Who’s There
On a recent clear out of old board games my children had outgrown that were missing pieces I came across a box I hadn’t seen in years. The box was broken at all the corners and as I lifted it, the pieces inside fell to the floor. I stepped back in surprise because what had landed at my feet was a planchet and its accompanying Ouija board. I’d had this since I was a teenager and hadn’t realized that I’d been holding on to it all these years. Not sure why that was but I’m pretty sure I was worried that tossing it in the trash would bring bad luck on my head. Still hesitant to toss the thing upon it’s discovery, it ended up in a box of things being taken to a charity shop. For someone else to deal with.
That board had seen quite a bit of use when I was about the age of fourteen, but it wasn’t the last time I’d spend an evening with the spirit world. I recall a hockey tournament one snowy Saturday night in downtown Ottawa. Three mothers bored while their sons were meant to be watching a movie as a group (more than likely playing mini sticks instead of paying attention to the movie), sitting in a hotel room, with some Smirnoff Ice and one of the mothers bringing out a Ouija board that she’d brought along, asking if we’d like to have a go.
What could be the harm? A little innocent fun that did in fact produce a lot of serious focus on ridiculous questions. It seems we’d gone from being fourteen year olds asking what boy might have a secret crush on one of us, to one woman who kept asking about whether or not the team would win the tournament. Riveting. Trying not to laugh while keeping two fingers each on that small planchet as if the spirits were clamoring to tell us the score of a children’s sporting event. Slow to start but soon getting into gear, as the planchet would move, spelling who knew what, I was given the pad of paper & pen provided by the hotel to write down whatever letters were spelled out. None of it made sense and at one point I suggested (tongue in cheek) that we ask what language this particular spirit was speaking because it wasn’t English. One answer was very unpleasant and one of the mothers told the spirit that she was sorry, but we didn’t wish to speak to him or her. I laughed more than the others and was admonished that if I wasn’t going to be serious it would never work (honestly, that team, that year I could have told them we were not winning any tournament). These two mothers were hard core Ouija users. That’s not to say that I don’t believe it’s possible or that spirits exist – I am open to the fact that just about anything is possible. But I can’t see 3 women, drinking Smirnoff at the Delta Hotel on a Saturday night as the best location and conduits for contacting the spirits of those who have moved on. We didn’t get the answers to the tournament’s conclusion, and our team didn’t even make the semifinals. Maybe I should have been a little more committed.
The first time I opened this box to what might lay beyond my knowledge was on my 14th birthday. It was a gift that I had asked for and while my mother was skeptical, she did buy one. I was having a sleepover party on the Friday night of my birthday week – 3 girls from my grade 9 class were coming over, and we discussed our plans in depth for days before classes began.
As we settled in with junk food and eager fingers we started. A couple of rocky beginnings of too much chatter and shifting for better positions on the cushions on the floor, the planchet began to move. And out of nowhere the window in the rec room began to bang. Repeatedly. Screaming ensued, feet went clattering up the stairs to the kitchen, nearly knocking over my little sister who had been eavesdropping at the top of the stairs, to my mother wondering what on earth was going on down in that basement. Breathlessly we told her that spirits were knocking on the window. My mother, more sensible than 4 young teenage girls, stepped outside to find two boys from our class standing by the lawn, laughing hysterically. And the four of us in our pajamas standing on the front porch yelling at them for frightening us half to death.
Seems that what we thought were private chats about our Friday night sleepover became the plan of the boy I had a crush on and his best friend to do what boys of fourteen do best.
All of this reminds me that we often feel we are unseen or unheard. We don’t always know who is listening or watching over our shoulder because they are more interested in us than we realize. That boy and his friend had never said a word that they even acknowledged the four of us in any way other than sharing the same classroom space. But who knows – maybe there was more to that Ouija board than I could ever have imagined.
Only the Best
I wrote this today and shared it on my Substack account and want to share it here as well.
When you find yourself in the place where you are needing to reestablish your presence and find the people who are going to make up your circle there is an opportunity presented where you can be “the old you”, the one who is starting to learn what you are becoming passionate about, or the person you have grown to become. Those opportunities present themselves more often than we are aware.
On a bitterly cold January day, just like the one I’m experiencing today, I’m reliving a memory of walking into a new school in what at the time was a small town, heading into a grade 4 classroom where I knew one person. A young girl, the same age as me, who lived two doors down on my new street had knocked at our door the day after we moved in. Introducing herself she announced to me as the bold nine-year-old she was, that she was going to be my new best friend. I found her confidence in that statement welcoming and hopeful, although I hadn’t specifically decided that I needed a new best friend. I had left 2 best friends behind in the big city and still hadn’t fully come to terms with this transplant into a new life. As the teacher introduced herself to me, and then introduced me my new classmates, my “new best friend” insisted that I sit beside her, and the teacher was more than happy to accommodate.
The two best friends I had left behind were constantly at odds with one another about which one of them was truly and honestly my best friend (as young children will do) and on too many occasions would then turn to me to settle the argument and tell them who ranked number one in my life. I never answered the question and would walk away to let them know I had no intention of choosing one over the other. I liked them both, equally though one was much less demanding of my time and attention. In truth I was pleased that I was no longer in that dynamic of trying to keep everyone happy because once we were apart, I realized I was never happy with either of them. They were friendships made due to proximity of living within the space of houses between us and our age. Moving offered me the chance to hopefully find friends who were more like me.
As the weeks went by, I met two other girls in that classroom. One lived further down the street from me and the other over the creek that ran behind our two houses. These two girls were as different from the ones I’d left in the city as could be, never demanded to know which of them I liked more, opened doors to new adventures, the discovery of music I’d come to love and the chance to explore the beauty of the outdoors. The girl who announced she was my “new best friend” slowly became just the girl who lived two doors down. We were nothing alike and I soon learned it was simply a replay of the girl I’d been in the city, just transplanted to a different location.
Sadly, the girl from further down the street moved to another city herself within months of our meeting and while we kept in touch with letters, as happens when you are nine, turning ten our time and attention were taken up with new people, new experiences. The friend I crossed that creek with by stepping on large stones and trunks of fallen trees (the girl I had been in the city would have been terrified to do anything risky like that), she and I kept our friendship even after I moved back to the big city and she moved to another province. It lasted until we were in our teens and then life took over once again as our futures began to unfold.
I learned from that one-year experience that there was something more to me. Something deeper and more willing to embrace new adventures and new beliefs. Moving back to the city, back to those friends I’d left behind – that changed as well. In the year I was gone they went their separate ways, making different friends and while I felt left out, I could eventually see that it was natural progression. They each found a tribe that was more suited to their personalities. I didn’t miss their friendship and while we were friendly towards one another, I found new friends through school and outside activities. I became a bit more of an introvert, making discoveries about life and about myself and understanding that there are friendships that aren’t meant to last forever. That as we change and grow, so too do the people we spend our time with.
Those childhood friendships are excellent learning opportunities for discovering what we like, what we want to experience with other people, what we believe in, what we stand for, what we bring to a relationship and what we are willing to sacrifice for peace and harmony.
And here I am today, in a situation of looking at my life – where I am with old friends, making new friends, finding people who are like-minded and acknowledging that there is no need to have “a best friend” – every friend in my life is the best. The best of who they are, the best of who I am and the best that we are when together. I can thank Patti and Jennie, those nine year old girls, for that lesson.
You Carry It Well
Scrolling through my Instagram feed the other day I came across a quote that stopped me short and made me sit back with a sigh.
“Because I carry it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”
The person who posted it on their account gave no citation so I’m unable to credit the source though I could have said this myself.
Like many people I’ve carried some very heavy loads in my life, and I’ve been told too often that I make it look so easy. I take that as a compliment of sorts because I’ve never been one to call attention to myself. I do what I do because it’s what I’m called to do. I try and set an example for others, starting first and foremost with my children. Bad things happen, challenges appear and stepping up and facing them is the way forward. Yes, you can roll over and admit defeat and say “I’ll not try again” but that’s never felt comfortable for me. I haven’t the patience to just say “I’m done” or “I quit” because within hours I’m back up and ready to get things moving. Much of the time it’s because other people have been depending on me.
And as that quote says, just because it looks easy, that doesn’t mean it’s not a heavy load to carry.
One year in my role as manager, I had arranged a fundraising dance for my son’s hockey team to take place in early February. The date had been set, tickets sold and people expected the event to go forward. Then unexpectedly my sister died a week before the event. As her only living relative it fell to me to make all the necessary arrangements. There was nothing I could do about the timing – life happens when it does – but I knew I could manage it. Because people were relying on me for both a funeral and a fundraiser.
The fundraiser took place a few days after the funeral and, although I was grieving, I attended the event to make sure everything was in place. I didn’t stay long, just long enough to thank people for being there, to leave things in someone else’s capable hands and I went home where I belonged, to be with my grief, in private.
Weeks afterward at a game, a parent on the team made the comment to me that he didn’t know how I could have gone to that fundraiser. I made it all look so easy he said, and he himself would never have done that. He would have been too upset, too immersed in grief to think about something as frivolous as a dance. He as much as then told me I must be a very cold person to have been able to do that.
That gave me pause. That someone would see me as cold or unfeeling because I honoured a commitment to not let other people down. I explained to this man and the other parents who were listening to our conversation that what might look easy was in fact a very difficult, very heavy load for me to balance. Explaining that my grief ran deeper than I allowed them to see, which is why I had been present for only a short time. If what I had done looked easy that meant that I had accomplished what I set out to do – to give them all the evening, they expected without anyone feeling uncomfortable on my behalf. I left that conversation wondering if it had been worth the time and effort.
People see what they want to see, through their own lens. How often do we judge others without knowing facts? How often do we stop and think about what might be happening beneath the surface? How often do we simply allow ourselves to accept things at face value? How often does a smiling face mask sorrow? How often does the person who makes jokes in public cry in private? How often do we carry on for the benefit of others and not share the weight of the burden? Because other people make it look so easy.
Beautiful Destinations
Spent part of the afternoon sorting through art supplies, tidying that space and my eye landed on my old art journals. I picked one up and it opened to this page. I looked at it for a good few minutes, smiled and was reminded that we find the things we need at the time we need them the most. Or words to that effect.
I have no recollection of what was going through my mind the day I did this page. Old magazine pages, that block of words, torn at the edges (I have a penchant for doing that rather than using scissors - I prefer that worn at the edges look in my art), some paint smeared with my fingers rather than a brush. When I’m creating, I will often use my hands - I like the feel of the paint, I like feeling connected to the page. Sometimes I use an old credit card or a key card from a hotel room. I like the strong edge on the plastic. But I digress. This is not about my artistic preferences and practices. Something about those words must have been a message I needed at that moment in 2020, the early months of the Covid pandemic.
Where I am at this stage in my life is nothing at all like the pandemic we struggled to get through, though it changed us all in one way or another. These moments are about change and needing to rebuild after an abrupt ending. I can hardly compare being shut out of a social media site with being quarantined to our homes, being parted from loved ones, and living in fear of what would happen if we became ill with this raging out of control virus. But we did have to start over once it was believed safe to resume living our lives as we had done before the world was turned on its head. Then again - did we really return to life as it was or did we began to create a new way of living because of the new knowledge we had gained - knowing that our world can stop in its tracks.
I’ve had a week to come to terms with that abrupt ending last Monday morning. I’ve had a week of making decisions - do I just stay away from social media, or do I continue to find a different path going forward? If I go forward, what does that look like, and what choices would I make this time that I didn’t before?
Like a child who has built a tower out of building blocks, stepping back to see what has been created after careful application and taking the time to reach the level of happiness at what those two small hands had built, who then sees another child walk by and knock it all down - simply because that child could, there I sat on Monday, looking at the block tower I had spent time building over months, strewn across the floor at my feet.
I’ve picked up the blocks and I’m rebuilding something new. They are the same blocks so some of it will look like it did at “the old place” but there’s a different feel to this new space. I see some familiar faces there, many are new to me. It has a different feel and I’m still trying to find my voice. I still have that, my voice. “They” didn’t knock that out of me. I’m just a little quieter for the time being. I’ve also found somewhere else to spread my wings, and as I stumble and bumble my way along, trying to figure things out in that location, that feels right too. A new challenge. Perhaps I was becoming too set in my ways at “the old place” and needed something bigger for my voice, for the words I want to share. I had outgrown it and needed the push (shove off a cliff) they gave me. I could be grateful and I’m almost at that stage - being able to say “thanks for doing me such a tremendous favour.”
I’ve left that difficult road in the rearview mirror and looking ahead through the windshield I’m seeing beautiful destinations that I’m eager to explore. Endings really do offer fresh beginnings. If you’re prepared to look for them.
Food Avoidance
This isn’t about eating disorders, which is a very serious subject that I have no experience with. This is about avoiding eating certain food because it brings up negative associations or bad memories.
This past Saturday I ordered a hamburger in a restaurant. Doesn’t sound like a big deal. But it was for me. It has been decades since I did that but on Saturday, I knew I was ready and made the choice happily and eagerly. I’ve eaten plenty of hamburgers in my life. The usual fast food, grab it in a hurry, too tired to cook, too lazy to come up with a menu and on many occasions, upon leaving the rink after a child’s hockey game when there had been no time for a meal beforehand, just a bagel with cheese and hope there’s enough energy to get the kid through the game. But to sit at a table in a restaurant, look through a menu and say “oh I’ll have the hamburger please" that was just a no go zone for me.
When my parents separated and ultimately divorced when I was 15, it became the “routine” that every weekend belonged to my father. Correction, it wasn’t every weekend. It was every Saturday for a one hour lunch. The most he seemed able to spare. And it was the only contact we had - one hour on Saturday. Not court mandated - his choice. He would come to pick us up, my sister and me, and drive a very short distance to a local restaurant. Nothing fancy mind you, just the local little diner. The first time we enjoyed this momentous occasion, my sister and I were both apprehensive and a little nervous. Life had been contentious prior to the separation, and I had been somewhat of a catalyst for that. Another story, another time perhaps. Our father was a strict man and there was never any room for flexibility or that bit of freedom. When we looked over that menu, he immediately decided he’d have a hamburger. The next words were “how about the two of you, does that sound good?” and we both nodded our heads and said “sure, that would be great.” Our usual reflex response to his decisions. And the die was cast. Because every Saturday at noon after that it was hamburgers and fries with a coke for lunch. A squeaked out “well maybe I’ll have …” was cut short with, “but you love the hamburgers here” which were flat, tasteless, greasy and difficult to choke down. No one enjoyed that. But it was easier to just say “right” and cede the ground I’d tried to cover.
Those lunches lasted for just over 2 years when I had finally had enough and stopped not just the inane lunches where we were expected to describe our entire week in 30 minutes each but I ended the relationship with my father for a multitude of reasons.
From that point forward, the thought of ordering a hamburger never entered my head. Looking at that section on a menu would make me avert my eyes to another section and choose anything but. The image of that greasy spoon, the stilted conversation, the uncomfortable atmosphere has lived at the back of my mind for far too long.
I’ve changed in many ways over the last year. I’ve done the work of forgiving and purging old memories and old hurts. I’m no longer that young teenager forced to be in places I’d rather not be, forced to stand up for myself - and my sister - who never felt able to use her voice. So, this past Saturday I made the conscious decision to have a hamburger. I took the fries instead of a salad - I do eat fries but will usually choose a different side. But no Coke. Sorry that product has not passed my lips since I was 17. It was my father’s beverage of choice for his rye and general consumption.
And that hamburger? I relished every delicious bite. It was the taste of rebellion and freedom and me, taking back my life, making my own decision, not one made for me.
Entry Denied
On a day when I had been considering making a change to my routine, the decision was made for me. Some choices we make, others seem to be made for us. How we deal with that I really believe is the key.
When my threads account was suspended once again late last night I went through the usual motions and put it down to just one more glitch in the system and a reaction of “oh here we go again.” Until an hour later when I was informed that my account had been disabled due to “my” disregard of their “integrity policy”. Excuse me? Question my integrity or not respecting someone else’s and that’s it as far as I’m concerned. Another glitch in their system? Maybe. I’ve been hearing plenty of tales from threads, facebook and instagram about issues that make no sense. I don’t care about glitches. Or whatever their reason was for disabling the account (there was no clear reason provided) - with I might add - no possibility of pleading my case. When it’s done. It’s done. And so am I.
I’ve said this before - I have had much worse, much more serious issues thrown in my path and I’ve found my way around those obstacles. Life is filled with them - pot holes, boulders, sheets of ice. This issue is just a pebble stuck in my shoe. One that I can toss out, replace the shoe and keep moving.
Was I upset? Of course. I was shocked and in disbelief. Thinking about all the accounts on that platform that are more than questionable and yet mine, with my life motto of “do no harm” is singled out and excluded. No one likes to be rejected or have a door slammed shut in their face. No one wants to feel “less” or be told “private club, keep out.” However. I’m also not the person who is going to sit around feeling sorry for myself. Someone asked me if I was going to try and get the account back. Nope. I don’t grovel. I don’t accept crumbs or useless apologies, and my self-worth says “honey, you can do better.”
And that’s what I’ve done. I’ll have more presence on other platforms. There’s Bluesky and there’s Substack. And I have larger plans that with luck and commitment I’ll see come to fruition. I’m choosing to see my “ejection” from a platform I had been having reservations about anyway, as a gift and a message from above - time to move on.
What I will miss is the people. I came to know so many lovely, wonderful people. We shared laughter and ideas. We encouraged one another. And I have no way of letting any of them know why I’ve gone. Some may figure it out from past issues. It’s like being fired, ushered out by HR and not having a chance to say goodbye to people you’ve spent time with. That makes me sad.
A walk this morning - a very cold walk through the park near Lake Ontario not only filled my lungs with bracing air, it settled my mind and helped me to put things into perspective. Life is filled with disappointments and heartache. It’s filled with challenges and set backs. It’s also filled with opportunities. It’s less about one door closing and another opening than it is knocking on more doors, banging on windows and looking for the cracks were light shines through and you see that maybe the room you were in was the wrong room. That it was too small and not the one you needed to be in. So you keep looking until you find the one that feels like home.
Ticket to Ride
Another year to ride this rollercoaster of life. A mammogram that has come back all clear, Ned (no evidence of disease) is my ticket to stay on that ride for at least another year. Anything can happen outside of a cancer diagnosis of course – there is always the possibility of the car going off the rails or hitting a snag. A loop that might not loop and a rail that comes loose, stopping the car until it can be repaired. All great analogies and you get the point.
There is a sense of freedom and elation when you get that news. Because the possibility always exists that the next one or the one after that might have a different outcome. And it comes with the reminder that the ticket does have an expiry date because in order to ride for another year, you’ve got to have that mammogram. You can of course choose not to have it, to trust to the fates, but I need that reassurance. My breast cancer arrived without warning. It was tiny crystals, like bits of salt, all clustered together. Couldn’t be felt by hand, but a mammogram picked them out clearly and distinctly.
I used to suffer with survivors’ guilt. A woman in my circle and I were diagnosed with breast cancer almost the same week. Our pathologies were different. Hers was 1cm - less invasive, less aggressive and easily removed. If treatment was suggested, she did not have either chemotherapy or radiation and she had no hormone treatment after the surgery. Mine on the other hand was 2cms - a bit larger, good margins were taken during the lumpectomy, but I had one lymph node affected which required a second surgery for the lymph nodes to be removed and because mine was more aggressive I had chemotherapy, radiation and a year of Herceptin because the tumour was Her2+. I made it to the first 5-year milestone. The woman I knew did not. Her cancer spread and she lived just less than 5 years post diagnosis.
I’ve often wondered why I keep getting the ticket to ride that she did not. Our tumours were in different places in our bodies – mine on the side of breast, hers higher up closer to the collar bone and did that make a difference? Was it that we had different surgeons? Did she unbeknown to me refuse treatment when offered? I have no answers to those questions other than the wheel of life spins in a way that we do not have the ability to see.
This year I feel a particularly strong urge to make things happen. I say that every year, but this one feels different. In the early years of this part of my life journey having had breast cancer, I needed to be focused on others – on my children, on my obligations, on just getting from one point to another. I didn’t have the luxury or the time to enjoy the ride. I got on one of those rollercoaster cars towards the middle and held on for dear life – sometimes with eyes open, sometimes with eyes closed when it seemed the drop was going to be too quick, to steep.
Now, finally, almost 21 years on, I’m choosing the front car, belted in for safety, but my eyes are open wide, my arms are up in the air and I’ll be squealing and laughing with each loop, each climb up that track and feel the rush of joy and excitement with each plunge down. This year that ticket promises the opportunity for a wild ride. I can feel it.
Clearing Space
As the boxes were pulled out of storage for all of the holiday decorations to be put back into tissue paper, and into their cubbyholes for the return to where they are held for 11 months of the year, this year I decided it was time to do a cull and a clearing out before everything was repacked and held out of sight.
We accumulate things over time. I looked in those boxes when I was getting ready to decorate the house and trim the tree this year and wondered where it had all come from. Years worth of seeing something at a craft fair that I knew would make a lovely addition to the décor. A gift of another Santa from a friend who knew how much I love my Santa collection. Wreaths that seem to have multiplied on their own like rabbits in the darkness. Ornaments that Santa had left in my children’s stockings so that when they had homes of their own, they would have childhood memories (note – they have told me that they do not want these baubles – yet. They will remain in storage until the day when one or both of them say “remember that ornament we bought when we were vacationing in…” and I have boxes with those treasures labelled with each of their names for when that day arrives). Then there are the handmade creations the boys made in elementary school. Those are for them as well. So, before the holiday season had even officially begun the decision to divest myself of so much of this was made.
I’m clearing space for more than that though. Looking at these items from the past I realized that it’s time to leave more of the past behind in order to move forward into the new year with all the new ideas I have and plans I’ve been making. These are things and thoughts that have held me back and weighed me down.
The past can hold you in its grip like a vice. It has for me. I have been the family historian, the keeper of the memorabilia, the photographs, the ephemera, the antiques and the memories. I took on this role voluntarily when there was still extended family to ask questions of, to listen to their stories, to keep a record of who we were and who we became. I have boxes of photographs of extended family that have no direct connection to me or my children. I have journals and letters and WWI and WWII mementoes. I need to do a cull there as well which is harder to do than it is with “things” that hold no sentimental value. How do you throw away photographs? How do you throw away someone’s journal? A journal that is pertinent to the family member who penned it but to no one else. How do you decide what is worth keeping and what can be let go of? That requires a razor like approach which is surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. I am looking at things critically, not sentimentally.
I had planned to write an extensive family history to leave for my children. I spent years researching and compiling the information. I solved mysteries and I discovered secrets that those involved never expected would be uncovered. I have put together the chronological history of where we began to where people have traveled. And I realized over the last few days that what I have is enough. I have concluded that I don’t need to write a history that will take even more time and I understand now why I have procrastinated so long over getting that project done. I can narrow things down to short stories that matter to keep alive the memories of people who were dear to me. And a tree chart that explains names, places and dates is sufficient. I know my sons will be just as happy with that.
I’m putting down the heavy burden that I had placed on my own shoulders to make room for other projects that have begun to claim space in my life. I can already feel my shoulders dropping and a feeling of excitement at what I am making space for coming in.
In thinking back on why I wanted to take on the responsibility of being the holder of the flame, I can see I was doing it for others. For those I have loved who are gone and whose memories I have cherished. A way of keeping them alive. I know now that they are alive and cherished in my memories and in my heart. I’ll make sure there are enough photographs and important information about those I was closest to for my children who have their own memories of those they have loved and will at some point need to make room themselves for new people, and the many new memories they are already creating.
Do You Dare?
With the first day of the new year upon us, the question is, what are you going to do with the year ahead?
The same old, same old?
Or will you dare to dream, dare to turn a dream into a reality? Or perhaps realize a new dream, a different dream?
I think of this quote:
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
~ E.M. Forster
Blank Canvas
These days between the 25th of December and the 1st of January are a pause. There is a stillness and a silence to them where time feels suspended. The waiting period as one year ends before the new one begins.
I don’t make resolutions or promises to myself that I might or might not be able to keep. I’ve never done that. I don’t choose a word that will carry me through. I tried that once or twice and at some point, completely forgot what the word was. A word has meaning and maybe the word was to be mindful and have intention. But if I couldn’t remember the word, it obviously had no meaning and I’d lost the intention.
In these few remaining days of 2025, I am looking forward to painting on a new canvas – this is how I look at the start of another year around the sun.
There is a desire to clean out what no longer serves me. Things that have worn out their welcome and cannot be taken into the new year. Like going through the box of paints and taking out the ones that have dried out. The old ones that are covered in dust – the ones I’ve held on to thinking I might need them. I’m choosing a new palette, new colours whether they be water paints or oil paints. The colours that are guiding me into the new chapter of what comes next. I might need to buy new paints to complete the vision.
I’m not really talking about painting and art, though there may well be some of that in the coming months. It’s endings and beginnings. What we choose to leave behind and what we pack to take forward with us.
It’s the blank canvas that we are all presented with every year. Of what we hope to achieve, where we hope to be, the person we want to reflect both inwardly and outwardly.
It’s a conscious choice of hopes, dreams, wishes and desires. And the effort we put into what we hope to carry out. That canvas awaits us all.
Send the Cards
It was early in December this year, as I pulled out boxes of holiday greeting cards, surprised to find half boxes, and unopened boxes. I’m reminded that the days of sending 40 or 50 cards to family and friends are long gone, just as many of those people are gone from this world. There are also those who no longer want the expense of mailing cards (over $3 in Canada for an international stamp does make you stop and think) and that makes me sad – it has become a lost art. I honour the wishes of those who have opted out and no longer send a card to those people, but I do write and send to family and friends I don’t see on a regular basis. I’ve always seen sending holiday wishes as a way of ending the year by saying “You are in my thoughts, and I hope life has been kind to you.” What arrives in my mailbox now is a trickle compared to what it once was.
I’ve never been in the practice of saving greeting cards with the exception of the few I’ve saved for my sons that were given to them by grandparents and their aunt. One day I hope when they inherit these treasure boxes that I’ve created for them they’ll have moments of happy memories when they see the things I’ve thought they might appreciate.
When I’m into January and putting all the holiday décor back into boxes for storage I collect the holiday cards, read them one more time and then they go into the recycling bin. However, there was one year that I kept a particular card that I simply couldn’t part with. I set it aside.
Many years ago, when we were all in the first flush of being adults, one of our friends, having earned his Engineering degree, purchased his dream car - a black Corvette which he eventually drove to Ohio as he began his career with a major chemical company. A “life of the party” guy, J, was missed at the usual gatherings but he kept in touch as often as possible. On one trip home he said he was finding it a bit lonely down there and asked me to compile a list of the books he should read that he probably hadn’t – and please list 50. So much laughter, so many glasses of wine, as we tried to decide which 50 books needed to be on that list. One of the last questions he asked me on that trip as he was heading out the door, was “what is mead, anyway?” – I recall the question, but not why he asked.
One December a few years later, I can’t recall how many now as time has a way of blurring, a Christmas card arrived. The image on the front was not the usual funny type that J would choose to send. This one was very Victorian, very nostalgic with an image of a group of children. They might have been siblings, but I like to think it was a group of friends, working to build a snowman.
A week after that card arrived a phone call came from someone in our group – incoherent and sobbing that he’d been phoned by someone else in our circle – J was in hospital having suffered what might have been a stroke or a ruptured brain aneurysm. We went on a wait and watch only to be told a day later that J had died.
J’s funeral was held here at home on a very cold, snowy day just before Christmas. The men in the circle were his pallbearers; the women wept for a life gone much too soon. Afterwards and many drinks in as we toasted his life, we thought about how much living J had done in that short life. And how so many of the things he said to us, or did for us, had left a lasting impact.
That January, I kept the card he’d sent and found a suitable frame. I put it away with all the other holiday décor. It is the first item I take out of the storage bins every year and find a pride of place for it to remember not just his life but all that he meant to so many people. I have it on my desk right now as I’m writing this.
The choice of that card was intentional, even if J didn’t know it at the time. Or maybe he did. Maybe he had a sense that time was short and he needed to leave a message for us all.
This is the reason I continue to send a Christmas card to everyone in my life who still holds so much space in my heart. We never know when it might be the last “you are in my thoughts and I love you.”
Tao for Tuesday
There are days, often it’s a Tuesday for me, where things just do not go as planned. Distractions, being a bit too relaxed after having navigated the first full day of the week, or focusing elsewhere, the focus not to be found right in front of my face.
This is especially true at busy times of the year, and December is probably the busiest month for the majority of us with social obligations, shopping to do, gifts to wrap and meals to plan.
There are people who find December the hardest month of the year to get through. Those who are grieving family members or friends whose absence is most keenly felt during the holidays. We may be missing those who are unable to be present due to other circumstances and our commitment to our day-to-day activities take a backseat.
What I can offer is this. There will be days when you burn the toast. You might even burn two slices as you try and repeat the process. That means it’s time for Plan B. Leave the toast. Choose something else that requires less attention and less energy. Something that is easier to cope with that allows you to simply be present. Being present is very often enough.
There is no secret remedy for getting through hard days and difficult moments other than to acknowledge them. With grace. And gentle moments of love.
Grief and the Holidays
At every family gathering, for any occasion whenever all of the cousins were together, I was the misfit, the one in the middle that had no place to land. There was a group who were much older and there was a group who were much younger. And then there was me – three years too young for the next group up and three years too old for the ones down below. There wasn’t anyone in my own age group to socialize with. I blended in wherever I could. As the years passed, I found myself “accepted” more with the older group and thus had an education in a number of ways that I wasn’t quite mature enough to understand but stored those nuggets of wisdom away for future reference.
I was never the “go to” cousin. The younger ones had their circle, and the older ones didn’t need anything from me – except perhaps a dose of hero worship which I doled out as needed for entry into their inner sanctum. But none of them ever needed anything from me. Until we were all on the level playing field of adulthood and life experiences.
I never formed a close bond with my cousins, but I attended their weddings and the christenings of their children. And as happens in all families, I attended the funerals of their parents, my aunts and uncles. Soon those funerals became our only social interaction. There was one cousin who when I was a child, took me under her wing in as much as she was aware when I was sitting alone or just on the edge of a group, listening and she would bring me just a bit closer. And during a difficult period in my teens, she reached out in what I thought was a genuine gesture until I was informed much later that she did so at the behest of my mother and my aunt.
Roll on to our adult years with children and the life changing issues we face. Years after my breast cancer diagnosis that same cousin’s daughter was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer at an age younger than I had been. I received a phone call one evening from this woman, in tears, asking me what she should do. It took me by surprise as I had never once had any message of care, concern or support from her while undergoing my own journey. However, as she had turned to me for advice and support, I gave it, willingly. This is part of the journey – we help those who follow us. Her daughter is still, as I write this, blessedly thriving and raising her family.
Many years later, having exchanged only the odd email message or a quick exchange on social media, I received another late night phone call from this cousin. It was just weeks before Christmas and she was in an agony of despair, sadness, loss and hopelessness. Her grandson had died months before in a car accident and my cousin blamed herself for the death. Grief is not always rational, and guilt often lies in the shadows of grief. The guilt stemmed from having loaned this young man, at age 17, the money to buy the vehicle that soon after its purchase led to his untimely death. We spoke for hours – or rather, I spoke, she cried and kept asking me “why?” and what could she do, how could she cope.
Her biggest issue that night was what to do about Christmas dinner, their family’s first without him. Her grandson loved the rolls she made for the meal, and she always made sure to bake extra because he would eat so many. Now she just couldn’t face making those rolls for everyone else because it hurt her heart. I encouraged her to make the rolls in his honour because I was sure he would want that. I reminded her that the whole family needed to mourn his absence from the table and to stop doing something he had loved could make the memory of his life less significant in some way. She didn’t think she could do that. I then suggested setting a place for him and putting a roll on that plate. And yes, there would be tears and there would be sorrow from every person at that table. But there would also be joy and laughter as stories were told about how many of those rolls he would eat and how excited he’d be when he could smell them baking in the oven. I reminded her that just because someone is no longer at the table physically, they are still very present in spirit, memories and hearts.
I don’t know if she followed through with any comfort I tried to offer that night. I hope she did. I cried when I got the news from her brother that she had died on Christmas Day just a few years ago. As another Christmas Day approaches, I’m thinking of her and of her family. I hope her daughter now makes those rolls and sets two places at the Christmas dinner table – one for her son and one for her mother.
On The Run
When you run and you keep running, is it just running away?
Or is it running towards a destination?
Is there a difference?
And if there is – how do you know which it is?
I’m not talking about running for exercise – there is a goal with that. Fitness perhaps. Or just an obsession with movement.
When you are running from the life you are living where is the message in that?
I began wanting to run away from home when I was age three. I didn’t get very far. On a dark early winter evening, a suitcase packed with my doll’s clothes, my doll in my arms. Standing at the front door, on the balls of my feet trying to reach the doorknob. “Where will you go?” asked my mother. “To Aunt Margaret’s” my reply. Only problem with that – I didn’t have an Aunt Margaret and we both knew it. Still, she let me go. Waved me off in fact as I made my way down the stairs from the porch to the sidewalk. And in the dark, I turned to my right and started walking. I didn’t get very far before I turned back and walked through the door saying “Aunt Margaret isn’t home.” And even though I walked through that door, it didn’t feel like I was “home” either.
We repeated this futile dance several times during my childhood. Sometimes it was because I didn’t get my way for something I wanted. Sometimes it was just me having had enough of the tension, the strife and the toxicity of everyday life, with the need to “go”. No idea where I needed to be, but it wasn’t in that house. It was a need to be saved, to feel safe, to be rescued. It was long before I knew my role was to be that of liberator.
When I was age nine, until my tenth birthday, I thought I’d found the place I didn’t need to run from. And while I had been reluctant to make the move to that small town in the Niagara Peninsula, I came to feel at peace with my surroundings. The home life was a bit more settled, though there were undercurrents that I wasn’t aware of because I was so wrapped up in my new freedom and much too young to understand. The idyll didn’t last because only months after my tenth birthday we were right back where we had started, not just the same city, in that same house. Into that same old toxic environment.
And the stirrings of unrest, the desire and the need to flee were being stoked on a regular basis. I had tasted the freedom that my spirit needed, and I was beginning to know too much. What is called in psychology terms as “the unthought known”.
By the age of fourteen I no longer needed to be the runaway. I needed someone else to leave and made clear what the terms were. The conditions were met and I carried a lifetime’s worth of guilt for that ultimatum. My own guilt and that placed upon my child’s shoulders by adults who should have known better, not to mention done better.
Over the last few months my ten year old self has been whispering in my ear. We’ve finally ditched that guilt. We’ve come to terms with where we are in this moment. And we know that while we can’t see the future, we know that the world awaits and there is a path we are meant to take. We took a few detours over the years but we’re ready to realize all those dreams that we started to plan all those years ago. We’re not running this time, we’re walking confidently, hand in hand to whatever awaits.
Being Bold
When the world you inhabit as a child feels unsafe because you never know on what day which emotions are going to strike the wrong chord and the reaction could be a crushing blow – not always physical – usually verbal or emotional – to your wellbeing, you build a wall of self-protection. Not a physical wall, one that is internal and only you know is there. You build it slowly, adding one brick at a time with each hurt, until all that is visible is what you can see if you look up. It’s more than a coat of armor; it is a fortress built to insulate your heart.
You learn that when you are vulnerable and you allow yourself to let that wall down, even just a few bricks because you think, you hope, you pray and you want desperately to believe that enough time has passed and surely, you can come out of hiding, it is never really safe. Because the one that has been your tormentor has been lying in wait for you to re-emerge. And once eye contact has been made you know you were safer with that wall of bricks around you.
Years later you understand that the wall still exists. Oh, you have knocked out some of the bricks so that you can see out but no one has ever really been able to see inside the fortress, to see inside your deepest soul. Until the day you realize that the tormentor has been gone for a very long time and you have yet to meet anyone else like him whose sole reason for being was to keep you small. And you realize that you kept yourself small because you had never learned to or been able to believe in yourself. You had never stood up and said “I’m here and I have value and I am worthy” for fear that you would be ignored or worse, rejected.
And only recently did you begin to kick down the rest of the bricks and step forward from the fortress that was now just rubble and broken bricks. You threw handfuls of them in a show of victory, and just to be sure they were far enough away that you couldn’t begin to put them back in place. You let the sunlight warm your face and your soul. You felt empowered.
And you learned that vulnerability is not a weakness but can be your strength because you’ve decided to be bold, to stand tall and to assume all the space you deserve in the world. You realized that the possibility of being hurt still exists without that wall of defense but it’s worth taking the chance. You know that you can trust your heart and your intuition in that vulnerability and that you were never small, that you are worthy, and that the only path forward is to walk past the wreckage of the fortress you’ve left behind.
Visions of Sugarplums
From the first viewing of holiday specials in early December, every singing of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, every watching of “White Christmas”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Miracle on 34th Street”, my sister’s excitement for Christmas rose like the mercury in a thermometer that’s been warmed by a fever. By Christmas Eve she was almost levitating, unable to sleep because she needed to hear that sleigh and clattering of hoofs hit the rooftop. From the last day of November to the 24th of December my sister was on a single track to her destination, the engineer of the train taking her to visions of sugarplums.
It wasn’t about the toys or the gifts that we would ask for in our letters to Santa. It was the happiness and the joy she wanted. It was her perceived belief that this year, this particular year we were in, Christmas really was going to be just like a holiday depicted on a Hallmark Christmas card. There would be snow, and happy children. There would be prettily wrapped gifts with perfect bows that would glitter under the tree. The tree itself would be decorated while we sang carols and hymns while our father played the piano, and there would be hot chocolate and a tray of the sweet goodies that our mother spent weeks baking, brought out to us as we threw the last of the tinsel on the tree.
Except that wasn’t the reality. The holiday specials, the music and the movies were all possible and enjoyed. The rest of the dream was not reality. The tree was decorated with carols being sung, but the ornaments were never placed where our father thought they should be and the tinsel? He wanted it strung piece by piece, an exercise in futility for two children with small hands, trying to separate the tinsel that has a cling factor of 5,000 and impossible to reach the highest branches. We’d give up and just toss it thinking it looked like real snow on a tree. But without fail, he came back to it after we’d finished and did it the way he wanted.
Christmas morning began tentatively as we’d gauge the mood to see how excited we should be. A little too much enjoyment could cut off gift opening until a later hour, not enough and we were ungrateful and toys put away until he decided we had waited long enough or were grateful enough or he’d had a drink or two.
I learned not to care. I learned that you just played it by ear and Christmas would either be a pleasant enough day with a meal to be enjoyed or a day of yelling and fighting and recrimination and a meal you had to choke down and hope you’d be released from the table as quickly as possible.
My sister carried that Hallmark Christmas in her head her whole life. It was the nirvana she intended to achieve. She bought every magazine she could find that offered recipes, home décor, and outdoor scenes of families frolicking in the snow before sitting down to a meal that came straight from Betty Crocker’s kitchen. A mother whose hair was still perfectly coiffured, a clean apron and a beaming face as she brought that golden turkey to the table to be carved by the father in his tie and cardigan. But the reality of the holiday season for us was depicted best in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” where mishaps occurred, too much time was spent trying to create perfection, the turkey was often overcooked, the tree fell over, and there were no sugarplums to be found anywhere.
We created some wonderful Christmas years after our parents divorced and life became calmer and quieter, our footing more secure. The best Christmas we might have had together was the last one here, in my home, with our mother. The one we didn’t know would be her last. We had older adult family here from out of town and it was utter chaos. Two small children trying to put together Lego and play mini sticks with the older adults (my mother was goalie that day), plenty of rye & gingers, rum & cokes, and wine, a Christmas tree that started to fall over, plenty of food and laughter, wrapping paper from one end of the room to the other, a table cloth ruined by spills. And those same two children who were on sugar highs from too many goodies and chocolate and had room only for mashed potatoes and stuffing. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
As for the holiday magazines my sister collected, every year, in her honour, I treat myself to just one. I don’t even need to read it. I just like to have it here, on the coffee table where I can see it. It reminds me of who she was in her deepest soul. It allows me to have hopes & dreams to believe in what magic might happen, and to have my own visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. They look just like my sister always imagined.
Feeling the Beat
The old piano sat in the dining room, taking up more space than there was room for, but when my mother’s cousin, having bought herself a new one, offered her old piano to us, it became a fixture in that dining room until my parents divorced. I have no recollection of what happened to the piano because I never gave it much thought after the age of 8 other than occasionally playing a duet of chopsticks with my sister.
My father was a gifted pianist who could play anything by ear. When our parents had parties, my sister and I would sit at the top of the stairs and listen as people shouted songs they wanted to hear, and he’d make that magic happen.
As a child I would sit on that piano stool, the kind that you had to spin to get to the height you needed to be able to reach the pedals. I was far too short to ever reach the pedals, but I could twirl that seat to get myself situated to put my fingers on the keys. I started tentatively, just one finger here, one finger there wondering what the ivory keys did, and what those long black ones did. Where were the high notes and where the low and what happened right in the middle.
By the age of four, I was able to play simple songs, still just one finger at a time but I’d learned that middle C will take you anywhere you want to go. I had no idea that it was called middle C until later – it was just where that key was placed. By the age of five, as soon as my father realized what I was doing, he insisted that I was ready for piano lessons and he knew just the man, the same one who had taught him and his sisters when they were children. Did anyone think to ask me if I wanted to learn how to do more than plunk out songs with my one finger? Did anyone explain to me what taking lessons would mean? One night a week sitting in a dimly lit room with an old man who would rap my knuckles when I made a mistake. But off we went. My mother and I of course. Not my father whose decision this was.
This piano teacher had the power to decide whether I was worthy of being his pupil. He listened to me plunk out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. Then he gave me the names of other songs and instead of figuring out where the keys were for those notes, he asked me to tap out the songs on the side of the piano. This I later discovered was to determine if I understood tempo and beat (I had the same type of test in grade six when it was being decided if I qualified for the instrumental music programme at the junior high school I was to attend the following year – I did). After some deliberation, it was decided that, despite my young age, I was considered worthy of his time and attention. At a cost to my parents of course.
We progressed well, for the most part, until it came time to begin reading and writing music. I found it difficult at age 6 to make the shift from just hearing something in my head to being able to understand that those circles and semi circles, some with funny looking squiggles represented the places my fingers went on those keys, and for how long they stayed there. I memorized Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and learned to draw a treble clef (I liked the art part). And let us not forget sharps and flats.
Practicing became a chore. None of my friends were learning piano and I was missing out on play time. My sister was too young yet to do anything but plunk her hands at random spots on the keys believing she was creating beautiful music. I wished I still had that option. The day came when I said “enough” that I was no longer enjoying making music. That sitting on that stool and having to spend hours playing the same song until I could almost do it in my sleep had stolen the joy. By the age of eight I had handed in my notice. I realize now, looking back, that there were other factors happening at that time in my life as well that affected my decision to abandon my father’s dream for me.
For three years in junior high school, I learned to play the clarinet. I was able to read the music; write the music for tests and play for every test I was given. Practicing was no longer a chore, and the love of music was reborn. For two of those three years I played in the school band and that included concert performances. My mother attended them all. My father never bothered to show up. And by grade 10 when I could continue music in high school, life had changed once again, and I dropped instrumental music.
I wish learning to play the piano had been my own idea, one born from an eagerness to do more than just play by what I could hear in my head. Although I no longer play an instrument, I still have the music in me. The love of music, of the songs I hear in my head, the beat, and the rhythm of the instrumentals always move me through my soul, my spirit and my feet.
Paper Chains
After a recent visit to the Winter Market in Toronto, seeing the decorations I expected I’d begin to feel myself embracing the spirit of the season. Not yet. It’s still too early for me to embrace those December feelings of excitement and anticipation. Too early to hear the music that always moves me in a way no other pieces of music can. Too early for carols and hymns of praise and gratitude. Too early even for my beloved “Feliz Navidad” that I can play on a loop to the dismay of anyone nearby, that I’ll dance down an aisle to in any store that has it playing over the speakers.
The walk through that market filled with holiday colour and sparkle triggered a memory. Of my sons when they were young children and the lesson one of them learned, that turned into a learning experience for me as well. Of a teacher who blessed their earliest start in education and learning through the kindergarten years.
Linda (she was Mrs. B. to them) had a way with children that encouraged them to try even when they thought they couldn’t. Her approach to learning, and to life, was that often, the blocks you face are the ones you place in front of yourself.
My oldest is the typical first born. The one who has high expectations of himself and who would stress over an assignment or a project, spending more time planning than actually doing. Procrastination has been the companion of his life, and I take my share of responsibility for his inheritance of that trait. Never one to use the allotted time for a project, an essay or a paper, I’d leave it to the very last minute and still produce something that was graded with high marks. Something I always told myself about doing my best work under pressure. This son is just like his mother in that regard. We can visualize the finished project, but it looms so large in front of us, forming a barrier to getting to where we need to be. So, daunting us, we turn our attention elsewhere and leave that barrier to another day, until there is only the day or the night before that deadline.
We both learned a valuable life lesson in his junior kindergarten year and it’s one that from time to time we’ve reflected on, reminding each other how to face that barrier, to be able to dismantle it.
Around this time in November, one of Linda’s curriculum projects had the students creating paper chains. They were to make two of these chains – one to drape on the tree at home and one to use at home as an advent calendar, one chain broken off each day to count down to Christmas Eve. Each chain required 24 strips of paper, and they would be glued together to form the chain. A very easy little project for 4- and 5-year-olds to manage (I should mention here that children are different – my younger son had no issues with this project when he was in that class). When I arrived to collect my son from school that morning, Linda took me aside to explain what had happened during their craft activity (which was less about crafting and more about dexterity and problem solving as it turned out).
Sat at his little table was my son with 48 small strips of paper facing him. He was completely overwhelmed by the task he was to complete because all he could see was the finished product. He wasn’t seeing the small steps necessary to achieve that final goal. He sat, staring at the desk without making a single chain. Linda sat with him and when she asked him why he was so hesitant my son replied, “I’ll never get it done.” Reassuring him that he would indeed get it done, she picked up the first strip, and she glued to the two ends together. Then she asked him to do one, looping his through the hoop she had just created and he did. Linda repeated the process with him a few more times until she saw that my son was able to continue by himself. As she moved on to another student, she reminded him that it was just one loop at a time, one step at a time, one piece at a time. She told him that you don’t just go from A to Z, you have to follow all of the letters from start to finish.
As we walked home that morning, my son and I talked about how we both learned something that day. Do we still follow that rule? I’d say not always given how this son managed assignments later in his school life. But it does come to the forefront at times of great challenge when it is really necessary. It kept me going through cancer treatment, knowing that as tedious and difficult as it was, everything had to happen in order, one step at a time.
That first teacher left a deeply lasting impression on that young boy for more reasons than just how to approach daunting tasks but that one lesson has had the most impact. He’s a teacher now himself, reminding his students how to do things one step at a time.
Rewrite
One of the projects I set for myself many years ago was to complete a written family history. I’m the last one of my maternal generation who remembers and it seemed important, no, imperative that I do this. Years of research have gathered much more information than I could ever have hoped to find. I’m still learning new things about the past. All of that information made writing a history a much larger project than it really needed to be and so I set myself this monumental task. The idea of it seemed doable but the actual completion felt like a mountain I was never going to be able to climb.
Many times, I thought of new ways to approach the task. And nothing ever came across as genuine or authentic. I’d give up in frustration and think I might just be wasting my time. I’d check in with my sons and ask them if this was something they’d like to have and they would encourage me to do it, so I would keep going.
A few months ago, my computer died. As all things must do eventually. The chapters I have written were backed up so I wasn’t too concerned, but as I discovered not all were. The ones I had written about my sister disappeared but for some unknown reason, I hadn’t backed up that file. I was bereft and angry with myself, but I knew I could write them again. And yet I haven’t done so. Something has been holding me back. As if she’s leaning over my shoulder, whispering in my ear, “That’s not it. That’s not the story I want you to share about me. Tell it all and tell it in a way that isn’t just how you remember me.” My sister’s death still haunts me. Her unexpected death of a pulmonary embolism at a young age is something that I still find hard to accept.
I wrote her eulogy and said all the words of love I hadn’t said to her as often as I wished I had. I let the people who came to mourn her hear the words they wanted to hear – of the person they knew. The bright, sunny, funny young woman who always hid from even her closest friends, the pain she carried in her heart. I thought I was protecting her. And maybe I did the right thing on that occasion. I want to believe that is true.
Recently I read a quote that has stayed with me:
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
Terry Pratchett
I didn’t lose what I’d written when that computer bit the dust. I gained the insight that I was missing. I can still tell the story of who my sister was to me and what she meant in my life. But the story is not about me. The story is about her and who she was in this world.
Final Instructions
No sooner had the door closed behind us as we were leaving the funeral home after the visitation for the father of my son’s close friend, than the conversation began as we walked towards the car.
My son looked at me in all seriousness and nodding his head backwards towards that cold, white building, said “So, would you want something like that when the time comes?” “That” meaning an open casket, people sitting in contemplation and then making small talk in a lounge, offering words of comfort, recalling the life of the deceased as well as the awkwardness of people who might not know the words to say.
The conversation continued in the car as we drove home just as have so many of the best, deepest, conversations he and I have shared over the years while driving to one sports commitment or another. Enclosed spaces, like the confessional, offer the opportunity for privacy, intimacy, and openness. Those conversations formed a bond that lasts and has deepened all these years later.
Talking about death was the kind of conversation we had not had years ago when he was too young to contemplate death or what happens afterward. This son was a young child when my mother and then my sister died within 2 years of one another. 5 years after that I was diagnosed with cancer and once again he saw loss looming on the horizon. Fear of death was a constant companion for many years of that young life. We did our best to work through that by talking about life and death in terms he could understand. As the years have passed, death and dying has come up in casual conversation, remembering funerals of family members, or a reference made that would prompt a comment from me like “do not when writing my obituary say I lost my battle with cancer or I will haunt you to the ends of the earth” followed by teasing and laughter.
I have written five obituary notices and I have written six eulogies. None of them easy to do and in most cases the deaths were so sudden that there was no time to have ever had any discourse with the person who died as to what they would like as their time on this earth reached the last page in their book of a life. To write someone’s obituary and their eulogy is a privilege. Summing up a life in a condensed essay is a challenge as you strive to do justice to what the person’s presence has meant to you in your own life, to the lives of others and to the world. How we wish others to remember us depends in large part on how we behave towards others and how we conduct ourselves in the world. The sad fact of any eulogy is that the person being honoured does not hear the words of praise, love, affection, and remembrance. We too often save our highest praise and our fondest memories about someone for others to bear witness. Sadly, we rarely share those thoughts with the individual to whom it would have such meaning. Why do we resist telling someone how we feel about them, how they make us feel, how they have inspired us or encouraged us? We need to do that and do it often.
I told my son that I really don’t want “all of that.” I would prefer no funeral. I hope to have my ashes spread in a body of water where I can gently float away, or in any location my sons select that brings them comfort and tranquility. If they feel better having a funeral, then so be it. If they would rather throw a party, surrounding themselves with the people who mean the most to them they could do that. I hope my children will tell stories about me that will make them laugh. I have done my best to provide plenty of those moments.
It was an important conversation to have – acknowledging that this will be a reality my son will at some point face. He may recall all of the things we discussed or, as can happen with grief, he may forget. We both hope this information won’t be necessary for some time to come, but as we have experienced far too often, life has its own agenda. Recalling that October afternoon conversation, I’m attaching a note with all the other important papers that will be needed when the time comes, with a reminder of my only important directive. To remember that this badass warrior did not lose any battles to cancer or otherwise, and that she lived fully the life she was given in the time she was blessed to be granted.