Interns for the Interim

We were at 3000 feet or so, not very high above the relatively calm waters that surrounded the numerous islands below. But it was high enough to gain a different, vertical perspective, rather than the horizontal one we were used to. For Kelly, the experience of flying over the Gulf Islands and the waters of Juan de Fuca Sound was novel. Doing it in a rather elderly Beaver float plane was definitely different than anything she had known before. However, this would not match the opportunities yet to be realized after we settled gently into the Victoria Harbour, across from the British Columbia Legislature buildings.

The Beginning

My cell phone had rung on a Monday around 7 PM about two months ago.  I had anticipated the call, even though I wasn’t sure what I would hear.  The amplitude of my tremor had kicked up a notch as I answered the call. It was the Chairman of the Board of Governors of Trinity Western University.  It was a short conversation.  The process that had begun only a few days earlier had just concluded.  A unanimous decision of the Board, fully supported by the then-President, confirmed that I had just been appointed the next University president “in the interim.”  I thought I understood those three words.  But, like that day more than seven years ago when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the implications of the words could not have been fully known.