Week One Blog: By Leah Gard

 Mental health is something that people don’t talk about as much as it should be. Today I am going to talk about how Keeners has helped me cope with the loss of a friend. 

         Me and my family got in to rafting and kayaking in 2017, we fell in love with it. My mom loved to stay high and dry so she got to go on the big boat and my brother got me and my dad into the little kayaks. We would go out every now and then as a family. My brother wanted to go out every day, he loved it and he was good at it. He was self taught with everything and by the second year he had his loop. He got better and better but wen Covid hit in 2020 it was really hard on him because our mom would not let him do anything. Later in the year he passed away due to suicide. It was heartbreaking. After his death all I wanted to do was be on the water. The days that we were on the water it was hard because I lost my roll and swam a lot but the water is the only place I wanted to be. As the years went on I got my roll back and just improved over the year and getting up to being able to run class 4 to 5 rivers.

            This year I got the opportunity to go to Canada and join the Keeners program. On my way here I got a call from one of my friends telling me that one of my best friends was shot and killed. It was so hard to know I was going thousands of miles away from friends, family, and all the people I care about. I ended up going to the camp. I was up front with the coaches and counselors. I found a lot of support in the people that knew what had happened. It was a safe environment for me even though I wanted to go home.Talking to my family it was not possible to get home with flights. I pushed through the first couple days but I was off and was not doing my best. I did not want to do much but going out on the water with other kids at the camp made me feel a lot better. Later on on in the week all the other kids asked if I was doing ok because I seemed kinda sad so I told them what happened and I got a lot of support with in the other kids. They really helped me get back to where I know my skill level is at. I even landed my loop which was a big breakthrough for me. 

          Keeners was what I needed when I was going through a hard time because I know that the river is a good way to get away from all of it. Keeners was a friendly environment to get through the hard times. This is just a reminder that you should check on your friends to make sure they are ok because nobody should have to go through a loss like that.