philip is a very accomplished musician and producer in the gospel genre and beyond with awards he probably won’t tell you about, but you can read about them on the web!

I love music and the process of creating.

What makes Philip so unique is the ability to really understand music from a musical perspective and also be a technical master.  Watching him work was very interesting.  He was a blend of technician, music coach, manager and orchestra leader.  He knew what small part he wanted recorded and/or changed and then had a vision of how that would affect the whole piece.  You need a lot of vision and skill to do that as well as get the best from the musician or vocalist you are working with.

It was as if Philip was seeing everything through his ears if that makes any sense.  The part I like most in the vid is seeing him twirl his pen as he listens to Cathy lay down a vocal track.  He’s feeling every note and nuance making decisions on timing, pitch and understanding of how he’ll use that piece of the puzzle to help Cathy tell her story.  Very cool.

Talk about Be The Best.

Oh yah…AC is coming out with a new album.  That is VERY COOL too.  There are some fun songs.  There are some DEEP songs.  There are some songs sung with Chris is mind.

I loved what I heard…and I can’t wait.

Here’s a very little sneak peek inside the work of a master producer and a pretty cool musician…(yah, that’s high praise coming from an older brother…)

The other thing to watch for in the vid is the emotion that comes through music.  Is it possible to be happy and sad at the same time?  Is it possible to be feeling the deepest emotions of loss yet feel the powerful strength of hope for the future? Yup.

You can catch all the updates on Cathy’s updated website and her blog.

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Be The Best.

Concerted effort.

AC is at it again…and that’s a good thing…a very good thing!

Saturday, Nov 13 marks the 3rd of 3 consecutive weekend concerts.

The world style music blended with ancient melodies and true passion…it’s a great thing and it’s catching on!

Check out this link for a review and info on Saturday’s concert.

Excerpt:

We may sometimes think the Valley somewhat lacking in good live music – after all it’s not Commercial Drive, Vancouver. Indeed places to find good music  – original expressions of the varied kind are few and far between. Where are the musicians?

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Be The Best.

Love Shines Live

Some blog posts write themselves.

This is one of them.

You’ve got to see this little vid AC shot on the weekend.

It’s a live rendition of Love Shines on the back porch of her home.

LOVE IT.  Enjoy.

The last line of her intro on YouTube states, ‘this is a song about love shining no matter what’.  See what I mean about a blog post writing itself?

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Be The Best.

AC and Friends in Concert – June 26

If  you are ready to hear ‘Love Shines’ in concert with some amazing musicians, mark Saturday, June 26th on your calendar.  Tickets are $15 at the door.  Full details on AC’s website.

What you won’t hear from Cathy unless you pull it out of her is that Gemma (Cathy and Karin Dart) won the award for CLASSICAL/TRADITIONAL SONG OF THE YEAR at the 2009 GMA’s. That is the Gospel Music Association of Canada.  Their music is different.  Their music is cool.  They touch lives.  If you’ve never heard a harp live before, you have to come and hear Karin.  It is really cool.  Yah..that’s right.  Harps are cool.  (you can find people playing Iron Maiden on the harp on youtube…Karin won’t be)

I put together a little video for the CMA’s last October.  If you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance.  That last bit about singing in the shower was a required question from the organizers…don’t blame me… 😉

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Be The Best.

Love is Shining on iTunes

AC and Indie

I sort of feel famous now.  My sister has a song on iTunes.  That qualifies right?

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE that song, Love Shines – (listen to it now, without downloading).

To those of you who already downloaded, THANK YOU.

For those of you who’ve waited, the iTunes connection is now active as of about 8pm tonight. You may see a message about the song not being available in the Canadian iTunes store, but it will still download, we (as in Ingrid) just downloaded!

If you haven’t heard, Cathy AJ Hardy (aka Auntie Cathy) is donating net proceeds of this song to the Chris Friesen Memorial Award.

So just as soon as I figure out how to load a song from iTunes onto my Sony Walkman WM-F202 I am going to download it too.

I’m also looking for the 8 track link.  (If you’re under 30, go ask some ‘old’ person around you what I’m talking about…)

Have a great weekend.  Remember: 10% what we did…90% what we’re gonna do!!