Ex Fumo Dare Lucem – Embrace the Hardship

One hundred and ten years ago, someone stood in the wilderness of Vancouver Island, surrounded by forest, mist off the lake, and probably a great deal of mud, and decided: this is where we build a school. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I'm glad he thought it.

 

There were no guarantees. No road map. Just a belief that out of raw, untamed wilderness, something luminous could grow. That is the founding act of Shawnigan: not the laying of stones, but the choosing of faith over comfort. One hundred and ten years later, we are the proof that that choice was worth it.

 

I was thirteen when I boarded a plane alone for the first time. My destination was Canada. My parents, my siblings – everything familiar – remained in Hong Kong.

 

I still remember my mom crying, my dad's embrace, and the aircraft that felt so vast and indifferent – a cold metal vessel carrying me somewhere my parents had chosen. On this plane headed to a place beyond the Pacific, I understood: there would be no hand on my shoulder from here.

 

When I landed, no one had been briefed on Brady. I wasn't introduced. I had to make way for myself. In the homesick nights that followed, I held a pink pillow sewn from the threads of my hospital blanket (one that I still have today) and sat quietly with my roommate at the time, Lucas. That is where I grew. Not in the easy moments. In those ones that chewed away something you didn’t quite know.

 

And then, knowing full well my parents’ expectations, I started doing some remarkably stupid things.

 

Sneaking out at midnight to go play on the field. Wilberforce after Wilberforce – small, ridiculous antics. Looking back, though absurd, somehow someway, it cemented me here, in this school, in my home away from home.

 

Lonsdale's motto is Ex Fumo Dare Lucem – “To give light from smoke.” The smoke was the Pacific at 35,000 feet, alone at thirteen. It was the homesickness, the mischief, the growing up, the long nights, and all the tears. And this school – these teachers, these people beside you – never tried to clear the smoke away. They just kept showing up until something began to glow.

 

One hundred and ten years ago, someone stood in the wilderness and took a first step without certainty of their footing. So did every single one of us, in our own way, on our own journey, on our own flight here.

 

That capacity – to continue forward even when familiarity falls away – that is what we leave with. If I had one piece of advice, it would be this: embrace the hardship. And if the hardship ever becomes too heavy to bear alone, ask for help.

 

Do not wait for the smoke to clear before you look for the light. The light is the smoke, transformed.

 

We are Shawnigan. One hundred and ten years of proof. Go forth and make your light. Ex Fumo Dare Lucem.