Loss

Losses are painful and all part of living. At times it's the small things that hit the hardest. I check my emails every morning and the one I looked forward to the most is missing. And will be forever. And fresh tears leak. I know that too, will diminish in time. I tracked down this post I made when another died. It helped then and it helps me now. For all those who miss her and those who have suffered more than their share in the past year. I'm thinking also of my dear brother who died last November and I think of, especially, Andrew and Kylie

On those days when you miss someone the most, as though your memories are sharp enough to slice through skin and bone, remember how they loved you.
Remember how they loved you and do that, for yourself.
In their name, in their honour.
Love yourself, as they loved you.
They would like that.
On those days when you miss someone the most,
love yourself harder.

Author : Donna Ashworth

 

Beautiful Words

I called Lana, my friend with Alzheimer's tonight. She was overjoyed as always to hear my voice. And said she adored a card that I had sent her and showed it to everyone and described everything on it to me.

She sounded so alert and close to her old self.

She said she had felt good enough to go back to her old house and to have her car back in her life as driving was her passion. And she explained to her son that her leg was now back to normal, and she was back to normal, so time to go home, right?

She quotes their entire conversation verbatim to me, "Mum," he said to her, "I'm going to be completely honest with you. The problem hasn't been really about your leg. The problem has been your short term memory vanishing."

And on the phone to me she takes an enormous breath and stays silent.

"And," she said, "I had to accept that. I had to absorb that."

And then he said to her, "You will not be leaving here, Mum. This is where you are safe and have no worries."

"And Mum," he added, "I want you to know that as your light dims, my light will shine brighter to brighten up your darkness."

And we both cried.

I still am incredibly moved by these words, the courage and honesty and love behind them. And that they stayed with her so she could repeat them to me.

Variations on the Melody of Love - Part 5 (Final)

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here
See Part 3 here
See Part 4 here

I offer you the above exchange to reflect the humour that is present in our ongoing texting. I am so grateful that it occurred to me to show her how to text. I have to reign myself in as I want to complicate everything. For instance, I wanted her to get internet on her phone and stopped myself. Why? I asked myself. Keep it simple, stupid. This one step into technology is just fine for her. Perfect in fact and she is delighted with it. She texts me twice or three times a day. Little updates. For that is all there is to life, surely - the small stuff.

Lana is very present in the moments, recounting small incidents such as the Canada Day fireworks in the field behind her house last night. One of her very frightening moments in NB in our stay there was when she couldn't recall a single detail of her house, the front, back, interior. It was a blank slate. She has lived there for over twenty years. I confess to being frightened too. How awful not to recollect even the straightforward things such as one's kitchen or driveway or bedroom.

She is going to check in with her doctor again tomorrow to make sure he's on top of the specialist situation. He had put a priority on it and has been her doctor for a very long time so knows her well and she likes him.

No more can I do apart from offering her love and support from afar. I'm enjoying our wee texts to each other throughout the day and evening.

We have a rainbow ribbon of sisterhood connecting us.

Variations on the Melody of Love - Part 4

Lana at the site of the Reversing Falls.

See Part 1 here
See Part 2 here
See Part 3 here

First of all thank you for the very supportive messages sent to me. This has has been extraordinarily difficult to write. I am also conscious of Lana's privacy (her name has been changed and of course I am anonymous). However, there's a catharsis to this as well, and I am a firm believer in sharing both taboo or difficult topics in an effort to bring more understanding to challenges we may face along the way. One of Lana's favourite expressions is "throw the floodlights into the dark corners of your life" and this she has done in her own life and has also encouraged me to do the same. Only then can we heal.

Lana has been enormously helpful to me over the years. She has a very loving, understanding heart and is brutally honest with others and with me. I know she has read this blog (my invitation) in the past but such technology is beyond her now. My teaching her texting has been a giant leap for her and this is also assisting her in memory jogging and more on that later.

Once The Conversation was out of the way, we settled down to chatting about her condition. It was very emotional, many long hugs, tears and then the jokes. Our senses of humour had not failed us. At the end of Day 4 as we sat there in the living room, she said:

L"I hope I'll remember all of this in the morning."

Me"I should have a tape recorder perhaps."

L"It would get too full and then where would we be?"

M"Maybe just the important points?"

L"What are those?"

Laughter.

Sometimes we have to dig deep in our hearts for understanding and words.

She says: "my brain feels like a long highway and the potholes surprise me. And the stones and pebbles too. I can't predict them."

"Much like life," I respond, "We just never know when our stumbles and falls are going to occur."

There was much in the power of silence.

Love takes many shapes and sizes, I think. The love between two friends can surpass many types of love when total honesty prevails and our fears, our hurts, our uncertainties find an often trembling voice. Only then do we find strength, only then do we gather the courage to carry on.

We hold on to each other physically many times. I touch her more often than I normally would. Assurance. Trust. I kiss her forehead as I would a child. I don't know when, if ever, we'll see each other again. I stay in the moment. I act normally and she notices.

"Before," she says, "I knew there was something wrong in our conversations, a slight reaction on your face, a little shock sometimes, though you tried to cover it. I was aware of you being patient and kind in repeating things for me. But I couldn't verbalize this without pulling down all the walls. I knew I had to probe deeper and find words to break through. But now, there's no barrier at all, now we can talk in the sunshine!"

See Part 5 here.

Variations on the Melody of Love - Part 3

Lana on the deck of our cabin

See Part 1 here, see Part 2 here

I'm always learning. I listen closely to people, even strangers, and they unknowingly teach me what to do, but also what not to do. For instance (small thing): I hate doing dishes by hand. I've always had a dishwasher. There is no way a dishwasher fits into my kitchen now. Even though I've explored all possibilities, the drawer kind, the shelf kind, the box kind and even a portable is out of the question. So a blogmate recently wrote about making dish-washing a kind of meditation at the end of the day and I find this extraordinarily peaceful and think: I am so very fortunate to still be able to stand and do wishes even with my PVD as I can lean on the counter if needed, but yes, taking care of one's self involves washing dishes and leaving a welcoming clean kitchen for the morning. Thank you, Kate.

So Lana, upstairs in the cabin, made friends with this enormous tree outside of one of her windows. She'd come down in the mornings and tell me about the movements of the tree, how it was reacting to the sun (light and shadow, ever changing) and how the rustling sound of it soothed her thoughts and kept her present in the moment. The tree was speaking to her every day.

I sat outside with her and we watched this particular tree together and looked at the many colours of green and the interweaving gentle branches and how it sheltered us and we speculated how it was watching us as we were watching it. Extraordinary to take that kind of time with someone else. Normally I would read a book or knit or write. But I sat with her and did absolutely nothing.

Now, if you're ever wondering where to eat when you are travelling and if you can, try the local golf club restaurant if there is one. A tourist who stayed with me back in the B&B days passed this tip on from her father who was a world traveller. We tried our local golf club the second day of our stay and were bowled over with the quality of the food and reasonable prices and fantastic service. So we went back on the 4th day.

And it was there that Lana sat staring at me across the table for what seemed like an eternity and then put her slightly shaking hands flat on the table and taking a huge breath said:

"We go back a long way, WWW, and I'm wondering if you could answer this big question I'm going to put to you. If you can't, I'll understand but there is no one else for me to ask."

I couldn't even think of anything she would want to ask me, but I nodded: why of course.

"Have you noticed any major changes in me? I'm thinking physical, mental, emotional or spiritual?"

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn't stop the sudden rush of tears to my eyes. I took my time. Sweet Goddess help me, I thought. Truth? Fudging? Evasion?

"Yes," I whispered, "Yes, yes I have, Lana."

And then our real conversations began.

See Part 4 here.

Variations on the Melody of Love. Part 2

The fireplace at the cabin in New Brunswick which heard much of our shared history.

See Part 1 here.

I quickly become accustomed to repeating information, very gently, very softly. Always current information.

But our past memories are easily accessible and validated.

Odd questions are thrown at me:

"How are the neighbours around here? Have you gotten to know them?"

"Do you like your neighbours?"

I'm a type A personality so appreciate this rather rapid descent into tolerance and patience. Lessons are valuable no matter how I learn them.

I take charge of the driving and mealtimes and quickly realize that entering any new establishment at odd times like 3 o'clock in the afternoon is a signal to her that dinner is soon so I avoid such afternoon introductions of new places.

At night, I begin to read to her a novel I am editing, but realize that her retention of memory from the night before of what transpired has now evaporated.

I am mindful of her mother, laughing like a child, remarkably aware, who descended rapidly into dementia, saying that now she read the first page of a new book over and over as it was always fresh to her.

I abandon this endeavour on the 3rd night and she never remarks on the absence of this activity.

Instead we talk, of her family and mine (mine are re-introduced, she'd forgotten my siblings even though she met them a few times). Her clarity on her own family is superb, including the distance she maintains from a fraudulent and abusive sibling. Our common friendships are relived and savoured. Our past relationships and erstwhile partners are evaluated with hindsight, wisdom and laughter. She even proffers some startling new (to me) information on a former husband that she has previously withheld.

She is very kind to me, even though I have to repeat, gently, my health challenges just about daily to her. I carry my cane to reinforce this with her. And it works.

"Tell me again what's wrong with you?" she says every morning, with such deep concern and compassion and love. I slowly explain about my PVD as if for the first time every time.

A frightening panic-filled moment comes when we leave a historic market place on the fourth day of our holiday.

"Somebody stole my car, where's my car? What are we going to do?" she wanders around the parking lot very upset.

"It's OK,"I say,"You know what? I think I drove today. Look for a sapphire blue car!"

"Oh my God, of course that's it! You drove today!"

I drive every day we're together.

But unbeknownst to me, the miracle is waiting just around the corner.

See Part 3 here.

Variations on the Melody of Love. Part 1

Our beach in New Brunswick

I'm laying down my deepest thoughts here - mainly as a way of processing them as they are all rather new and at times unexpected and often so poignant that they take my breath away.

I've written of the plans for these past 11 days here. I've now returned from this trip. Exhausted in many ways, not least of which is that old woman syndrome that thinks driving 3,500k in 11 days is just the same as when she was 60. Not so. Toll on body and mind is, how shall I put it, excessive. But I made it.

I reached the cabin we had rented on Friday, June 13th. My friend hadn't arrived yet, even though she had texted me (a new skill I had taught her) that morning. A slight panic ensued as this leg of her trip should have taken, longest, 6 hours and I was now looking at 8. A man pulled onto the driveway in a truck just as my panic mounted.

"Your friend has followed me down here," he said, "I found her lost on the highway." He looked serious.

First intimations of trouble. She had three GPS units in her car in case one broke down.

Soon enough, Lana pulled in behind him, laughing.

"This handsome dude went out of his way to guide me here!" she said as she climbed out of her vehicle. We bade farewell to Dude, very handsome and kind.

She looks down at the cabin (gorgeous) below on the water.

"You have a lovely place here!" she says as she hugs me.

"Well, we do," I say, "You and I rented it for the week."

"We did? Oh yes, that's right."

We negotiate the many wooden steps down with our belongings and quickly select our bedrooms. She upstairs, me downstairs. The place is lovely, very large but homey with an unexpected bonus - we have our own beach.

I make coffee in the kitchen and she joins me.

"I must say," she says, giving me another hug, "You sure know how to pick lovely places. How long have you lived here?"

And so the week begins.

See Part 2 here

Blog Jam

My mornings

Water bottle
Tao meditation
Candle
Journal
An Indian Ocean sunset from a blog friend received in the mail yesterday.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elder Daughter

She researched a little on how mothers might live longer. Discovered that daughters, spending more positive time with their mothers, extend their lives immeasurably. Every time we get together now, she calls it "my life extension programme." I have a living example in my building. An 84 yo woman - who would put women half her age to shame - bounces out of a different car in the parking lot around 7 each night. Turns out one of her six daughters take it in turns to pick her up for dinner each night of the week. I had wondered why she was always so happy. She should live to be 180.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Love

I had been looking for a headboard for my bed for a long time. Nothing appealed. Then Daughter arrived on Mother's Day lugging this beauty along with her tool kit to install it. It is so perfect I could weep. My bedroom doubles as my den so I like the distinction of the sleep area. Plus: bonus stuff holder.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gratitude - Surviving.

I am grateful I have survived this long. Life isn't always a bowl of cherries and certain times of the year are worse than others for most of us.

I was thinking back on pivotal moments. The ones that changed everything.

I've had a few directional shifts in my life. Emigrating to Canada. Semi-retiring to Newfoundland. Recovering from alcoholism. To name but a few. And children. Bearing and rearing of same are enormous pivotal moments.

I have very little regrets, if any. I can't think of one offhand apart from wishing I'd been kinder, less defensive. We use the tools, often faulty, that we're brought up with, and frankly I should have abandoned mine much sooner. But I can't preordain the speed and direction of my own personal and spiritual growth.

I can't understand you if I can't understand myself.

I'm shocked by people who put an end to their learning. One said to me recently: I hate new words, I hate learning things. I've had enough. And she's 8 years younger than I.

And here I am wading through a book about Burma and designing a book cover for a daytimer. How? I ask myself. How can we abandon being curious, being creative, being a scholar?

So as I age I find fewer to discuss ideas with. I find, on the whole, talk is reduced to gossip and medications: yours, mine, ours.

But I have a cherished few. And the Young One. Grateful for that I am.

Grateful for Daughter who sees me right each and every time in ways I can't even count.

Grateful for the one sibling who checks up on me with frequency and concern. One out of 5 ain't bad.

Grateful for dear friends who are there, always, with love and open hearts.

Grateful for this one wild and precious life.

Life Lessons from Knitting

Knitting has taught me so much about life. I'm currently working on an afghan (sofa blanket) for a dear friend who has been so good to me.

The other day I discovered an error in it and I'm a little OCD when it comes to knitting so I immediately ripped down the four stitches to the error, corrected the problem and moved on. Not so fast. For I soon discovered that two stitches had gone AWOL.

There was nothing for it but to rip down all the rows and then reknit the entire problematic row again. And the two missing stitches magically reappeared with innocent faces on them.

Which put me in mind of relationships, how some are irreparable – they can't be patched up and oftentimes they have to be taken right down to the foundation and assessed to see if they can be rebuilt. Challenging.

Sometimes a design on paper can be beautiful but in practical application can be a disaster. All the kinks have to be ironed out, often with a practice run. It's far better to find out early in the game if something's not going to work than to invest time, effort and dreams into a project that is destined to fail.

It is best to concentrate on the project at hand. At times, my mind drifts off to the next project which is always more exciting than the one in my hands and that's where I make mistakes, cabling (twisting) the pattern the wrong way, forgetting plain rows and purling like a mad thing, forgetting to insert a key element like a heart or a piece of lacework.

Before, I would tell you that knitting is nothing, anybody can do it. Today I recognise, like all creative endeavours, it is something that comes from my heart, my soul, my spirit. It nurtures me, slows me down.

As I knit, I think, with love, of the people I am knitting for. A gift of time and memories as I run the needles back and forth. Most of the projects I complete and gift take well over 100 hours of my time around the rest of the busy-ness of my life. I weave in the sounds of birds, the ocean, the blue sky, the fire, people who bide with me a while and stroke the knitting and yes, always, my hopes and dreams for the giftee.

For I've only ever knitted for people I love.

Letting Go

Glorious sun in the clouds this past Sunday.

If there's one thing I've learned in this long eventful life, it's that it's fine to say one has let go of hurts or slights or losses, it's another for them to be permanently banished. Right?

I suppose the pain gets a little easier but never quite vanishes.

There are loved ones I think of every day. Even though to all intents and purposes they do not appear to love me. My thoughts are not obsessive, don't get me wrong. Not at all. But kind thoughts go out, love is sent and light is imagined surrounding them.

I have this little thing I do. Daily, I'm out on the shore with the dog (and oh yeah, today was her first 2013 paddle in the ocean, spring HAS to be here now!) And I pick up stones from the beach for these loved ones. And I name them. There were a few today. The number varies as relationships wax and wane and evolve. And the odd time I pick up a stone for my mother, or my granny, seeking the wisdom of the ages. And then I whisper a name into each stone and toss them one by one into the water. Sending love. Kind thoughts. Healing. Joy. Contentment.

And I go on my way.

At peace with the world.

A Random Act of Kindness

The other day a family member virtually visited me with an absolutely overwhelming act of kindness. Where my response was to cry. Tears of joy, I should add. It wasn't so much what they did. It was how they made me feel, even though incredibly loving words accompanied the act.

As if they could see me and know me and recognise unsupported solitude. And then for them to say: I understand. I love you. You are special. And now and again life is a struggle for you. And I've got your back.

It was as if some hitherto unknown internal pressure inside me was released. I can hardly describe the feeling and to let myself even relax back into it brings on more tears.

The muse, my Scriobhnarin, returned. And writing comes easy today. Idiotic I know - but I can feel the love even at this huge geographical distance.

Unexpected love and kindness are priceless.

I'll pay it forward.

Love and the Beloveds

Can love remain unshakeable and constant?

Or does it occasionally wander off and meander around looking for a new home?

Do we put expectations on the love of another?

Can the love of self be pure and selfish in the best way?

Are we capable of love of others without love of self?

What validates love?

Can love be truly unconditional?

I ponder on this today, the very worst day of my year. When getting out of bed and showering and dressing and eating is truly an accomplishment. Under the covers in bed is where my mind is free to think of her. And think of her. And think of her.

Most of my beloveds I take for granted but never without overwhelming gratitude. They know who they are.

But there are other beloveds who are so very distant -  distant in their disregard and unavailability. But close to my heart. And they know who they are too.  For shared memory doesn't allow the cutting of those intertwining ribbons of love.

And there is never enough of it to go around today.

I put all my energy into reflecting on what I have and not on what I don't have.

It ain't easy.

In All My Born Days

In all my born days I've never lived in a place like this. We've got the beauty, we've got the talent, we've got the community, we've got the sense of place. We've got the love.

The love. What else do you call it?

I come home from visiting a friend who's been housebound for a week, the snow intimidates her a little. She's 86 and still drives but not so much on the snow anymore. I don't blame her. I've slowed down a lot with the driving on snow and am aware, yeah, maybe in a little over twenty years I won't be quite so brave anymore either. My visit gave her an excuse to bake and to make her famous dumplings and her famous soup. Yummy. She tells me more of her history. How she was so trusted that at fourteen when she was put out to work in the big bad city helping in a huge boarding house she had no curfew so she gave one to herself. Of ten o'clock. She felt that was right for the time. In summer. In winter it was eight o'clock. She was born old. I was born far too young and stayed that way. Good thing, bad thing? I don't think you can label it. It just is.

Anyway, I get home and when I finally reach my kitchen I stand back in awe. And yeah, tears. Lined up on the counter are:

A loaf of homemade bread.

Homemade scones

Homemade muffins

Chicken curry (a really extraordinarily odd local delicacy with no curry that I can ever ascertain in it)

Carrot relish (can't pry the recipe for this out of anyone)

A jar of bakeapple jam.

And a whole tub of thick beef, vegetable and rice soup.

Three different friends had dropped these off.

"All within a few hours of each other," said Leo, who acted as point cop with all the traffic.

"Did I die?" I asked him.

I was rewarded with him laughing till he bent over double and lost his breath.

PS And another friend dropped by also while I was gone and took this picture of my house in the snow.

A Love Story

I was asked recently to write a very short love story and I thought to share it with you all. Love comes in all shapes and sizes and sometimes we don't venerate love until it has been swallowed into the mists of time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking in the Wrong Direction

She stood there, leaning on her cane, smiling all the while, patting her granddaughters’ blonde heads, insisting she would see me in no time at all, my six months in London would fly, just wait and see. My dream, her dream for me, had come true: writer-in-residence at Bartford College.

I shepherded my children on to the flight, telling them to turn and wave, wave at their grandmother, but my eyes were on the east, anticipation seeping into my bones, my mother already a distant shape in the fog of my past.

It was four months to the day that the phone call came. Her ulcerated leg had been a fiction. The cancer even back then at the airport had been eating her alive from within.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can't force romantic love

**Sigh**
And I sorta kinda tried. So much of possibility boils down to Pheronomes. They weren't there. I had this past week with R, long planned, and long longed-for. My widower friend. A very lovely man. Still grieving his dead wife. Still wearing his wedding ring.
It was his first vacation in forty years without her. We talked solid for the whole week. We picnicked. We went to a house party. We hiked. We ate long leisurely dinners. We meditated together. And oh how we talked. We touched, though as brother and sister would. We washed and dried dishes together at the end of the day. And had little injokes, some revolving around a 'moose god' I have on the counter. You have to touch him before you leave so you can avoid encounters on the highways and biways. Moose are everywhere here and a serious danger. The moose god works. So far.
He told me sex was over-rated, never had done much for him. Ahem.
He told me one of his regrets about his wife was that he had rarely touched her. He should have touched her more.
He played with his toy bucket and spade that I had bought him. And made sand castles.
We took photos together and I helped him with some.
Did I say we laughed a lot? We did.
But we slept in separate bedrooms.
And the advice from my brothers, whom I deeply respect, was to let him make the first move.
And he didn't.
And he forgot my birthday, even though I had talked about it the day before.
But we are still good friends.
And he wrote in my guest book that we are more bonded than we ever were.
And I take him to the airport and we kiss, as we always do, on the lips, tightly and chastely. And he leaves. And doesn't stand on the pavement and wave. As most leave-takers of mine do. As I do. One last wave of thanks and love and see-ya-soon.
And he told me he is very excited about a grief counselling group he will be attending in September. One of the reasons is that he hopes to meet a potential partner there.