Saturday, April 19, 2014

GTOC Blog # 50 Hitting Hard on Reality

I am trying to write my professional presentation of what GTOC does, why it does what it does, the challenges faced and continues to face and how we make it work beyond the "bullshit" life continuously throws at us.

It is important that I show my entrepreneurial abilities to win the Enactus Nationals, but as hard as I try to show the financial abilities of my successful created tri-modular concept, my mind is always filled with those I represent.  Christine most of all.  She was probably the beginning to my renewed life.  But from what I have seen to date, she is just a statistic to everyone but me.  I know there are others out there who loved her.  Her boyfriend and her children.

Without knowing them personally, I return instead to my teen years with Christine as my friend.  My friend who loved ALL my teen intricacies. The scar on her face told me of her tough years growing up as a beautiful native in Prince George BC.  But her fierce heart told me of a person who had goals to surpass in life.  She was a few months younger than me, so she got in trouble on my 19th birthday celebrating and drinking my first legal drink with me.  The first time she felt the force of the impossible violence welling within her, she knew enough love to ask me to leave so she could express her fears and frustrations at life, in her own way.  The path of destruction she left did not deter me from remaining her friend.  This was my Christine, I believed in her.  In her fierce heart.

Eventually she who had succeeded in escaping necessitated a return home.  In those days we wrote letters.  We tried to keep in touch.  I heard of her successes.  Her children born.  Her trials and her errors.  But she never managed to escape Prince George again.  And one day I stopped hearing from My Christine.  I wrote letter after letter in vain.

One day I received a letter from her boyfriend/husband, I am so sorry I don't know.  I don't even know if he was the father of her children but he heard my plea to know where My Christine was.  He responded.  She had passed some time earlier and apologized that no one had told me.  She died of hypothermia following a party.  My Christine died in horrific pain.  I knew nothing of hypothermia, only that it was a painful death.  This woman who had escaped the life of growing up in hell died alone.  To this day, I cry uncontrollably.  I have cried more for my Christine than for my own father, because we all held him as he passed.  My Christine was alone, and she deserved better.  In the very least a hug of love.

So this past month has been extremely stressful as a student entrepreneur and to all those who do not stand with me, with us because GTOC is now an us,  I can only say.....thank God you have never lived "my Christine" in your mind, in your heart.  I am not the reason GTOC was created.  My Christine is.

I lived hell.  My Christine stood and battled hell.  I have dreams that she died peacefully, knowing she was loved.  I wish I had been there.  I would have held her, I would not have let go.

I go into Nationals as a Student Entrepreneur holding my own against those who create and maintain the stigma of women starting over.  And then I remember My Christine.  And I know I need to stand higher and stronger so that those who need to be held, those who just need to know how amazing they are to those of us who believe in them, will never give up...will never give in....will never give up, "My Christine".....She continuously reminds me that I have had a life with a fraction of her pain and she achieved so much more than I could ever hope to achieve for myself and for mine own children.  Because she overcame horrors, I could never imagine.  To me she represents all those who have battled demons far deeper than mine own.

To me, My Christine succeeded.  She found love.  She created love.  She made sure I knew how to continue to love even within my personal hell.

So today I create my presentation to National Enactus with the win in my mind, to win the world for Christine.  For Sarah.  For Lise.  For Diane.  For Jackie.  For My Cassie.  For Linda.  For Tracy.  For Deborah.  For Gillian.  For Nan.  For those I cannot mention.  For those who deserve to be mentioned that I have not met yet.  I am honored to stand here for you all.  OMG I know so many!!  I cry these uncontrollable tears for My Christine.

Everyone else.  Let's change the world on her behalf. Lets make the world stand up, anyone who can, based on the story of My Christine.  The entire world deserves better, man or woman.

 I can express no more than that.  Vxo