I worked with Mackenzie for a week last year as well, and it was one of my favourites.
Mackenzie is a beautiful 14 year old girl with the fastest motorized wheelchair ever! This year she was an LIT (Leader in Training) on the Specialty side of camp. Thanks to everyone on "The Other Side" for welcoming me so warmly and helping with lifting and tolieting! It made a difference in my week and I was glad to make some new friends :).
Mack made great friends with everyone in her group, two girls in particular. It was so sweet to watch them hold hands with her as she motored and they walked to various places at camp.
She fell in love, too. With Jesse, the part preppy, part emo, part skater, entirely hunky 14 year old who wore the toque and stole her heart. She'd never dare to talk to him though! She'd just sit and stare at him across the field, across the table, or across the circle. And smile the whole time, haha. Out of her 5 days at camp, I think we talked about Jesse for 4.75 of them. She'd follow him or be in his general area alllllllllllll the time. We practiced what she could say to him. Maybe just "hey Jesse. How's your placement going?". But that seemed a monstrous task for her. But by Friday, she had got enough courage to say hello, and they shared emails. I thought she was going to soil her pants!
On Thursday we slept over night. Haha, interesting that I said "sleep", because none of that was really had. I guess I forgot what it was like to be a young teenager at a sleep out. So much silliness and flirting and "Oh, I'm gonna to freeze your underwear/ I'm gonna put your hand in warm water/ I'm gonna scare you in the middle of the night/ and so on". We had a camp fire with smores and beat the thunder and lightening back to our tents (lucky me! I got to stay in the helping hands office all by my self! it was wonderful :). But we were constantly on the prowl for campers leaving their tents or smoking or doing whatever things we didn't know but were on the lookout for. Mack requires my assistance for toileting, and I was required at 4:30 and 6 to do so. It was worth staying over and not sleeping, though. Mack laughed the entire time, and never stopped smiling. She shared at tent with her friends and had the time of her life. How could anyone say no to that?
Morning is beautiful at Chippewa. The fog on the lake and the sunrise were breath taking. Morning has a particular smell to it. Sweet, fresh, optimistic, new. I was so glad to experience that. It made me thankful.
The LIT's led flag pole Friday morning, and did a fantastic job of it! For all their stress and reasons to shake your head any other time, they really make up for it in other ways.
Mackenzie had ended the last day of her second week at camp, which meant she was done at Chippewa for another year. She said goodbye to her new friends, and to the counsellors, and then came to give me a hug. I reminded her to email Jesse and she said she would. But then as we were ending our hug, she pulled away with tears in her eyes and suddenly started crying quite hard. It was so hard to see and to not cry myself. I believe it was a good thing, though, because she was sad to be leaving camp. It meant she enjoyed her time here, and that it had a positive impact on her living. Still, Friday's at camp can be really hard when you've got to say goodbye for another year :-(.
Next week: CAMERON!
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