Hi, I'm Sara. I'm 57 years young and getting to this place in my life has been a long and winding road, some of it paved with pain, but I am grateful for every single messy detour along the way because they have forced me to grow into a better version of myself. 

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I was born and bred in Toronto and I have lived and worked in countries all over the world such as Australia, the UK, and Thailand, before settling in Guelph from 2002-2021 with my young and growing family. Professionally I have worked as a photographer, graphic designer, furniture maker, and I am currently a glampground proprietor (a.k.a. professional putterer) living near South River. For fun I dabble in writing screenplays, was on the community editorial board of the Guelph Mercury newspaper, and blog occasionally (mostly about what I call the Heroic Parent Journey). Most importantly though, I am a single mother to two ‘dandelion’ kids and one ‘orchid’ child named Sam, all in their 20’s.  

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life goes off the rails

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My dandelion kids are following the middle class Master Plan laid out for them without too many hiccups, but Sam has always struggled with ordinary, everyday expectations of him. How do I accurately and succinctly sum up the emotional turmoil of the past 25 years? It’s impossible. I will say that for parents such as myself, the Heroic Parent Journey begins when ordinary parenting challenges are a thing of the past and you find yourself in a world of extra difficult trials and tribulations. This has been our experience, and Sam’s trajectory has included dropping out of high school in Grade 9, a pretty serious weed addiction, hospitalizations, incarcerations and long periods of homelessness. It’s been traumatic at times and I have learned how to navigate what is known as an ambiguous grief ~ the death of my ordinary, everyday dreams for my son.

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When Sam was 17 he went to Pine River Institute, a treatment program that felt more like a therapeutic boarding school. Pine River was a Godsend and a successful intervention while he was there, for a year and eight months he thrived in the “safe container” the program created for him (and our whole family), but unfortunately he fell back into old habits after he graduated from Pine River, as did we. 

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Since then his father and I have tried everything we can think of to help Sam live a more fulfilling life. I want to be clear, we don't need him to buy into the middle class Master Plan, but navigating life has taken us all down some pretty distressing roads. Although I can honestly say that I think we are through the worst of it, there is still a long way to go before I would describe Sam as “good” or “doing well”. For example, he has not worked, or attended school, for almost seven long years now, and he cannot care for himself without a great deal help. I have tried living with Sam many times over the years, but it always ends badly and I become mentally unwell myself. What he really needs is the structure, routine, and tools that a long term treatment program can give him, and they do exist, but he’d rather be homeless than go to them, I know this from excruciating experience. 

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what next?

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In some ways I don’t blame him, Sam is an introvert and these programs demand a lot from their participants. I honestly don’t think that I could have gotten through a program like Pine River myself and I’m in awe of the kids that do. And then there is always the problem of “what next?” when they are done. When Sam left Pine River we did not have a good transition plan in place, nor did I have a good understanding of what his challenges are. 

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Whenever I ask Sam what he wants out of life these days he says he wants to live in a tiny house and work on a farm. I love this for him, but he’s going to need a great deal of support with that dream because as simple as that sounds, he doesn’t have the confidence to navigate a challenge like this on his own and have it be successful after so much failure. It feels like he has lost faith in himself, but I'm not ready to give up on him.

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So the questions I always find myself coming back to are these: If Sam won’t go to a traditional treatment program, how can some sort of alternative treatment program come to him and meet him where he’s at? What might that look like? If I build it, will he come?  

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The honest answer to the last question is I don’t know, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time dreaming up what I think is a good place to start, and I won’t like myself much ten years from now if I don’t give this idea a good try. So I've put my place up on the market and I'm planning to move to the Collingwood area and start a flower farm that employs Wildflower School of Life participants. 

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a seed takes root

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You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true? ~ Oscar Hammerstein 

 

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that our orchid children don’t need fixing, they need understanding and acceptance. In Sam’s case he also needs something to do in a nurturing environment. Hence my dreaming up the Wildflower School of Life, a program that will create the safe container that our struggling young adult’s need in order to thrive. 

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The Wildflower School of Life is a mash-up of the best aspects of the treatment programs I’ve researched, the WWOOF’ing model (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), and my own gut instincts about what Sam needs to pull himself up. Basically he needs a farming program that understands his life challenges, and a caring community that will wrap its arms around him and guide him towards success. 

 

Initially I see this starting out as a day program probably on some farms in the Collingwood area, but eventually I would like to buy a piece of land and start a not-for-profit flower farm that employs the Wildflower School of Life participants. Maybe it will evolve into offering housing and food for 5-6 months of the year, or maybe permanently? I really don’t know, all I know is that its growth needs to be both strategic and sustainable.

 

This feels like a very daunting challenge, but these are four things that I know for sure: 

1) I am (and always have been) good at bringing people together and I love being a part of the recovery community. 

2) There is a real need for a program like this. 

3) The benefits of this will reach beyond our little patch of land, it will benefit the surrounding community.

4) I cannot do this alone. ​​

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So please join me in making this particular dream come true, because it is definitely going to take a village to get the Wildflower School of Life off the ground. Our "orchid's" are the best of us and we have so much to learn from them, but they need a very particular environment in order to thrive. We are part of a dynamic ecosystem that weaves us together, so let’s be a part of cultivating a brighter future for us all.

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