These three things have a lot in common, at least I hope they do because I’ve committed to that as the title of this blog post.
I caught some of the ‘new’ American Idol last night with new judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez joining Randy Jackson.
As the contestants did their thing they were either ‘sent to Hollywood!’ or rejected.
What struck me was the excitement and pure joy from the families of the young singers who made it to the next level. You saw Moms and Dads hugging and jumping and crying. For a moment I thought about lost future memories.
During a commercial break I saw an ad campaign being used by Disney. They actually take real home footage from parents surprising their kids about going to Disneyland or at the resort itself. You can see it here. It’s all about making family memories.
That brings me to Port Moody. During the Christmas break I visited a dear friend and former colleague (now retired) from BCIT, Sandie. She was sort of like the ‘mom’ in our Registrar’s Office Department for many years. One of the things she had by her desk was a bulletin board full of pictures of staff and their families. Of course it grew over the years. It was an amazing place to see the passage of time.
We look a walk along the shores of the inlet at Port Moody. What a great place. The reason I’m telling you this now is I look literally 15 minutes last weekend to put the following faux movie trailer together using the images from that walk. It’s in the newest version of iMovie which comes on every Mac. This isn’t really a Mac ad, but sort of is.
The point is that memories are amazing. All of the great memories we’ve had together as a family are helping now in our darkest hours.
I’m simply blown away at the ability of today’s technology to take these memories and put them into a format that is useable, fun and easy to do. I decided to use the movie trailer template and have a little fun so you could imagine what you can do with your family memory video footage!
In honour of Chris’ b-day there was a lot of yogurt consumed and push-ups completed amoung other things like steak eating and ice cream cake devouring.
In this video evidence you can see my nephew Steve rockin out his push-up tribute from Charleston, South Carolina, USA!
Cool.
Although as parents we’re not advocating tattoos, we know that they are a very powerful form of remembrance.
When I saw Devon’s tattoo, I loved it. Devon is a friend of Chris’ from Brookswood Secondary and you saw him in the yogurt toast picture from yesterday’s blog.
Look closely. Not only does his tattoo say ‘forever young’, but it has Chris’ signature.
I asked Devon if it hurt.
He said yup…but I’m sure he didn’t care.
My eyes were wet when I looked closely and took in the full impact of the moment and thought about the future and how Chris will be with Devon forever.
That was an amazing show of friendship, respect and I’m hoping a driving force for Devon through life’s journey ahead!
Whether we wear our tattoos on our arms or on our hearts, we are RIGHT WITH YOU DEVON!
Chris Friesen has affected us forever. And I mean that in the most positive way.
His attention to fitness.
His attention to healthy eating.
His attention to following your dreams.
His attention to goals to attain those dreams.
His attention to Being The Best.
As the day ended on Friday, January 14, 2011 we felt a strong peace that Chris was happy…and so were we.
All day long the texts, emails and comments kept rolling in.
We appreciate everything and all of those thoughts and prayers!
The Brookswood gang dropped by in the late afternoon and we had a very unique opportunity to toast Chris.
As I’ve mentioned before, Chris had the ability to eat yogurt without a spoon. He would sort of squish the bottom of the yogurt cup and slurp and drink the yogurt, usually in one ‘fluid’ motion.
We know there are young readers of this blog and as parents we’re not endorsing this form of yogurt consumption! We were just happy Chris and Max would pound back yogurt instead of cake.
In this picture you can see the toast just getting underway. Including yours truly taking the picture, that was an even dozen toasting Chris with a yogurt salute and down the hatch it went.
Ingrid was left wondering how it could be done as she ended up with yogurt in a few places on her face. I know Chris had a laugh at (or with) all of us!
What an amazing day it was.
I’ve got a few more stories to tell you so tune in tomorrow!
We ended the day knowing that Chris would be very, very happy…and we were too. As tough as the day was, it was really incredible.
So many people have told us or emailed us about how they thought of us over Christmas.
I know so many more think of us often and are thinking of us now as we mark what would have been Chris’ 18th birthday tomorrow even if they don’t or can’t tell us.
We are exactly the same way.
We’ve been following the story of the Berg family in Mission and Gillian Berg’s amazing strength and very real highs and lows as she takes care of her family and slowly moves forward with each day.
The reason I say we are the same is that our hearts go out to Gillian and her family, but we don’t know them personally. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, but we haven’t verbalized that to them. For now we will support by reading, caring and praying. Just as we’ve done, she can see by the blog views how so many people are supporting them.
We know that’s what people do for us all the time.
As we approach Chris’ birthday tomorrow, we don’t have any big public events happening. A few of his school buds will drop by. As a family, we’ll head to our favourite steakhouse for a big steak dinner and piece of ice cream cake. Chris was a fitness and health food fanatic, but he would eat steak and ice cream cake…and we’ll have some in his honour tomorrow night.
So the question is always, what can I do? What should I do? I don’t know them very well, or even if I do, I’m not sure what to do.
Here’s the solution.
We’d ask everyone who reads this blog to do some little thing in honour of Chris tomorrow.
Here’s a few ideas.
1. push-ups – even doing one or two in his name would be cool
2. make a toast when you have dinner
3. hug your kids
4. hug your parents
5. eat some yogurt (he would eat probably 4-6 per day)
6. wish him a happy birthday verbally
7. cook some eggs (yep…he ate a LOT of eggs)
There’s a few ways.
I’m sure you can think of more.
Drop us a comment if you want to share.
If you don’t, we totally get it and we want to say thank you for the continued support.
Over Christmas I had a bit more time to look at some history and came across this article featuring a quote from Chris. I love the comments about team.
Funny story leading up to this tournie. The team was raising funds to go to Calgary and had received the ‘ok’ to stand in front of certain liquor stores with jerseys on and request donations via a donation bucket. (don’t ask why…it was easier than a car wash I guess…!)
Anyways, Chris and his buddy Brett Dobray were at a store and I noticed that they would get some people stopping and donating, but many would pass on by. That is to be expected. Lacrosse is a growing sport and people didn’t have an emotional connection as they might with hockey.
I had a marketing thought.
I made up some signs that said, ‘help us beat Calgary’ and ‘we’ll bodycheck an Albertan for $10’. You should have seen the difference! People were stopping….and donating and donating some more. It was incredible.
What was the difference?
All of a sudden there was an emotional connection. In BC, people love (usually in good nature) to bash Albertans! Hey, when we’re out of the country we’re all brothers and sisters! It’s like a brotherly competition…just watch the Canucks and Calgary or Edmonton and you get the rivalry. It was just amazing to see people engage emotionally and then with their wallets as they connected with the BC vs Alberta challenge. All of a sudden they felt like THEY were going to be playing simply by donating $10 or $20 bucks.
The boys loved that story and that experience…seeing how words and approach could make such a difference.
Secondly, those boys DID play for everyone of those donors and played their hearts out, winning gold, with 6 members of that team representing BC nationally later that summer.
Here’s the full story:
July 2007
The Langley Thunder Bantam A1’s traveled to Calgary over the Canada Day weekend. Forget bull riding at the Stampede, they were there for some hard hitting, fast paced box lacrosse action. Perhaps the actual thunder storm on Saturday night was a good omen for the Thunder, as the young men (just completed grade seven and eight) took on competition from all over Western Canada.
Saturday match-ups had the squad take on the Sabrecats from Calgary beating them 11-3 with Adam Gallen earning game MVP for a strong offensive performance. The Thunder continued by defeating Saskatchewan’s provincial team in the afternoon game by a score of 9-2 led by game MVP goaltender Ryley Brown who’s saves propelled the offensive charge and final decisive score.
Sunday’s games featured a strong Red Deer team with Langley prevailing by a score of 7-5. Game MVP Chris Friesen had a strong defensive showing against a physical opponent. In the afternoon game, Langley fell behind a skilled Calgary Axeman team, but rallied from a 3 goal deficit to chop the tournament defending champion Axeman 10-7. A brilliant goal and full game hustle earned Will Vandenhooven the game MVP. Having gone 4-0 in tournament play, the Thunder headed into the gold medal game against an all-star team from Calgary called the Hornets.
The game lived up to the hype with the first period ending tied at zero. The Hornets came out stinging in the 2nd period and opened up a 2-1 lead with two Langley players in the sin bin with the period ending. The Hornets capitalized on the 2-man advantage at the beginning of the 3rd by netting a goal and opening a two-goal lead. If it were not for the heroics of Ryley Brown, the Thunder goalie, the score may have been much higher. Instead of folding their tents however, the Thunder rallied led by team wide explosive defensive performance leading to goals by Brett Dobray and Michael Messenger. With the game tied Adam Gallen scored a timely goal with 1 second left on the shot clock. Langley then iced the cake with a massive defensive effort during pure pandemonium breaking in the Thunder zone. With the Hornet goalie pulled for an extra attacker Brett Dobray flew down the floor with two Hornets all over him and scored a diving empty netter for a final score of 5-3 for the Thunder.
Chris Friesen, the team captain stated, “We have been working hard at team play. Working for each other and working together. I think we did that throughout this tournament and the results we achieved were excellent”.
“I’m proud of each member of this squad. Everyone played hard and played together”, added Coach Sean Beasley.
Next up for the team is the Provincial Championships hosted in Langley this year which will be held July 18-22.
Six members of the Langley Thunder Bantam A1 team will also be representing BC in the National Tournament in August in Ontario.
He’s right on target to visit British Columbia in the next few hours!
Ethan reminded me that we had forgotten to make name cards for the places at the table. I asked if he could handle it and this sharp Grade 2’er took charge and wrote all the names down. He then showed me the tag he had made for Chris. Of course Chris needed a tag too. I told him to add it to my plate. It was very cool.
I mentioned at Thanksgiving that we didn’t set an extra place for Chris, but rather toasted him and acknowledged that he was with us always. Tonight we did the same and raised our glasses and told Chris we loved him.
Then Ethan told some reindeer jokes.
Hey, did you know what the wettest animal in the world is? Duh. Raindeer.
That’s how it goes.
I love the eyes of a child. Poignant. Pure. Powerful…and just plain Funny.
As much as we look ahead and live for tomorrow, there are still times to reflect on history.
I stumbled across some pictures from Chris and the Bantam Box Lacrosse squad from BC as they represented the Province so admirably in August of 2007.
I had written updates for the BC Lacrosse magazine and this was my final piece summarizing the tournament.
In that final game Chris played the game of his life to that point, being a physical presence that helped BC clinch the Bronze medal in a heavyweight showdown with Alberta. (ok, as heavyweight as 14 year olds can be…which is actually quite heavy…!)
————–
Chris with good bud Brett Dobray
The journey for the Bantam BC boys began months ago. There were regional selection camps. There was the Team BC final selection camp. For those chosen to represent BC, a number of weekends were spent training for the national championships.
The 22 lacrosse players, along with coaches and entourage, jetted out of Vancouver on Thursday, August 2. After spending 2 days in Peterborough, Ontario for a conditioning camp, the team traveled to the dorms at Durham College in Oshawa, which would be home for the next week.
On Sunday, August 5th, the highlight of the day was the opening ceremonies at the Iroquois Park Sports Centre, touted as Canada’s largest municipal sports centre.
The teams were cheered on by enthusiastic supporters as they entered the arena. Team BC looked strongly West Coast in their multi-blue and gold jerseys proudly showing the mountains and a west coast ‘feel’.
Chris with Mr. Will VH
It felt like every team would be immediately ready to set up the nets and get playing, but there was one more night to go.
On Monday morning, seeing the Team BC players hit the floor in the warm-up of game one against Manitoba produced chills. “Those jerseys look awesome”, whispered one onlooker from an opposing team to his buddy. His friend couldn’t say anything. They were. And as good as the uniforms looked, Bantam Team BC looked even better in them. This was the first official game they had played together and the game ended with a score of 16-1 for the BC crew.
Team BC played Saskatchewan Monday afternoon which was a hard hitting matinee with both teams making their opponents pay the price to get to the net. Team BC finished the game strong with a final score of 10-2.
With two solid first-day games under their collective belts, rest was the top priority post-game, with a major test against Ontario on Tuesday.
Monday’s muggy weather made the arenas the equivalent of being in a steam room with a parka on and you could add an additional 10 degrees on the floor itself. The event staff could not operate the exhaust fans either, explaining that by doing so the draw of air into the building would produce dangerous slippery floor conditions because of the moist, humid conditions outside.
Tuesday’s conditions improved somewhat in the morning with overcast skies and less humidity allowing the exhaust fans to run.
Team Ontario plays big and they came out hitting and highly aggressive. Team BC took the first period to adjust and came back hard in the second with an exceptional effort but the spirited affair ended with a 5-2 loss for BC.
Team Ontario looked strong, but Team BC was immediately hungry to play again. They didn’t have long to wait as Nova Scotia was the challenger in the 6:30pm game. Team BC jumped to an early lead and dominated the run of the play. The final score was BC 10 and Nova Scotia 2.
Wednesday was a rest day.
Thursday’s results were not what Team BC would have wanted. The morning affair featured a game against a rough and tumble brand of lacrosse from Alberta. The Bantams got behind early and could never completely recover. The game ended in an all-out frenzy with Team BC running out of time to mount a full comeback.
Following a brief lunch break, it was ‘game-on’ with Iroquois Nation. A win in this game meant advancing to the 2 vs. 3 playoff game on Friday with a chance to proceed to the gold medal game on Saturday. A loss in the game would mean a bittersweet day off on Friday with a run at the bronze medal.
Chris gets ready to take on all comers in that familiar defensive stance.
The Iroquois Bantams showed BC and every fan in attendance a little thing or two about lacrosse on Thursday evening. Their passing was quick and rhythmic; almost mesmerizing. Their shooting was beautifully wicked. It was as if the Iroquois were stating, “Don’t forget who invented this game.” The symphony of drive, desire, and stick skills mixed with quiet aggression and flawless execution culminated in a 9-1 win for the Iroquois.
This is not to say that Team BC didn’t show up. They did. They worked hard and at times their hard work was misinterpreted into penalty minutes that ended up putting them in multiple odd man situations.
Following the unexpected day off on Friday, the Bantam squad had one thing and one thing only in their sites on Saturday. The Bronze Medal.
They hit. They ran. They shot. They never gave up. If they wanted to have an excuse to fold their tents, they had one in the first period after out-chancing Alberta but finding themselves down by a couple of goals.
In a battle against a team that plays a mean and physical brand of lacrosse you have to play hard and you have to play smart. Team BC executed their game plan perfectly.
Building on a 2nd period attack that just wouldn’t quit, goals were scored by Wesley Berg, Drew Millikin, Mason Pynn, Steve Ferdinandi and Michael Henry. The final score was Team BC 8 and Alberta 4.
The boy’s elation was palatable. Parents and supporters hugged in the stands. The coaches high-fived each other as the players swarmed their goalie, Ryley Brown, in an embrace of champions.
“I’m glad we got things done”, said a proud Coach Sean Beasley. Getting things done was not an easy task. This team could have easily been very down after losing to Alberta and Team Iroquois on Thursday, but they rallied and came to work on Saturday like a team possessed.
With the Bronze Medals proudly around their necks, the players traded gear with new friends who had been foes and looked forward to the next time they could play for their Province in a National Championship.
The Bantam squad from BC did their province proud and they will inevitably bring back experiences, emotions and skill that will build their club teams and ultimately continue to build the beautiful game of lacrosse.
I wrote a few lines the other day and just couldn’t hit the ‘publish’ button.
The thoughts were plenty deep and plenty real, but like a good wine, they have now aged an appropriate time and I can provide some greater context.
This Christmas season is not the easiest as you can imagine.
Christmas is all about family, food, traditions.
Of course that invokes memories. That’s not a bad thing…not at all. It’s just that this being our first Christmas without Chris, really feels weird. You shouldn’t take the Chris out of Christmas right? (yes, this is a a very bad pun at an inappropriate time…but that’s how we roll in this family!)
I wrote these four lines the other day. They just sort of blurted out of my head.
How broken is my heart?
How deep is my love.
How deep is my love?
How broken is my heart.
One of the things I’ve realized is that the pain we feel, and so many of you feel too, is simply symbolic of the love we had and have for Chris. You CANNOT have a broken heart if you had no love. Plain and simple.
For some of you, you never had a chance to meet this kid in person.
He was amazing. He would light up a room when we walked/bounced/stormed in!
His spirit now lights up many hearts and rooms.
We get through these times by making decisions, giving, and even taking shots in the dark.
If you’ve read this blog before, all of the above will make sense. If you haven’t…you’ve got some work to do!
That’s the long. Here’s the short.
I had pieces of two batches of shortbread cookies last night.
Both were unbelievable. Those of you who know me know I don’t eat wheat so these were rice flour shortbread cookies. They are hard to find and hard to make.
Yet two different people went out of their way in a gesture of kindness to show us that they were thinking of us at Christmas.
I’m telling you, we are again humbled by these act of kindness. They not only help us through this journey, but it burns in my mind the incredible positive impact that the action of giving can produce.
I put a few bucks into a Salvation Army kettle last night like so many us have done on this and every other holiday season. This time though I had more of a sense than ever about how any act, even one so small, can make an impact.
Chris, in red, takes on fellow BMSer in practice session.
Late yesterday afternoon we left BCIT and headed up the hill to Simon Fraser University.
We’ve done that drive many times. Most of those times were to drop Chris and his fellow Burnaby Mountain Selects lax dudes off for a practice. Then they would beat each other with sticks and run like crazy people and throw a hard rubber ball as intensely as they could at even crazier dudes who were the goalies! Chris loved it.
Look at these pics from Aug 2009. This was actually a practice down in New West, but these are all BMS players in a scrimmage. Chris is red #32. I love the picture where you can see him smiling through his mouth guard. He loved playing defense. I spoke to some of his teammates who said Chris would hurt you in practice and it was excellent, cause it made you better. You knew he was giving 100% all the time…practice, scrimmage or championship game.
I just LOVE that smile.
Anyways, yesterday wasn’t a practice.
We were heading up to SFU to deliver the cheque that will be presented to the first receipient of the Chris Friesen Memorial Award in January 2011. Wanda from the foundation at SFU met us and she has become a wonderful part of all the good that is happening and will continue to happen in Chris’ name. With the fund over $30,000 and the first gift in place, the fund is now fully operational and will provide the first official payout based on interest earned from the fund in January 2012. We cannot think about the fund or the legacy from the fund without thinking about everyone who contributed directly and indirectly to the fund and our family with love and care over the past 8 months.
That’s the cheque…the coat was today.
Our entrepreneurial marketing students at BCIT were having a fund raiser today with a silent auction and also having a coat drive. Ingrid had a used coat and we also had one from Chris. The thought of his coat keeping someone warm this winter makes us feel good, even though the very simple act of giving away his coat this afternoon was not the easiest thing that I’ve ever done.
Chris didn’t play football of course, he played lacrosse but that didn’t matter.
Chris had a poster of Adrian Peterson in his room with Be The Best on it that he had made himself downloading the image off the web.
Cooking up a little brunch today, the football game was on in the background and Mr. Favre and the Vikings were taking on the Washington Redskins. Just watching Adrian Peterson run the ball I knew more than ever before why Chris admired this guy so much. He’s not the biggest player at just over 6ft, but WOW is he powerful.
But physical power aside, I think it’s his mental toughness and desire that Chris loved so much. Quoting from Wikipedia, Peterson stated upon being drafted by the Vikings, “I’m a player who is coming in with the determination to turn a team around. I want to help my team get to the playoffs, win…and run wild. I want to bring people to the stands. I want people to come to the game to see what I can do next. Things like that can change the whole attitude of an organization. I want to win.”
Hmmm….”I want to win”. Heard that before? Those were Chris’ exact words on his college recruitment video.
This morning Peterson turned several 3 yard runs into 9 and 10 yard runs. He was simply unbelievable. He fought of tackles like a man possessed.
When he drove for a touchdown he looked up and pointed to the skies.
I know he doesn’t know Chris, but I thought, there’s one for you kid. I know Chris would be cheering him on from his lofty box seats.
The game is still in progress and who knows how it will end. The Vikings season isn’t that great (UNDERSTATEMENT!), and I’ll leave the circus surrounding Brett Favre to legitimate NFL commentators.
For me, this game was all about Adrian Peterson.
I just love desire of Adrian Peterson.
I love the fight of Adrian Peterson.
I love the power of Adrian Peterson.
I love the fact that although the season is not going well, the effort is always BE THE BEST!
Even with an injured ankle, you can sense the desire as the guy is like a thoroughbred horse in the starting gates who can just smell the battle and race before him and wants nothing more than to be unleashed.
It reminds me of another athlete I know very well.
Chris in Florida 2008 schooling a much larger opponent!
Be The Best. 