Bringing the FREE Creston Valley together. December 2012 Seeking purpose after visit to the other side Back from the dead, a paradoxical tale of the supernatural Volunteers Sports Entertainment Hospice group marks T-Cats scoring points on Best Singer format 25 years of empathy and off the ice expands to four shows Inside... Pull-out Section Greetings, December events calendar, characters, lore, trivia, puzzles, recipes, crafts and more! anients ou n ou patronag ,wishes t’s e eu N rea Yar! ear! Wrap up your Christmas shopping or treat yourself over the holiday season We oer a variety of hair services as well as we have a full time esthetician. Now oering the NEW POPULAR SCHELLAC A true innovation in chip free, long lasting nail color great for the holiday season. Come try our stand up and lay down tanning bed. First time in is FREE! Christmas Wsh Li... √ Coo Phone: 250.428.8787 √ Fcia √ Pdicu √ Tanin √ Prm √ Haicut √ Gel Nils √ Acryi Nils contents magazine Sales Sally Hall cell: 250.402-9111 [email protected] Graphic Design/Sales Wendy Franz cell: 250.402.8711 [email protected] Financials/Sales Justin Ziola cell: 250.428.6772 [email protected] The Magazine I Love Creston Magazine is produced monthly and distributed free of charge by feature story I Love Creston Marketing Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part Good news, bad news without permission is prohibited. Any advertisements or graphics The good news for Jeanne Marie Plante was life-saving surgery designed in-house are property 5 in San Diego. The bad? That she actually survived. Hers is a of I Love Creston Marketing Ltd. paradoxical tale of the supernatural. and may not be used in any other medium without permission. Views expressed in the magazine does not necessarily reflect those what’s inside of the company. Town Hall Entertainment Letters to the Editor 8 Volunteers make the 15 Best Singer showcases Letters to I Love Creston Magazine town tick. youths. may be emailed to office@ ilovecreston.com or mailed to First Nations Wellness Box 143, Creston, BC, V0B 1G0. 9 Band issues food bank 16 Don’t take breathing for Letters may be edited for clarity challenge. granted. and space. Regional District Martial Arts I Love Creston Marketing Ltd. 10 Let’s count our blessings. 17 Don’t discern between body Box 143, Creston, BC V0B 1G0 and mind. Volunteers Ph/Fx: 250.428.2631 11 Meeting needs of the dying. [email protected] Sports www.ilovecreston.com Music 18 Hockey group has impact. 12 Dance pays tribute to Mayans. Health Wildlife 19 Those marvellous 13 Quiz for the bird-brained. mushrooms. Labour History 14 ‘Training’ train leaving 20 Lone local seaman met COOLEST the station. hero’s end. KOOTENAY WEBSITE www.ilovecreston.com December 2012 3 this issue “I don’t remember if I told hardly show that 61 different people have Guest anybody there. For one thing, they accounted for 21,175 hours of work with From the editor wouldn’t really believe me. But now it’s untold numbers of clients. time.” eath isn’t your typical Christmas “Creston is very lucky to have this Dtheme but it figures in this Plante is talking through these pages number of people who are willing to act December issue of I Love Creston because she feels compelled to encourage as volunteers,” Barber says. nonetheless, albeit with a positive people, even though she herself is often “Sometimes symptoms are very severe. slant, if you can fathom the unlikely discouraged by the struggles of mortal Palliative care started to try and make possibility. life. She says she may use this story as a sure that all the necessary mechanisms springboard to create some of her own. The cover story is about a relatively new to relieve symptoms would be on hand, resident of the Creston Valley, Jeanne “I’ve known for awhile that I need to and the hospice volunteer is part of that Marie Plante, who died in 1999 – and write,” she says, “just so I can help other mechanism.” lived to tell about it. Confused? That’s people to hold on to their faith and have Though government health care now partly why she’s told precious few hope even through lots of trials.” provides medication for the dying, it people about her after-life experience, Messages of faith and hope are more what remains a pet peeve of Barber’s that until now. we’re used to at this time of year, and palliative care patients are charged for The Manitoba-born school teacher was they are something of what volunteers hospital beds, unlike acute-care patients deathly ill from unexplained blood clots with the Creston Valley Hospice Society whose costs are publicly insured. in her lungs when she travelled to San try to reinforce with the seriously sick “I don’t think that’s right,” he says. “If Diego for potentially life-saving surgery people they spend time with. Not that someone is designated palliative care then nearly 14 years ago. While still under they preach, or are affiliated with any they should be looked after. Palliative care the effects of sedation in the intensive particular church, but they are trained is an essential part of medical care.” to “listen without judging” and “respect care unit, Plante says, her soul rose For more about Plante, hospice and religious beliefs without imposing their from her body and left the building, much, much more, settle in with a own values,” as the CVHS says in its travelling past rows of angelic faces – mug of hot chocolate for the rest of this volunteer job description. some of them from her past, and one early-winter issue. And have a Merry she’s convinced was from her future – Theirs is a mandate “to provide free Christmas. toward an enchanting light source that compassionate and emotional support to penetrated with an unearthly sense of terminally ill patients, to their families peace. and friends . during and after the end “Even now, when I tell, I won’t say that of the loved one’s life.” much,” Plante says during an interview “A volunteer doesn’t solve the problem in which she bared her soul for the first but they help the patient or the relative Mailbag time. “I’ll just say a bit because people talk around it so they solve the problem . (Letters and emails to the editor are jump in and try to tell you their little . and encourage the person to open up, printed as written with the exception of profanity, slander or defamation) story. Well, it’s not anything (like what) to validate their feelings,” says Dr. Neil I did. Barber, spokesman for the group which I wanted to thank you for the “I was strapped in my bed and I took recently celebrated its 25th anniversary wonderful article in this months off. I was floating around watching and is currently headed by Avril Oliver. magazine. You both did a fantastic job and I know everyone at the myself on that bed – my body, because Contrary to common perception, college & greenhouse were quite my soul was wandering up there.” spending time with a person who knows impressed. they are near the end of life doesn’t have Much to her dismay, Plante’s soul I’ve also had people in the returned against her will and to this to be either stressful or awkward. community approach me to say they day she wonders why she was denied “People say, ‘Don’t you find it depressing didn’t have a clue about everything the opportunity to begin an eternity in and somehow a downer, dealing with that was offered at the “Know and paradise. dying people?’ ” Barber says. “No, it’s not. Grow Farm” so it was great exposure “It was incredible peace, beyond It’s very rewarding. You really feel that for the organization. description,” Plante says, sometimes you’ve helped somebody.” Thanks again pausing to suppress tears. In the last 10 years alone, CVHS records Anita 4 December 2012 www.ilovecreston.com feature West Creston woman bares her wandering soul life-or-death turning point is not unheard of, common during the approaching Christmas season. Abut rarely can such a moment be considered Ostensibly about love, joy, peace and giving, life and death. For Jeanne Marie Plante it was both Christmas can also be a mournful period for those and, paradoxically, not with the desired outcome – suffering from personal loss or hardship. Plante has even though she survived. experienced it all. An out-of-body encounter more than 13 years Having harboured her story for close to a decade- ago still leaves the West Creston resident longing and-a-half, she decided this fall to bare her soul, so to depart this Earth for to speak, about the day she’s convinced her soul left good, and pondering her body in pursuit of a great light and unspeakable what higher purpose peace. might yet be served Plante’s journey took a turn for the supernatural in her continued in January 1999, when a 30-month battle with mortal existence. mysterious blood clotting in her lungs led the native Hers is a message of tiny St. Lazare, Man., to a hospital in San Diego. of hope tinged “They couldn’t help me in Canada,” says Plante, with sorrow who was living in Miniota, Man., at the time. bordering on despair. Ironically, those By then a divorced mother of four grown children, conflicting emotions Plante had recently graduated from Brandon are all too University with an education degree, inspired to return to school in her 40s by a daughter whom she was helping with her own post-secondary classes.