Grace Mitchell

‘Grimmins’ the name of my coaching web site is in honour of my grandmother Grace Mitchell.  As I grew up my nick-name for my grandmother was Grimmins, I called her this as an adult and until she died 23 year ago.

My Grandmother; spiritual, intuitive and intelligent to whom I admired for her determination, giving and sharing of life even when she has little in a monetary way to give, she still shared with all peoples that came her way.

She ran a boarding home in Ontario for years.  The unusual, the gifted, the unknown who became famous like ‘Tommy Hunter’, the physically different, and ordinary people came to stay in this boarding home as tenants of my grandmother.  Grace was accepting and she attracted honest, decent people.

Grace moved to British Columbia with her three children to raise them in Vancouver.  I remember as a child her home in Surrey; the wood burning stove that heated the house, the chickens and their eggs, the neighbourhood children running around and her teaching me to drive a standard car on Maple Ridge’s back streets.

What I cherish the most were her bed time stories.  I slept on the floor beside her single bed and before falling to sleep she told me her stories, her journey, her life, about people and way she navigated the world.  It was through these stories I discovered we shared the same ability to listen to people when they spoke, to hear what is not said and avoid, to know beyond mere perceptions . . .  to know . . . . to understand.

My Grandmother a great mentor, taught acceptance and lives still in my heart as I coach.