Connections...

My Mom and I had a unique way of communicating. Sometimes it was with just a look or glance, other times it was through a language we shared and understood. She might say something to me like, "Cath, go fetch me the whose-its beside the dooferdinkus on the whatchamacallit." and I knew exactly what she was talking about. We had a connection. We liked the same things. Mom and I had many likes in common, such as; seeing the first buds of Spring; smelling honeysuckle and Russian Olives in bloom; letting the sun warm our bones; reading a good book; sharing a belly laugh; making a difference. 

Mom made a difference in whatever she did. She put her heart into everything from gardening to making dinner. When I was a kid and dinner was ready she would open the kitchen window and holler, "Kooey-yooey-yoo-hooooo!" and I'd come running. She didn't call my name for hours to no avail. The din of "Kooey-yooey-yoo-hooooo" rang for blocks. It was my dinner bell. 

The Contraception Bell

I have a bell. It's a replica of a school bell. I call it "The Contraception Bell". That's because I live on a greenbelt where lazy summer days beckon young teens to nestle in a cool place on the grass for a little afternoon delight. Sometimes right outside my yard! When this occurs I put "The Contraception Bell" to use by opening my patio door and giving it a good workout. "CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG." This usually makes them stop for a brief moment before returning to their nubile ways. "CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG", I sound the bell again. Now they sit up, looking for the source of the clatter. When none is evident they return to their business. Undeterred, I ring the bell again, "CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG". This time they get up, refasten themselves, brush grass off their clothes, straighten their hair and wander off hand in hand. The third time is the charm. I have made a difference and momentarily thwarted the possibility of an unwanted teen pregnancy. We've made a connection and they understand the unspoken language of the bell. 

Contraception is not the only language the bell speaks. I've recently discovered that it is also adept at calling Emma when her Dad is at the door to pick her up and she's playing at a neighbor's house. With the familiar "CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG, CLANG-CLANG" she sprints home on winged feet. This is my version of Mom's "Kooey-yooey-yoo-hooooo". It's a very useful bell. 

I won't have much need for it anymore. We've sold our home and are moving to a new community  where there's no greenbelt temptation and Emma will be going elsewhere after school next year. I will miss her. We have a connection. We made a difference to each other. Endings bring new beginnings, so the bell will gather dust and lose its lustre; unless... I give it to a little girl with wings on her feet. 

I think Mom would be pleased - and the rest is pixie dust...

Firsts...

When you lose someone very dear to you, you go through a series of firsts in the year following their departure. So far, I've experienced the first Mother's Day, the first Birthday, and the first Father's Day.

My Dad has been gone for eight years; it was my first motherless Father's Day. This might seem a little strange, but that's grief for you. It's full of surprises. I thought about my Mom and the man she chose as her husband and father of her children. Theirs was not an easy relationship. Mom had a charmed upbringing and Dad was a complicated man. Maybe it all started when he was just a boy. 

He was the middle child of seven with four sisters and two brothers. He wasn't the best student; more familiar with the strap than he was with academics but he was an avid reader. He would settle in the hay loft with a good book for hours. That's probably why he was so well-versed with his Mother's use of the bull whip. Eventually, the camel's last straw made him take the axe to that instrument of dread and give it a proper burial. I can't say I blame him. He didn't have things easy.  

They were dirt poor and his Dad liked the drink. My Grandmother was a strong Norwegian woman who was not the victim of spousal abuse, she was the perpetrator. From what I gathered, my Grandfather was a mild-mannered fellow and the two of them were like oil and water. Eventually, they parted company. Grandma longed for the mountains of British Columbia so much like her Nordic homeland. Grandpa took up residence in a hotel in Medicine Hat where he was employed with the City. This was a defining moment in my Dad's life. 

He was just fourteen when he watched the dust settle in tire tracks as his sisters, brothers and Mother drove off, leaving him on his own with enough raw potatoes to last two weeks. His elder brother Harry was old enough to drive. His youngest brother Norman was too young to leave behind. His sisters were helpmates to their Mother. My Dad was expendable. I can't imagine how he felt; lonely and discarded I suppose. A survivor by nature, he soon tired of the menu, made his way to town and got himself a job. 

Dad did everything, from honey-wagon duty, to running horses between seller and buyer.  He wasn't afraid of hard work and learned quickly. He had a brief stint in the Army but was honorably discharged due to a recurring stomach ailment. He and my Mom fell in love while working at the Crystal Dairy. I plugged my ears when she told me how they steamed things up in the ice cream room. But like Wills and Kate they took a break. Mom just wasn't sure he was the one. Dad knew what he wanted and had my maternal Grandmother as his ally. On September 26, 1945 they were married in St Barnabas Anglican Church. Mom looked beautiful; Dad handsome. But it wasn't picture perfect. 

Like his father before him Dad also found the drink. Coins jingling in his pocket turned to liquid. Dreams faded away. They never moved into the home they built. Dad said Mom wanted to move home with her folks; Mom said Dad sold the house out from under her. Whatever the truth was, they moved into her childhood home with her parents shortly before my brother was born in December 1946. They lost a baby girl before my sister arrived safely in November 1951. When my Mom's Mother died in 1955 my Dad was hospitalized for an extended period and had to undergo shock treatments for depression. Then I came along in May 1958, heralded by my Dad singing, "I've Got the Whole World in My Hands...". Through it all the world kept spinning on its axis and my Mom put one foot in front of the other. But it wasn't without cost. 

She became embittered; Dad, overbearing and solitary. When he died in 2003, Mom never cried. She acknowledged that he had been a good provider but it took a while to forgive him for the past. All that is separate from me. I remember being loved by both my parents. Dad was my protector and go-to-guy. Mom was my confidante and ally. I like to think they shared a friendship, maybe even an understanding on some level. What child wouldn't hope that of their parents.

Mom & Dad 1998

I love this picture of Mom and Dad together, sitting in their lawn chairs on the grass, sharing a moment. I see the connection in their eyes. I see love there. I see my parents - perfect in their imperfection. 

And the rest is pixie dust...

LOL...

My Mom and I were a lot alike; both of us extroverted introverts who sat on the fence between the two opposites. For me, depending on the day, six out of ten toes tend to dangle on the introverted side. This uniqueness has enabled both of us to live a solitary existence inside our own heads with relative ease. We have also shared similar comfort in most social settings. I was blessed to inherit these traits from my Mom; but best of all, she bestowed on me her love of laughter.

Lately, laughter doesn't come as easily as it once did. I've been especially concerned about my sense of humor.  It seems intimidated by grief, or at the very least, is giving grief its due and laying low. In the relationship between humor and grief, I wonder if humor is the introvert. Maybe it sits on the same fence I do; occasionally dangling a toe over the edge. Whatever the case may be, I've been missing my funny bone and have considered that my Mom may have taken it with her.

Mom and I laughed a lot together; crazy, gut-busting, roll-on-the-floor laughter. Like the time my sister took Mom and I with her to the car wash. We sat in the car while Fay took hold of the washer-wand and plugged tokens in the machine. Her grip must have been tentative because the sudden pressure of the water caused the wand to fly out of her hand and become a writhing, spraying, menace. It thumped the car and Fay repeatedly; spewing warm, soapy water everywhere. Fay's hair hung in long wet strands; her eyes were almost squeezed shut and she was blowing water out of her mouth like a diver coming up for air. With arms flailing blindly in front of her, she tried her best to catch the wand and protect herself at the same time; to no avail. Mom and I watched in disbelief at first. Surely this couldn't be happening to Fay; she was always in control. We thought of trying to rescue her, but the comedy of the situation overcame us. So we let the event play itself out and laughed until we cried. At Fay's expense of course. 

Mom called that 'shadenfreude', or laughing at the misfortune of others. It's not a past-time that wins friends and influences people, but it can be the source of much comedic relief. The success of some television programs depends on it. Usually, Mom laughed at herself best. She loved to re-tell funny events that happened to her to a captive audience. Like the time Dad took her to the grocery store to pick up some provisions. They were at the checkout and the cashier looked at my Dad and said, "So, you're an alcoholic!" To which my Dad replied unabashedly, "Why yes I am!". You could have knocked Mom over with a feather. For years she'd been trying to get my Dad to admit he had a drinking problem and it took a stranger to do it. Unfortunately, this breakthrough was short-lived. When he turned around to face Mom she noticed he had on his favorite cap that said, "I'm an ELK-aholic!". Her friends loved that story and she got years of mirthful mileage from it.

Her family also benefited from her sense of humor. My son Tim remembers with fondness the time he and his sister visited Granny at the assisted living facility in Medicine Hat. They'd had a great time together and when their visit came to an end, she walked them to the elevator. Just as the door was closing and Mom was waving goodbye, Tim said, "Keep it freaky Granny!" Mom suddenly crumpled and fell to the floor. Alarmed and fearing the worst, Tim pressed the open door button and rushed to his Granny's aid. She was fine. For some reason Tim's comment tickled her funny bone and she collapsed in a fit of silent laughter. I miss her eyes-squeezed-shut silent laughter. I miss that twinkle in her eye and the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. I miss the way she saw the world. I miss my funny bone. 

Emma & Zoe

Maybe it's not gone completely. At three twenty-five every weekday a school bus stops across the street from my house and an energetic, bright-eyed, brown-haired, Irish-Italian, eight-year-old girl named Emma jumps off. She's all mine for an hour and a half until her Dad comes to pick her up. We greet each other with a smile, pick up the mail, walk up the steps to the house and open the door to a bouncing, happy dog. Sometimes Emma hangs up her backpack and coat and sometimes she doesn't. Always, she washes her hands and the dog waits on the rug by the door until Emma gets her a cookie. Then she skips into the kitchen and plunks herself down at the counter for her own snack. We talk about her day; whether or not she has homework; who said what to her on the playground. Then with a twinkle in her eye and a smile at the corner of her mouth she says, "Cathie, what's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?" I say, "I don't know Emma, what is the difference between roast beef and pea soup?" She looks at me with a jagged grin and replies, "Anybody can roast beef...".

And the rest is pixie dust...

Adrift...

Goodbyes are hard. It's not something I'm good at. As much as I tell myself to be strong, tears well up and I get that familiar ache in the back of my throat until I set them free. It's that first tear that opens the flood gates and there's no telling when it will end. Especially if there are tears not spent over things past. I didn't inherit this teary trait from my Mother.

She was stoic when it came to goodbyes. I know she suffered from unspent tears as much, if not more than me. After all, she lived through hard times; the Great Depression; World War II; and the inability to close the gap between loved ones as easily as we can today with the telephone, computers, fast cars and air travel. Maybe it was all the goodbyes she experienced that exercised those tiny little muscles that controlled her tear ducts. Whatever the cause, as a result she became an expert at goodbye.

I was witness to this skill she possessed the summer I moved her to Edmonton. She was eighty-seven at the time and had lived every second of those many years in the same community. Her friends were still there; childhood friends; friends she and my Dad had as a crazy-in-love young couple; church friends; writing friends; new friends. In between packing up her belongings I took her to visit these people who were so important to her, so she could say farewell. Time after time I watched as they hugged and said their goodbyes with nary a tear, even knowing this was likely the last time they would ever see each other. I watched from the puddle of salty tears I was reduced to shimmering on the floor. I know she felt a deep sadness at leaving them. I know because she wouldn't look me in the eye. Tears are highly contagious and they weren't something she wanted to catch. She'd suffered much loss over her brothers, her sister, her eldest daughter, her husband, her sister-in-law, and parting with the home she grew up in, but I never saw her cry. She had ducts of steel.

Tracy, Me, Wise Young Yoga Instructor, Janice, Cherie and Mabel

I have ducts of fluff. This week I said goodbye to my wise young yoga instructor. She's getting married and moving to Calgary to start a new life and as much as I am happy for her, I have been a shimmering puddle all week. Of course some of these tears are unspent tears for my Mom. There might even be some in there over the failings of my first marriage, the suffering of my children, the vanishing of my sister, the loss of my Dad, the passing of aunts and uncles, the sorrows of friends, and numerous dogs and cats I've known and loved. When those flood gates open they all come spilling out. It's like a tear-fest over so much lost. 

I've lost another wisdom-keeper in my life; losing two in such a short span of time is devastating. I feel rudderless; adrift. Both their missions in my life are complete and so they've moved on. My Mom fulfilled her mortal toil and my wise young yoga instructor is in greater need elsewhere. It's up to me to ensure the wisdom they imparted; the blessings they bestowed; are put to good use. I guess I'll start by focusing on breath and putting one foot in front of the other. 

Still standing... namaste.

Ripples...

Years from now, if civilizations unearth our remains as we have those before us, they will think we were made of paper. I spent several days this week scouring nearly forty years of paper belonging to my parents. They saved everything. 

I read Worker's Compensation reports confirming that my Dad had Asbestosis, notifications of the monthly pension amount he was allotted, and the annual statements of increase. I read letters from lawyers my Dad had hired to file complaints against the City of Medicine Hat because the work they were doing in the remote area where they lived was polluting the air he breathed. I read snippets of poems my Mom never finished, and leafed through income tax filings and bank statements. It was a mountain of paper that my shredder struggled to digest. This was my parent's life that I was feeding into this temperamental machine. It was paper their eyes and hands had touched.

This notion gave me pause. My mind's eye conjured up misty images of them holding these papers; my Dad's strong hands, my Mom's long, slender fingers. I imagined them alive, intact, and living in the old house going about their lives as they had always done. It was a pleasant thought and in a way, I felt like a kid sticking my hand in the cookie jar. These were private matters significant to their livelihood and off limits to me. 

In life, they would never have discussed these matters with me, their youngest and least educated child; their baby. But here I was, an unwitting voyeur, peering into their lives and privy to their business. Death seems to lay us bare. Things we held close to our chests in life are suddenly unleashed, secrets are squandered and truths are inadvertently told. It made me wonder why we bother to conceal those things we have no choice but to leave behind. Yet no great family secrets were revealed to me. 

I didn't find any papers to confirm my childhood suspicions that I was adopted. There was no money being funneled to offshore accounts and my Dad didn't have another wife and family in Wisconsin. The only noteworthy item I found and spared from the jaws of the shredder was a letter from my sister's childhood friend, Bonnie. She wrote to my Mom thanking her for the farewell tribute she gave at Bonnie's Mom's funeral and how much that meant to her. She also thanked Mom for her influence and everything she did for Bonnie as she was growing up. In capital letters she wrote, "I THINK YOU ARE A GREAT LADY!"

 
While chiseling my way through this mountain of paper I'd unearthed a treasure, a gem, a nugget of truth. It reaffirmed that my Mom left her handprint on more hearts than just my own. She wasn't a poor little black girl from the backwoods of Mississippi who rose up from obscurity and made a big splash. She was a quietly remarkable person, who gave of herself and made a difference; content just to make ripples. 

The rest is pixie dust...