The Limit Pushers

It may come as a shock to some of you that I am descended from and seem to be surrounded by a type of human known as the “limit pusher”.  What is a limit pusher exactly, you may ask? I found this definition “works beyond accepted comfort norms to challenge and encourage change and growth in a specific area.” It was actually the first random definition I found in someone else’s blog and I think it works splendidly for what I am about to attempt.

You see, I was raised essentially by a pack of limit pushers starting with my grandfather, John DeWolfe.  Three hundred years of Nova Scotian selection had turned whatever a DeWolfe was before, into John DeWolfe, a happy man of about 5’5”, round Buddha belly, skin almost black from being in the sun, thin grey hair.  He was a train engineer.  Yes, my Grandfather drove trains, possibly the coolest job any grampy could have had.  But more important than what he was I think, was how he got there.

See my Grampy John was born cheeky, like every other DeWolfe male probably before and certainly since.  This lands them in terrible trouble the entire way through school.  Grampy began smoking when he was twelve for instance.  But his mother was notoriously kind and generous and this she was able to teach him.  Therefore after a less than stellar school record my grandfather found work as an engine stoker (the guy that loaded coal into the trains engine fire and kept it running at the right temperature) with Dominion Atlantic Railroad.  Now his ability to be light hearted in hard conditions worked to his advantage.  He was well liked on the railroad. 

When World War 2 broke out my grandfather wanted to join but he was considered skilled labor and was required to stay on the train.  He found a loop-hole however discovering he could join the Navy and be a stoker on a Corvette, a small mine sweeper (ship) known for making it's sailors very sea sick, only slightly larger than a good size fishing boat.  Away he went, only to have his boat frozen into a Nova Scotian Bay for an entire winter.  There he figured out ingenious plans to smuggle rum aboard the ship and throw parties for all the stranded crew.  Thus earning his nick-name “Yum Yum”.

After the war Grampy worked his way from engine stoker to train engineer.  He married his childhood sweetheart Catherine Lombard, who had grown up near his family cottage on the red sandstone shores of the Minas Basin.  They spent every summer at the cottage, raised their two girls and four boys.  And eventually I came along and got to meet this wonderful man, the first limit pusher.

Now Grampy John is responsible for many traditions in the DeWolfe family.  I will start with learning to dive.  Every DeWolfe kid has to learn how to dive.  Grampy would tell us the stories of how they used to dive off the thirty foot cliffs down the shore, but the tides had made those unsafe now.  So we would learn on small rock outcroppings, three to five feet out of the water. “These will have to do for now” he would sigh, and start our diving lesson.  He would instruct us to put our outstretched arms over our heads.  We were to point our fingers to slice the water before our heads hit.  We then needed to jump out to where he threw the rock.  That spot would ensure our correct trajectory.  Now, don’t think I wasn’t scared.  I was certain the first few times that I would a) slide down the rock like a finger nail against a file, b) belly flop painfully or c) some horrid combination of these two things.  “Oh you won’t do that” Grampy would scoff.  He would splash some water over his arms and legs so he “didn’t have a heart attack diving into the cold water” and then dive gracefully off the rock.  He would swim 15 strokes and then turn like a seal underwater and float lazily on his back, belly and toes effortlessly floating to the top.  “See, it’s easy. Just have some faith in yourself.”  This is how we all learned to dive in my family.

Grampys next lesson for us was “the candy run”.  Now if anyone wants to know what motivates me to ride my bike to this day, here is the secret.  My grandfather and grandmother loved each other the way you dream of two people being in love.  And somehow after fifty years, this love remained intact.  The cottage was always filled with grandchildren (picture rats if you will, dirty, wild, and happy).  But my grandmother was actually a fairly orderly clean lady.  She grew up on a respectable farm just up the road from the cottage and needed some peace and quiet once a day to get ready for another onslaught of guests and grandchildren.  Thus my grandfather’s most brilliant plan.

To give my grandmother and him some well-needed and deserved peace and quiet he would give each of us grandchildren 50 cents.  “Go ride to the Pereaux Store and get anything you want.” He would say.  Well, you can imagine the happiness that ensued.  I mean 50 cents was as much money as we could imagine getting in one shot.  It would buy a whole candy bar, or a freezie and some penny candies or a popsicle and penny candies… well the combinations were enough to get all of us on our bikes and off on our 10 km (6 mile) round trip journey, complete with three mountain climbs, bullies, dehydration, farm dogs, you get the picture.  These journeys were some of the hardest training I did, but the reward.  The sweet reward of penny candies and frozen treats, the freedom, and the independence is what makes me love riding bikes to this day.  My grandfather taught me that pushing limits always lead to sweet reward, and though it was a hard journey, it was almost always worth it in the end.

My grandmother died of cancer when I was in grade four.  My grandfather retired from his role as limit pusher during the last few months of my grandmother’s life. He decided to take on the role of chief observer and passed his duties on to his sons and daughters.  It was them that went on to teach me to swim in the rain, dive off of much higher cliffs, taught us to ski, how to run, how to race obstacle courses, they became the new generation of limit pushing teachers.  Meanwhile my brother began learning.  

“Karen, you can jump your skies you know”. Really? “Yeah just like gymnastics but with skies on, just look for the bumps and lips in the hill, there’s one.” He took me on ski adventures through the woods, through snow storms, he took me on bike trips over his favorite trails, we would ride to the near by towns, find the best swimming spots, the highest cliffs to dive off of.  My brother taught me as much as he could, as much as I was willing to learn. 

Meanwhile I found Amanda Sin.  By the time my brother Jay went off to Memorial University, I had found a new limit pusher.  Amanda was the first girl who would come biking with me a second time, or skiing with me a second time.  We got ourselves into all sorts of adventures, including almost deploying all of Fundy National Park’s Rangers on a rescue mission when we were sixteen and decided to traverse a gorge on our mountain bikes.  She split her knee open that day and so we had to switch bikes because mine had pedal cages, which allowed her to ride the rest of the way with one leg. I ran that route last summer and that section she had to ride one legged goes on forever, rolling continuously through the forest.  Amazingly, Amanda stayed with me through University until I was able to locate Matt Betts.  Amanda then went on to become a professional mountain bike racer and a physiotherapist. You can find her today riding beside Geoff Kabush on Scott Bicycles 3 Rox Racing Team and the Canadian National Team.

If you are reading this you probably have seen me riding behind Matt hyperventilating at one point or another.  Some people may ask me why, why would you try so hard for so long to keep up with him (…when it was an impossible task).  Well, because that is what my family does.  We ride as hard as we can, pushing those limits until we burst through the other side, or fail, and yes, either way it involves a whole lot of suffering.  But here is the thing.  After the hardest ride I ever did with Matt, three hours of mountain biking through mosquito infested New Hampshire forest (well before I was in shape to do such a thing), Matt asked if we could just “ride up this little hill, it will only take ten minutes”.  I said sure, trying to impress my new boyfriend.  I think I remember smiling confidently and then pointing out the fact we had no food or water.  It was a 12-mile climb.  Matt left me at the beginning after I told him to “go ahead of me, I’m slowing you down.”  I began crying after 20 minutes, angry, dehydrated, sugar low, watching the climb continue and disappear corner after corner.  I made it to the top on angry fumes alone.  But afterwards we found the best ice cream in the world (Bishop’s Ice Cream) and I therefore married him. 

Miles, I suppose should have come as less of surprise.  Take a DeWolfe male and cross him with Matt Betts and you have my son Miles.  That is a whole lot of limit pushing boy. Yes the girls push limits too, but not like Miles. With the girls I can tell them no, and for the most part, they listen and stop, even if they get angry.  With Miles I would tell him what to do, and then I would watch him make a calculation, “Do have time to get away with it?” his eyes would estimate the distance between me and his goal and most of the time he would decide to give whatever it was he wanted to do a fighting chance. He was a fighter, willing to accept the consequences if it meant trying what he wanted to do. I was now raising my brother, father and grandfather.  I knew him all too well, but had no idea how to be his mother. He repeatedly found my breaking point in both my tolerance of bad behavior and then my temper.  I read once that 3-4 year old boys have as much testosterone as a 16-year-old teenage boy. “Oh, well that explains some of it” I thought.

What does a “limit pushing toddler” look like you ask?  My brother would run away from adults on a regular basis getting lost for up to an hour in the local mall or shopping center.  It was his game.  He is the reason why child leashes were invented.  He once turned a hose on my neighbor John for three minutes laughing the entire time.  His footprints are in Johns cement patio.  With Miles it took the form of hitting other kids, running away from me everywhere, licking the brown sugar spoon in the bulk section… One day he tried to run out of the ballet studio and I caught him just as the sidewalk ended before 2^nd street downtown.  I only wore footwear I could sprint in for 2 years. 

Now we are not supposed to hit our children anymore so what do you do to discipline a two year old who is constantly trying to hit, bite or pull hair of other children or engaging in life threatening behavior?  How do you explain hurt before kids are talking?  This was my dilemma, and I will not pretend that for 6 months to a year I did little else but pull out my hair.  But somewhere between Miles being 2.5 to 3 he got on a bike with training wheels and we started riding down to pick up Ava from Kindergarten and riding back.  This began to take the edge off his energy.  One day he fell playing and cut his chin open.  He needed stitches and all of a sudden I had an easy reference to hurt.  “When you hit your sister it hurts! Like when you cut your chin open that day and needed stitches”.

Miles told me he was ready to ride a two-wheeler when he was three and half.  I had watched him ride his training wheel bike.  Often his head was completely turned around looking backwards for long periods of time while he laughed wildly, his bike jogging from side to side.  The biggest rule in biking is your bike goes where your eyes go.  You crash when you look behind you unless you are very talented.  “You are not ready, Miles.” I replied.  “Take off my training wheels Mom.” Came his reply.  Ok, I thought, he has to learn the hard way. I took off the training wheels and held onto the back of his seat while he rode down the hill. “Let go!” he yelled at me.  I let him go.  And away he rode.  He crashed 70 times that first week.  He would scream at his bike, cry, get angry.  “Do you want to load up in the chariot?” I would ask.  “No!” he would yell and get back on the bike and ride angrily away again. 

In the first week he learned to jump curbs, start on his own, brake, and go down big hills (in that order). He discovered that speed wobbles suck every time, riding on and off the sidewalk does not work out well in many situations, and that he could ride 6 miles in a day.  I found out that after 3 miles he could play lego quietly all afternoon, and after 5 miles he took naps all afternoon. He now rides beside me while I do big runs around town during Anna’s naps or on our way to preschool or the grocery store.

He now understands hurt, he is not afraid to get hurt, but he doesn’t like it and he doesn’t like to hurt other people now (or not as often anyway).  If he makes a mistake I have seen him work hard to fix it.  He is generous with his toys and his candy, sharing with his sisters and his friends.  He makes mistakes still but he grows from these mistakes.  Like a tree, he explores the limits of his world and his roots grow deeper into the ground, he branches up towards the sunshine.  He is sweet and tough and he will never stop pushing the limits, so I guess it is my job to try and direct those experiences in a positive direction.  And I have to be brave like my brother, father and grandfather and be prepared to watch a few crashes, because this is how certain people need to learn. And like my grandmother, and my mother I need to always love my limit pusher through both his mistakes and his victories, no matter how hard it is. It is through the mistakes that I watch him grow deeper, and by continuing to love him through the mistakes I watch them turn into victories and watch him branch up higher than ever before.

My friend Avie said the other night (and I hope I am honoring your words Avie);

“I think some kids test our love by misbehaving, like they are just trying to find out if there is a limit to our love.  Can they do something so bad that we won’t love them anymore? And perhaps every time we are able to forgive them, they see how much we actually love them.”

I don’t think I have ever understood so clearly the power of forgiveness until Avie made that statement the other night, and that Miles’ gift to me really is that.  He makes me so mad sometimes, so embarrassed as a parent, so scared for him, his safety and well-being.  He challenges the limits of my love everyday, and it is my job to make sure it never breaks. If it doesn't break and I forgive him than my love actually gets a little stronger.  This is what my grandmother learned with her six wonderful children, what my mother learned with Jay and I, and what Miles is teaching me everyday.  He has helped me understand why we need exercise, that it calms us down, gives us challenges, and tests limits in a mostly healthy fashion. And when we test our limits, we get stronger.  Exercise helps us push the limits of our humanness. I can then bring this to my children as a parent.

My limit pushers have taught me everything so far.