Tag: Simon Fraser University

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Be The Best.

Sunsets in a different place.

You know I love sunrises and especially sunsets.

This is a bit of a different one.  This is taken with a lousy Blackberry phone, but I loved the sun screaming across the field and shining on a wall.

The field is a cemetery and the wall is Chris’ wall.  Dogwood #41.

Every time we go to the cemetery it is a special moment for lack of a better word.

We get that Chris’ spirit doesn’t live there.

But that being said, it’s becoming a very cool place to connect with Chris and all the love, emotions, hopes, desires, proud moments, sad moments, lost future, and hope of a future to come.

Here’s a little peek at that world.

View from Chris' wall looking out across the cemetery field at the setting sun.
View of Chris' wall with his white rose (from his Mom) and paper marker as we await his brass name plate. Love the sun hitting the wall in the latter part of the day.
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Be The Best.

Now that was something.

AC (Cathy AJ Hardy) put on her CD release concert last night.

It was great to see so many people there including many blog readers!

I hate it when your little sister can make you cry, but the song she sang for Chris last night melted the pieces of my heart.

Ingrid and I recently met with a strong woman who had experienced the loss of her son over a decade ago.

The first thing I noticed about her was her eyes.  Determined.  Deep.  Questioning but peaceful.

I loved that presence.

Sure, there were unanswered questions, but that same theme came up as it has again and again.

She had made choices about her future as she moved forward.

AC’s concert was all about the journey.

It was all about making decisions even though the path wasn’t always clear.

Generally speaking we’ll never have all the data to make ‘perfect’ decisions.

We simply continue to choose and move forward toward our goal.

Here’s a few pics.

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Be The Best.

Where to start.

Yah, that’s right.

I said where to start.  It’s been a second but it’s been a year all at the same time.

I thought I might end this blog today, but I think I have about 365 blog posts after yesterday and today alone, so we’ll just get to them one by one!

Laying Chris’ ashes to rest inside the heavy granite chamber of the cemetery niche wall had a sense of finality to it, but also an amazing sense of peace.  It was simply the right thing to do.  Not only will we have a place to go and stand in the middle of these huge trees, but so will others.

This is truly a place that anyone of you can go and think and talk to Chris or remember.  We just love seeing Chris’ friends.  They are changing so much.  Getting so mature as they move towards their graduation milestones.  But more on that later.

The emotion sort of flowed a little for me at that moment of release.  I realized that I had personally watched over my son from the hospital to the funeral home, the service at the church, and then back to the funeral home and then every day for the last year.

On March 25, 2011 it was time to let go a little.

Not let go of Chris.  He is more part of me than ever before.

Simply, it was time to let go and let others also have a more physical connection to his memory.

Something that will live forever.

The bronze name plate is on its way, so you’ll see a simple laminated paper scan of the work for the next few weeks.

You are welcome anytime….between 9 and dusk that is!

Dogwood 41.

AC was there and sang Love Shines in the middle of those amazing trees.  It was awesome.  Not only that, she had set her sights on completing her new CD on March 25 and wouldn’t you know it, she picked up 2,000 copies that morning.  We’ve played it all weekend.  Love it Cath.

I want to invite you all to her gala concert at the wonderfully acoustic Matsqui Auditorium in Clearbrook on Sat, April 16.  (Yes, that is on the VALLEY side of the Port Mann Bridge for my Vancouver readers…(just a little running joke with some of you!))

I’m pretty proud of that girl.  You can read a great newspaper story on her music here.

Here’s a few pics from the cemetery so you get a sense.

At 2:32:41 we released some balloons and looked up and said hi to Chris.

I know many of you did too.

Love it.

As we watch balloons go up, you see the walls in the background guarded by the trees.
Balloons released. Nice shot Max!
Temporary marker...you get a sense of how it will look.
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Be The Best.

2, 32, 41

No, those are not a sequence of numbers uttered by a football quarterback.

Those are jersey numbers Chris wore and was known for.

#2 in Langley.

#32 for Burnaby Mountain Selects

#41 proudly representing the great province of British Columbia

Tomorrow, March 25, is quite a day.

One year ago we lost our son.

Not a day or hour goes by without a thought of him.  Most hours the thoughts continue minute by minute.

We have found a place for people to come and remember Chris.

His ashes will remain forever at the Langley Lawn Cemetery at 208 and 44th.

It’s a beautiful place with 6 granite memorial walls in a stand of trees near 208th avenue.

When we went to view the walls, we found that two of the six walls were dedicated to individuals and four to couples.

One was called Maple and one was called Dogwood.

Wouldn’t you know it, Maple 32 was available as was Dogwood 41.

Maple 32 is amazing because the BMS logo is a Maple Leaf.

Dogwood 41 is amazing because Dogwood is the provincial flower and 41 was the number Chris wore for the province when he played at the Nationals in 2009.

Because of a few logistical reasons, we’ve chosen Dogwood 41 as the final resting place.

It’s a beautiful place to go.

Our family will be there tomorrow, joined a bit later by a few of Chris’ friends.  We wanted to show them personally where they can go to remember Chris so that they in turn can show others.

The journey continues, but this is a huge step for us.

I know my Dad in the ICU in Vernon is with us in spirit as is my Mom from Vernon and other family that can’t be with us personally. (health update: Dad is inching forward…very slow, but steady right now which is good)

Although tomorrow is a day for family and Chris’ close friends, we welcome anyone over the next weeks and months to stop by and spend a few minutes in thought about how passionately Chris lived his life and how he was determined to Be The Best.

I’ll never forget him writing down the goal of making the A1 Langley Thunder Lacrosse team.

I’ve never seen a kid so driven to achieve that goal.  He made it.  It was amazing.

Thanks for your continued support and all the thoughts and prayers coming our way this week.

We feel it!

PS

At 2:32 and 41 seconds, we will be looking up at the sky and saying hi to Chris.

If you want to take a quick look up at the sky at any time tomorrow and say hi to Chris, please do!  I know he would love it.  Dad…that’s you too!!  I know you can see the sky from your hospital bed!!

PPS

This blog has never been about money and never will be, but some people have asked what else they can do.  We will continue to give to Chris’ fund every year via Simon Fraser University’s giving program.  It’s a way to remember Chris and also challenge a new athlete every year to Be The Best.  The University has just set up a direct link for Chris’ fund.  They handle all donation receipts etc directly.  Here’s the link.

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Be The Best.

My 3, no 4 kids.

I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

I knew Dad was in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).

I knew my sister Grace was in the ICU.

I ‘knew’ it, but I didn’t ‘know’ it if that makes any sense.

It was sort of inconceivable that two family members would land in the ICU.

Grace is recovering from a heart attack last weekend and is doing well all things considered.  We spent a lot of time together today and she is grateful and thankful and will make a very strong recovery with the help of her Doctors and her family.

We moved from Grace’s room to Dad’s room, just around the corner in the ICU.

At one point Val (my 2nd oldest sister) and Cathy (AC, the youngest sister) held Dad’s hand and I stood at the foot of his bed.

Cathy said something like ‘Dad, you’ve got your three kids here…isn’t that great’?

Dad without skipping a beat said, ‘No, I have four.  Grace is here too.’

Yes…Dad was right on.  All four of his kids were there.  Val, Cathy and Randy in the room and Grace just around the corner in a room of her own!

After a bit of conversation Dad dropped this nugget as we talked about life in general.

‘Life is too short not to live the dream’.

WOW.

That’s some deep stuff.

Thanks Dad.

That’s a Be The Best moment.

Yes, life IS too short not to live the dream.

Love it.

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Be The Best.

What’s the future?

December 2009.

I had been contacted by a writer to answer some questions for a profile on a blog/website.

I hadn’t reread this until last week when circumstances caused me to find it in my sent file.

This was only 3 months before we lost Chris.

Obviously there is some irony in the answers…looking forward to the future, kids in college etc.

However…and it’s a BIG HOWEVER, the core of these answers remains as true today as the 2009 December evening on which they were written

The questions are not mine.  The answers are…and I stand by each one even today as we journey forward.

We don’t know our exact futures, but I do believe we can know why we do what we do.

We can know what’s important to us.

Here’s an exact word for word excerpt with professional/education/work related questions and answers removed for the sake of brevity.

—————————-

What is your proudest accomplishment?
My family. Through the ups and downs of babies, young kids and now young men (18 and 16), my wife and I are seeing our boys begin their adult journeys that we believe will help change the world positively through their actions and relationships.  My family is truly my greatest accomplishment and everything else to me is icing on the cake!

What is your foremost passion?
Creating art with music, watercolour and people.  I used to think my passions and hobbies were very diverse and perhaps they are, but the core is very similar.  I find myself again and again playing the role of a conductor, arranger, or producer.  With music and art, I mix music tracks or colours…each on their own telling only part of the story, but absolutely integral to the story.  The same is true for my management style, I believe.  Each person and relationship is integral to the overall success of the department, division or organization.  When you have the different components working together, that is when you have achieved a song, painting or highly functional working environment.

What are three random things no one knows about you?
That I have a music album on jamendo.com
I used to clean carpets for a living
I will squash you at ping pong

What do you want people to know about you that they don’t already?
My masters thesis centered on the topic of the interplay between change management and knowledge management. What? Yah, I didn’t understand it much either.  I’ve worked a lot in the area of change in my career.  I’ve found that we (managers, business owners) often underestimate the human element and the human power when change is present.  Relationships are the key to everything.  You can systemize, model, and even lead, but ultimately if the people are not ready and willing to come with you, change will be short lived or non-existent.  I believe we all have a HUGE impact on people’s lives.  Simple words and actions followed with consistent behaviour over time are the real ingredients to successful change.

Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?
5 years – BCIT classrooms overflowing with students, my clients prospering, my kids solidly in college.
10 years – Readying for early ‘retirement’ from day job to concentrate on writing, teaching, speaking and the arts….oh and wife says we have to go to Europe for 6 months
20 years – 4 months in Hawaii, 8 months in Canada – changing the world, one relationship at a time.

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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.

Be The Best – Andrew Bromley

When you turn on the TV and watch the news, you usually don’t get a great story about a young adult doing great stuff.

But that doesn’t mean those stories don’t exist!

The Burnaby Mountain Selects gang have started putting together profiles of local athletes who are going on to college…and then on to changing their worlds!

I LOVE to think about the impact of hundreds of these lacrosse players over time getting their educations, finding rewarding careers and then helping to change the world around them in a positive way.

The story that I’ll link you to specifically is about Andrew Bromley, a local player off to college and doing great things.  Chris and Andrew would have been together in the BMS system in 2008.

Excerpt:

What role did your family have in helping you get to where you are now?

The only reason I am where I am really. From immediate family, my mom making the paper work happen (important), my dad for pushing me, my little brothers (trying to show them the way), and the endless support from extended family from my irreplaceable grandmother to my aunts and uncles who would always pump my tires up a bit when I was feeling stressed or down.

What is the best piece of advice that you have ever received?

Man that’s a really tough question, I have been a part of many, many big speeches with meanings too long for this piece. I am going to have to say a piece of advice from Gord Lawton, “Its going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done kid, go to the net like no ones going to stop you, play within the team, but don’t lose your individuality” or a line said by many of the great enforcers of the previous NHL era’s, “Be for the boys, there all you’ve got in here, no one ever questioned the integrity of a guy who would drop ‘em for a team mate”

LOVE IT!

That’s Be The Best.

And for all of us parents and coaches and relatives and friends out there…we can never underestimate the positive power of our words and actions with the future generation.

Congrats Andrew.  Great stuff!

Here’s the link to the full article and other stories.

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Be The Best.

A few final thoughts about the CFMA 2011.

What…we’ve awarded it once and already formed an acronym?  Lame.

That’s the Chris Friesen Memorial Award.  There, that feels better.

A few closing thoughts about the awards.

Jeff Cathrea and Brent Hoskins are the head coaches for the SFU men’s lacrosse team.  Their accomplishments are pretty impressive, but they probably won’t tell you that.  You’ll have to read it here.

The biggest accomplishment however, doesn’t really show-up on stats sheets.

It shows up in stories about young men and how they have focused on their education.

Focused on their fitness.

Focused on lacrosse.

Focused on their future.

Read this story about one of their players, Chris Tessarolo.

If you’re a young person reading this, some fatherly advice.  Work hard at school, do your homework…and listen to your coaches!  They know what they’re talking about!!

Brent and Jeff won Coach of the Year honours in their conference and that’s a testament to the dedication to the team, SFU and development of younger players in the Selects program and camps.  Congrats guys!

Here’s a few more pics from the evening.

Oh, and the Best Dressed?  The very lovely Ingrid Friesen of course.

Brent, Marilyn (Brent's Mom and Team Manager for 11 seasons) Jeff
Max and Kiera
write your own caption...
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Be The Best.

And the award goes to…

The cool thing about the Chris Friesen Memorial Award is that you don’t ‘win’ it by necessarily scoring the most goals.  It’s about what happens on the field for sure…but it’s also about what happens off the field.  It’s about someone who is making a difference, changing lives and living with Chris’ passion to BE THE BEST.

Here are some details from the official terms of reference that Simon Fraser University has on this fund.  This is significant because these words will stay forever linked to this award.  We think that’s very cool.

——————

The Christian Friesen Memorial Endowment Fund was established in 2010 in memory of Christian Friesen. Funds for the endowment fund were donated by friends and family. The endowment fund supports the Christian Friesen Memorial Award.

Christian (Chris) Douglas Friesen was born on January 14, 1993.  He passed away on March 25, 2010.

Chris’ passion was lacrosse.  He represented his hometown of Langley on many occasions and represented his Province of British Columbia on the national stage in both box lacrosse and field lacrosse.  One of his crowning achievements was to be named to the All-star Team at the National Field Championship in Winnipeg, September 2009.

Letters of interest from multiple universities in the United States had been received, but Simon Fraser was still very much at the top of Chris’ list for consideration.

Chris had a strong affiliation with the Burnaby Mountain Selects program run by the SFU lacrosse coaches.  The involvement in this program pushed him academically and athletically. Chris was determined to Be The Best.

Chris’ passion for life and his incredible smile, personality, kindness and compassion was echoed by over 2,800 people who joined his Facebook remembrance page within days of his passing.

The recipients of this award are encouraged to Be The Best and to change the world.

———————–

When Brent (one of SFU’s head coaches) whispered the name of the recepient to me just before the dinner on Saturday, I loved the choice the Coaches had made.

The inaugural winner of the Chris Friesen Memorial award is Luke Genereux.  Luke was one of a number of assistant coaches who were usually college players themselves and were like older brothers to the boys in the BMS program.  Luke played with Chris.  Taught Chris.  Chris really looked up to Luke as a role model, superb lacrosse player and as a person.  You can see Luke’s profile here.

As parents and for Max too, we couldn’t think of a better way to kick this award train off!  Congratulations Luke.  You are hereby challenged to BE THE BEST as you explore the future and build your career and life experiences.  As we told you personally on Saturday night, we are very proud of you.  Great stuff!!

Here’s a pic of Ingrid and I with Luke.

This night had been circled on our calendar for many months.

It has come and it has gone…and it’s sort of cool to think that in another 363 days or so, another young man will be challenged to BE THE BEST and continue to live with focus, kindness, desire, passion, drive and intensity.

Chris…your passion will fuel us all.

Congrats Luke!!