Camp and Family, 2014 Edition

As I was driving away from a week, and a place, I've come to call home, all I could think of was how I wished I didn't have to say goodbye. Goodbyes are often the hardest words to choke out, when all you want to do is pull others close.

Camping with a group of others affected by SMA I've called family for 15 years now feels like the most important, carefree week of my life. Each and every year, it is a place of freedom, a place of safety and of love.

I've never agreed with the Dictionary's definition of family as only those who share your DNA. No, family is truly so much more than that. Family are those you choose. The ones who stick by you through the thick, thin, and thickest yet of a messy life. They're the most imperfect people you could possibly come across, and you love them for all of it, never in spite of it.

We share so much of the good and the bad, the stuff that no one else could pretend to comprehend or understand despite the best of intentions.

For us, for that one week, we are inescapably whole and complete. Definitions which the world often forgets to bestow upon us. For that week, eyes do not longer over each other's struggles, other than to define each other's set of strengths. Because, for that one week, those strengths are not measured on a scale of weakness. For one week, we are not alone. We see that, in the glint of each set of eyes. From that short period of time, we carry in our hearts the strengths of each other throughout the year, until we meet again.

A Place Like No Other

Have you ever been to a summer camp? As a child, or as a teenager, summer camps provide the opportunity to make new friends, take on new adventures, and experience things you might never have done otherwise. I've never been to the kind of summer camp you first think of. I didn't pack up my things for a week away from mom and dad, room in a cabin with 6 or 10 strangers, rock climb and jump off a dock. But, that's because I've always had something better.

               
SMA Camp.

14 years ago I had a hospital appointment at Children's Hospital, one of the countless I would have over the years. Call it fate, call it luck, there was another family in the same waiting room as us. A girl a year younger than I, newly diagnosed with my same rare (but not really so) disease. We were both little, the size one still "ooohs" and "aaahs" over, especially when you add a power wheelchair into the mix. That chance meeting started something. Something that's lasted through the next 14 years.

               The closest of friendships.
That summer we decided to go camping for a few days; my family, hers, and another girls with SMA who was 4 years older than us. It was simply three families getting together, tents and lots of Barbies, for a few days of relaxation and bonding. The next year, we decided to do it again. That time joined by another girl 4 years older. We continued it again the next year, and the next.

Holli and I; Camp Year 1

Holli and I this year.

Somehow as the years progressed, it took on wings of its own. It was no longer a low key camping excursion, but rather a gathering known by SMA families around the world. We have had a family from France, and from Japan, though most are from North America. Families have attended from PEI, from all over BC and Alberta, from Saskatchewan, Ontario, Washington, Oregon, and Colorado this year. These families come, having heard through word of mouth or through newsletters, of the incredible times to be had at a place like no other.
A place where no matter your age, your abilities, your differences; for one week, none of that matters. We've gone from simply visiting with a small group, eating our own meals, and wandering to the beach when we feel like it, to organized activities, meals for a hundred or so people, and adapted activities and sports of every kind.

Camp 2012

We also have an amazing group CRIS (Community Recreation Initiative Society) from Kelowna, BC, that joins us on the weekends to assist us with biking, hiking, kayaking and ziplining. Can you even begin to understand how it would feel to go from your wheelchair most all day every day, to gliding across the smooth lake, or climbing up a mountain for a 5 hour hike? You may think you can picture this, but you truly can't comprehend the freedom these adventures give us. It may seem simple, but to a five year old who's never seen the view from the top of a mountain, or never been able to ride a two person bike before, it's quite impacting.

Kayaking this year with Holli

I've grown up with this group of people. We started off small, and have become a 100+ person family. Family is truly the only way to describe it. The kids find friends that share their challenges, peers that experience those same awkward or annoyingly pitying looks on a sometimes daily basis. The parents meet, perhaps for the first time, others who go through all they do as a 24/7 caregiver. They get the opportunity to share stories, tears and many laughs with people they can't help but bond with. Then there's us. The older kids. The ones who aren't necessarily "kids" anymore, but enjoy the camp just as much as we did 10, or 14 years ago. We may be looked up at by the little kids, but it's they who inspire me. Seeing a little 3 year old driving around camp like an old pro, seeing a five year old driving full speed while holding his baby brother (the cutest baby on the planet), and seeing three little girls playing out of their chairs as any other little girls would, are what reiterates that we have nothing to complain about. Not really, when there's so much to smile about. All around us.

I could keep writing and writing; describing all the funny stories, the scares, the tears and the laughter, but I fear I would never stop.  I can't even begin to describe how camp makes each and every one of us feel. The renewed awareness of our close knit group out there, the feeling that no matter what, there's always someone else out there going through similar times as us. Our disease does not weaken us, as it may appear to an outsider looking in. No, we are the strong ones.

Because we are SMA Strong.

Showing our Never Give Up and I Can & I Will attitudes in
our Gwendolyn Strong Foundation clothes!