Hell Ain't Hot

My grandmother held an Irish wake for her eldest daughter (my aunt) who eloped with the local protestant minister. This from their small Irish Catholic town. Subsequently, the whole family was denounced from the pulpit by the compassionate parish priest who accused them all of harbouring a harlot. Then my father, her brother, lost his position as the head altar boy. And another one of his sisters was refused admittance to the convent because of her shameful family. This all happened in the early thirties of the past century. My grandmother and grandfather never spoke to their daughter again. They say she broke her father's heart and sent him to an early grave as she was his favourite.

A few years ago I phoned an aunt (now deceased) to cry on her shoulder about Missing Daughter. I knew my mother, if she'd been alive, would have sorted it all out. She had that way with her. So telling her sister made sense to me. Even though she lived in London, England. She wept with me. And then told me one of her grandchildren had done the same thing. Fled to Australia with a boyfriend, severing ties with her parents and by extension, her grandparents. She could only offer me empathetic tears, no solution.

We're a very fragmented family, our family. Very rarely is Missing Daughter mentioned. Except by one or two, who always ask for news. Whether this absence of support is a genetic legacy or cold-hearted 'I'm alright, Jacks'. I don't know. I don't care. I'd sure like to fix it though. Inject some compassion into the dispassion. Heal it up a little.

This whole post was triggered by a long, sobbing message left on my voicemail by Daughter while I was out yesterday. She was in Montreal and missing her sister so much she had to call me in floods of tears.

And ended her message with this:

"Mum, I can't imagine what hell you're going through without any family support. At least I have you!"

Yeah, hell would be a good term for it. Forget about those fires those compassionate parish priests talked about.

Hell is just unbelievably cold, bleak and lonely.

Hidden Clues and Mysteries

Did I mention how our family are voracious readers? I hear from brothers and friends and blog-friends who delve into my blog sidebar of books read throughout the year and go by my ratings and acquire them - and usually enjoy them.

Daughter and Grandgirl are also of the "there's never enough books in the world for me" ilk.

But isn't it interesting what a young person can throw at you out of the blue. Something one has never thought about before.

The other night:

Grandgirl: Do you realize that the books one likes to read tells so much about one's character?

Me: Really? How come?

Grandgirl: Well the books you really like are usually about missing people and unsolved mysteries.

Me: So what does that tell you about me?

Grandgirl: Well, I'd say you'd be trying to make sense out of your life, like there would be missing pieces.

Me: Well, I'll be! And I even write about that kind of thing too.

Grandgirl: So what would be missing?

Me (thoughtful, astounded): Well, the mysteries in the paternal side of the family. My father wouldn't talk about it, and I've tried to string it together from the evidence of others.

Grandgirl: Well, there you go, right?

(PS-LOL- And my father would sing "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" just about every day.)

Loss

Mike of Genial Misanthrope commented on my last post on his (and all of ours) wish not to outlive our children.

But I write of this again. I've written of my own personal circle of good friends and relatives who've not been so lucky. I link to them all here. And I say "all" because there are quite a few. An aunt's child, a school friend of my daughter's - herself a mother of a teenager. And on. At my high school reunion a few years back, one of my schoolmates appeared with a shaven head from cancer treatments. Six months prior her only daughter, birthing a third child, had died in the birthing process from a stroke. Not uncommon.

And many more death posts. Too many. Or maybe not enough. I've outlived my mother by 14 years now. Death looms more clearly at the age one's parent dies. And yes, they've done studies. It bubbles underneath the surface. Stolen time, I feel. So death is more present to us.

I was with someone on Tuesday who lost an adult son. I talked of missing daughter who's left a gaping wound in my own small family. A pain that never leaves. A pain often completely ignored and unacknowledged by some family members. And in some cases added to by deliberate shunning and non-inclusion which makes it all the more unimaginable. I'm not alone in that either.

I am staggered and amazed by how most of us get through the often unbearable pain of living with such enormous losses trailing behind us. Focussing on what we have, I expect.

My friend felt a missing child was worse than a dead child. I have no idea. How do you weigh one pain against another unless you've experienced both?

I don't label any behaviour "brave". In fact I despise the word. As if failure to be brave makes a person less than, inferior. We need less of this bravery thing and more of feeling and grieving and roaring out at the injustice. And shaking our fists in exhaustion.

I'd rather you and I had the permission to scream our losses to the skies in each others' presence.

The loss of those living, the loss of those dead. And all those losses in between.

Happiness is an inside job

Picture is of the boats on a beach at sunset not too far from where I live.

You know what? I’ve come to the conclusion that most worries and anxieties never ever happen if we don’t pay too much attention to them. If we do pay an inordinate amount of attention I think there is something about the laws of attraction that actualizes the worry for us. A subconscious willingness for the dreaded event to happen – the husband to leave, the money to be gone, the job to disintegrate.

“If only” is the mantra of those who believe that they can’t create their own happiness from within.

If only the kids were grown, if only I was retired, if only he didn’t drink so much, if only she’d lose weight, if only she wasn’t on my case so much, if only the mortgage was paid, if only I could get that Mercedes, if only I could have that big house in the burbs.

I was thinking of a good friend of mine, A, who never seems to be happy. She’s a lovely woman, from my neck of the woods back home. Generous to a fault, puts her money where her mouth is politically, socially very aware. But never, ever happy.

Her mother died when she was nine and she took care of her father and younger siblings and became a teacher. She had a doomed love affair in Ireland. He went off to be a priest and subsequently it didn’t agree with him and he left the priesthood and married someone else. By that stage she had long moved to Toronto and had married a second best. She had three children in three years, a pair of twins following a singleton. Husband was an abusive alcoholic and she left him.

A raised the kids by herself with the help of friends. She‘s the type of person that everyone loves. A brilliant pianist and wonderful conversationalist, active politically, a committed feminist.

When the kids were in their early teens she was at an Irish party and who should walk in but her old love, H. He was a visiting lecturer at U of T. Their love was reignited and within a year he had left his wife and four kids in Ireland and moved to Canada to marry her.

That would make A happy, yes? Well, no. His youngest was still very young so H would spend Christmases and part of the summer in Ireland (staying with his ex-wife). That didn’t make A happy. She felt she deserved all of him. She understood about the kids but thought they should come to him for the holidays. He wanted to be there in his children’s home to give them what they were missing during the year.

This, to me, was the classic example of everyone putting themselves out to make others happy with no one happy as a result.

In the past few years H has been diagnosed with a slow terminal illness and A is now worried about money and the fact that her kids are now grown and have moved off to other continents doing amazing work. She had raised them as socially aware, compassionate world citizens. She had hoped the kids would be around her forever, geographically speaking. A has got a great job, so does H, they have loads of money. But not in her mind.

I came to the conclusion that no matter what happens, A will never be happy.

Like a lot of others. The classic case of always feeling there is something missing. Like the enlightened priest said about confessions:

Isn’t it odd, he said, that when a prostitute comes to the confessional all she can talk about is God and when a priest comes in all he can talk about is sex?

What would make you happy? My ex-husband said to me, way back in the day, I gave you everything you ever wanted: a daughter, a house, a dog and a piano. And you’re still not happy. And he was right.

I still had to grow up then and learn a lot of life lessons that were painful But it is only through pain we grow and I know for sure we can’t skip around it to do that, but we have to walk through it.

How can you be happy, they now say to me. You live alone, you must be sad there is no one there to share your life.

I’m very happy, I say, if HE shows up, all well and good. But meanwhile there’s a life to be lived, and it’s my one and only wild and precious one so I’m going to live it. I make a choice to be happy every morning.

And it’s got nothing to do with my kids or my house or my stuff or my car or my other. But everything to do with how I’m feeling about ME today. And if I’m not feeling that good about me I’d better take a good long hard look at myself and fix what’s ailing me.

Gratitude Day Wevs

My dear young friend had another catastrophe befall her which took me a fair distance from gratitude.

Her father's best friend assaulted and tried to rape her in the woods.

And her father did nothing. His BFF is back in his house as if nothing happened.

Her mother, as usual, is stoned out of her mind on pharmaceuticals.

We are moving heaven on earth to get her out of there and into assisted housing.

Sometimes life just sucks the bag and it's so hard to find the little diamonds underneath all the coal.

My missing daughter's birthday is tomorrow and this is always a rough time for me.

I spent the morning at the hospital with my vascular evaluation and that's not looking good.

So here you go:

Gratitude are my friends who are solidly there, all the time: supportive and loving in so many different ways I cry when I think of them. I'm not fit, as we say right now, and their arms and hugs reach out and hold me closely and cook me supper and listen as I cry and try and make sense of the world that would hurt my wee friend so deeply. And my missing child who could be? Not hide nor hair of her can be found. I just can't dig deeper. I don't want to know. It would be too much.

And Daughter is having challenges with her new job. Her MS is rearing its ugly head after a long nap and badly affecting her, poor pet.

But yes, if you're reading this, it's still this side of the daisies for all of us. The weather is kind. The bay smooth as a mirror, Grandmother Moon watchful and alert over it all. But puzzling. As I am.

As 2017 looms large on our horizons.

Elder Value

Growing old is not for sissies as Bette Davis said. She said a lot more too, see above.

I was at an event attended by elders last night. One of my hobbies is observing elders in great big bunches, not that they'd notice, I'm pretty good at it. I can be looking at you and listening to something behind me.

The event was a BBQ and we had live music. All the old songs from our teen years, early rock, some country, some Irish, some Newfoundland music.

The conversation at my table (6 around it) focussed on the good old days and how great the parties were then, how perfect the music, how wonderfully we danced, things just weren't the same and the young don't know what they're missing glued to their screens 24/7

I restrain myself. I always do. I want to yell "horseshit" or "bollocks" for I know The Ladies would circulate a petition and have me tossed out of the building.

I was startled a little to see tears in a friend's eyes and I asked her what was wrong and she said the music always brought her back to her dancing days and how sad she was they were gone.

I mentioned that Grandgirl and I share our music every time we meet and that we had played one of her newest finds (Pink's album - fabulous)



and one of mine (Radical Face - equally fabulous)



And of course when our time together is over we have the music to resavour these more recent moments together and also have the opportunity to discuss why we like this music. For instance "Always Gold", a track from Radical Face, reminds me of Missing Daughter and how I long for her return.

The Ladies looked very confused and eyed me as if I had broken out in a foreign language. No response, apart from puzzlement.

My point in this post is that do us elders have values apart from our distant memories? Are we meant to walk around as if we are mere sarcophaguses of our past? Do we not have a capacity to initiate and create present moments?

I have no desire to "fit in" to some proscribed elder formula, sizing up others to see if they are fitting the geezer mould or alternatively breaking out into puzzling and gossip-worthy behaviours which are perceived as strange and alarming.

I'm aware I'm in a minority here.

But I wouldn't change it for anything.

Skid Row is Everywhere

The news was already there when I got up this morning.

Harry* set out to drink himself to death when he was only thirty after the wife and daughter left him and the only one who could put up with him was his mother.

And then she died five years ago. And the family home started to fold in around him. A light fell off the ceiling, a toilet leaked. Furniture collapsed. Newfoundland Power cut off his electricity and the wainscotting hung off the walls. Floorboards went missing - used for firewood, more than likely. From the outside of the house you'd never guess of the devastation within.

It got so bad that someone lent him a camper and he moved into this, parked on his own driveway, with his dog and a kerosene heater. Things worsened and Health Services were called and they moved him into a unit in a senior residence which he proceeded to destroy. His dog was taken by kind neighbours and is a playmate of Ansa's.

Health Services tried to get him admitted to a detox and rehab programme but he would get belligerent. They called the wife and daughter to try and force the issue to no avail, they had washed their hands of him.

He weighed 300lbs and was completely yellow in appearance when he had a stroke 5 weeks ago. They managed to dry him out in the hospital during his month's stay and his residence was fumigated and cleaned out while he was gone. He was told if he wanted to go home to his government housing unit it would be under the condition that he have a full time personal home care assistant provided by health services .

The assistant started yesterday and brought healthy groceries into the unit. When he left at the end of the day Harry was seen getting into his van and went missing for 4 hours.

He finally showed up around 9 last night, looking the happiest he'd ever been seen, they tell me.

It was the assistant who found him. On the second day of his job. Harry was sprawled on the floor in his living room with his arms open wide, looking like some kind of angel, my friend said. It wasn't long before the police came with forensics and yellow tape and cameras and abrupt words to tell the specators to leave the scene.

Speculation has it it might have been murder.

My take is suicide.

He was 49 years old and had been trying to do just that for the past twenty years.



*not his real name, but all other details are actual.

Still Missing, One Child.

It rolls around again, this date, this oh so important date, December 9th.

More important this year. For this year she is forty. My missing daughter is forty. A milestone age for some. Maybe not for her. Who knows?

None of us knows, you see. We her family. Her extended family and the friends she left behind. Last we heard she was in Bristol. She has chosen to cut herself free from all ties to her past and live without a visible familial history.

I speculate as to how that feels. To float freely in the universe without acknowledging either parent. Or your sister. Or your niece or your uncles or your aunts. Would one wonder about them at all? Would childhood memories surface? Would the twenty eight years one lived with one’s mother intrude on the present? Does any of that matter?

Meanwhile, I’m making a scrapbook. Of photos, of little bits and pieces, report cards, cards she gave me over the years like the one above.

And I light a candle for her. And hope that she is well. And my heart aches. And I reach out to her father and her sister in our shared hurt and loss.

Happy Birthday, baby.

30 Days - Day 3

The Back Door.

If you're reading this for any kind of a while you know I have a missing daughter.

The years keep climbing on. Years that can never, ever be replaced or lived in harmony with the vanished one.

I've talked to others in the same boat and their stories of reuniting are not encouraging, for the eggshells in dialogue and memory recollection or photographs displayed refresh the pain of loss.

However, for the last few years Missing Daughter has contacted a neighbour of her estranged aunt (she has estranged her entire family), ostensibly to inquire about a son she was close to when she lived with her aunt, but updating her also on her life.

So she is okay. Neighbour fills aunt in, aunt fills MD's father in, father informs Daughter, Daughter tells me.

These are wizened little crumbs scattered on our never-ending love for her.

And part of me thinks:

She knows.

The Books of 2016

I'm late with this annual post. No excuse apart from a life that I always seem to be running behind but not in a good way. I make great plans, go to the trouble of writing them down in number and point form and then lose hopeless track of my good intentions. I know I'm the only one on planet earth with this problem. Any helpful hints? I should abandon my lists but it's similar to my collection of "useless artifacts" which I will write about some day too. The dark underbelly of my life.

So here goes with the 2016 list.

(1)Puccini's Ghosts - Morag Joss****
(2)Dead Simple - Peter Robinson. dropped could not engage 0
(3)Plain Song - Nancy Huston***
(4)All The Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr*****
(5)The Mistress - Philippe Tapon*
(6)A Sudden Sun - Trudy Morgan-Coles****
(7)Eventide - Kent Haruf*****
(8)Burning Down The House - Russell Wangersky {BC}***
(9)The Night Following - Morag Joss*****
(10)England, England - Julian Barnes 0
(11)The Birdcage - Marcia Willett***
(12)Inside the O'Briens - Lisa Genova***
(13)And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini*****
(14)My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout*****
(15)The Girl in the Blue Dress - Gaynor Arnold {BC}**
(16)Among the Missing - Morag Joss****
(17)The Dipper - Marcia Willett**
(18)The Corrigan Women - M.T. Doheney
(19)Eve - Iris Johansen*
(20)A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway 5th(?)re-read*****
(21)A Crooked Heart - Lissa Evans*****
(22)The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason (I'm struggling with this one 100 pages in)
(23)Settlers of the Marsh - Frederick Philip Grove ****
(24)Baggage - Jill Sooley ***
(25)Moments of Being - Virginia Woolf***
(26)The Neighbour - Lisa Gardner***
(27)Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler *****
(28)The Old Jest - Jennifer Johnston *****
(29)The Illusionist - Jennifer Johnston ****
(30)A Sixpenny Song - Jennifer Johnston
(31)The Story of Lucy Gault - William Trevor {BC} a re-read for me*****
(32)How Many Miles to Babylon? - Jennifer Johnston*****
(33)What We Want - Trudy J. Morgan-Cole**
(34)This is Not a Novel - Jennifer Johnston*****
(35)The Captain and the Kings - Jennifer Johnston*****
(36)The Railway Station Man - Jennifer Johnston*****
(37)By the Lake - John McGahern*****
(38)Closer Home - Karen Anne King**
(39)Shadows on our Skin - Jennifer Johnston*****
(40)Love & Summer - William Trevor****
(41)Fool's Sanctuary - Jennifer Johnston****
(42)I Let You Go - Claire Mackintosh****
(43)The Lake House - Kate Morton (500 pages, 200 too much)***
(44)The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence - 3rd re-read*****
(45)Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey - poor construction**
(46)A Badly Misunderstood Dog - Paul Rowe - *****
(47)The First Bad Man - Miranda July - she literally lost the plot - *
(48)The End of Your Life Bookclub - William Schwalbe*****
(49)Everyone Hates a Beauty Queen - Kenneth Harvey - Awful bilge, will not read him again*
(50)Save Me - Lisa Scottoline - cliché driven ***
(51)The Distant Hours - Kate Morton - challenging size, unsure
(52)The Ocean at My Door - Ken Pollett
(53)Perfect - Rachel Joyce*****
(54)Still Alice - Lisa Genova*****
(55)My Father's Tears - John Updike*****
(56)La Rose - Louise Erdrich****
(57)The Doctor's Wife - Brian Moore*****
(58)Thrice the Brindled Cat Had Mew'd - Alan Bradley***
(another Flavia De Luce but not so compelling)
(59)The Good Doctor - Paul Butler
(a few pages in and I'm tripping over edit-goofs and holy metaphors, batman!)
(60)People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks*** {BC}
(61)Miller's Valley - Anna Quindlen*****
(62)Ordinary Grace - William Kent Krueger
(63)The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein***** {BC}
(64)The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper - Phaedra Patrick****
(65)The Roncesvalles Pass - Paul Bowdring
(66)The Lizard Cage - Karen Connolly*****
(67)Lost and Found - Brooke Davis*****
(68)A Sport of Nature - Nadine Gortimer - dropped, couldn't.
(69)Continental Drift - Russell Banks - dropped, couldn't.
(70)My Secret Sister - Edmonds & Smith***
(71)Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore {BC}***

TOTAL TO DATE: 71{BC}=Book Club}
Ratings:0(awful) *(poor)**(fair)***(good)****(very good)*****(excellent)

Those I loved:
4
7
9
14
20 (about 6th or 7th reading, annual event!)
27
28
31
All of Jennifer Johnston I adore.
37
44
48
61
66

A good year of reading. I won't work at reading a boggy book anymore. My life's too short. I like immersion, good editing and grammar, engaging characters, thoughtful prose. I'm not asking too much, am I?

The Books of 2012

Here is a link to prior years' posts on BOOKS

Well it was a record year for me. 77 books read in 2012. Mainly because I cut back on my business demands (gulp) and jumped into the unknown. Reading so voraciously whets my appetite for writing. And vice-versa. Even as a small child my visits to the library were the hightlights of my week. I'm still in paper mode with books, though I do have an E-Reader. I don't think paper books will ever be of the past and I believe that publishers are making books more worthy and by that I mean they are including more beautiful endpapers and fancier editions.

Here's the list of 2012 reads in order of my reading them, I have highlit the very best:

Skin Room - Sara Tilley
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (BC) - Helen Simonson***
The Other Hand - Chris Cleave*****
A World Elsewhere - Wayne Johnston**Not up to his usual standards
The Virgin Cure - Ami McKay*****
All He Ever Wanted - Anita Shreve*****
February - Lisa Moore(skimmed as re-read for BC-1/2)*****
Exit Lines - Joan Barfoot***
A Cold Day for Murder - Dana Stabenow**
Bay of Spirits - Farley Mowat*****Newfoundland,(thanks, Toddy!) beautifully told
Springfield Place - S.A. McCormick (won't rate, she's a friend)
Afterimage - Helen Humphreys*****beautiful
The Weight of Water - Anita Shreve****
Light on Snow - Anita Shreve*****one of her best
At Home In France - Ann Barry*****oh I hated leaving this one
Sea Glass - Anita Shreve***
Pagan Babies - Elmore Leonard*
The Way We Were - Marcia Willett***
Galore - Michael Crummey
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton*****Oh to write like this!
Memories of Peter's River - Bride Martin (a friend: not rating)
Swimmer in the Secret Sea - William Kotzwinkle*****short, powerful
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley(BC)****
The Best of Bernard MacLaverty - Bernard MacLaverty***
The Paris Wife - Paula McLain(BC)****
Heft - Liz Moore***** one of the best.ever.
The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazzard*****
Grandmother's Footsteps - Carol Smith****excellent thriller, meaningless title
The Fault in our Stars - John Green*****One of the best
Sense of Wonder - Ann Patchett(BC)**
Thin Ice - Marsha Qualey***
Dressing Up for the Carnival - Carol Shields (again)***
Lies of Silence - Brian Moore*****Heart stopping, breathtaking
Because of Winn-Dixie - Kate Dicamillo*****beautiful
The Sleeping Beauty - Elizabeth Taylor *** A reissue, I love this writer
Mistaken - Neil Jordan**** (thanks Helen!)
The Collected Stories - John McGahern*****
Good to a Fault - Marion Endicott(BC)**** ( a little too long)
Pictures of You - Caroline Leavitt**** (dragged at end)
Black Juice - Margo Lanagan*bleurgh
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler*****(wow!)
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls***
Where the Heart Is - Billie Letts****
The Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis****polical humour at its best
Still Missing - Chevy Stevens*****compulsive,unputdownable
Savoury on the Tongue - Anthology**nothing to chew on
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern*what a painful slog with no payoff
Lullabies for Little Criminals - Heather O'Neill****
Broken Harbour - Tana French****
Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn*****
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon*****
Lost in Translation - Eva Hoffman****
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - Deborah Moggach***
Long Gone - Alafair Burke****
The Hijacking of Cassie Peters - Mary Stanley***
Beyond Belief - Liam Fay***
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas(BC)*
The Emigrants - W.G. Sebald*****
The Famished Lover - Alan Cumyn*****
Seating Arrangements - Maggie Shipstead****
Ghostwritten - David Mitchell*****
Skeletons at the Feast - Chris Bohjalian(BC)0 gack!
Never Knowing - Chevy Stevens****
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Broken Shore - Peter Temple****1/2
Winter Garden - Kristin Hannah(BC)****
The Calling - Inger Ash Wolfe****1/2
A Curious Dream - Kate Pullinger****
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See(BC)*****recommend
Truth - Peter Temple****
Christine Falls - Benjamin Black***
Guide to the Aran Islands - J.M. Synge
Still Life - Louise Penny***
The Taken - Inger Ash Wolfe***1/2
Consolation - Michael Redhill*****
The Rings of Saturn - W. G. Sebald*****
Eager to Please - Julie Parsons****
The Edible Woman - Margaret Attwood (again)*****

Some were re-reads - Wharton, Attwood - and worth it. Attwood writing of 1969 and perfect housewives I saw in the fresh light of 2012 and found myself nodding at how brilliantly she captures the interior rebellion of a woman caught sacrificing her spirit and not knowing it was sacrifice. Wharton, well because I think it's one of the most perfect stories ever written.

W.G. Sebald - all I can say if you haven't read him, please do. It is like sitting down with him and listening to him riff off on many topics.

Michael Redhill and his alter ego Inger Ash Wolfe were a fresh discovery. I have more on order.

Gone Girl and Still Missing were unputdownable crime novels.

Heft by Liz Moore was an incredible first novel. All about a huge man trapped in his own body. She actually wrote back to me when I sent her a fan rave.

Barry's At Home in France was also one of those books which held me in rural France and wouldn't let me go.

So there you have it. My year in books. Eclectic? Yeah, that's me alright.

ROAD RAGE

Okay, I admit it. I sometimes get snotty behind the wheel of my car. I use words, not totally bad words, but words.

This was brought to my attention very forcibly when the grandgirl was around two and safe in her babyseat in the back of my car. A car had cut me off, suddenly and unexpectedly, and before I could open my mouth, the word "Jerk!" in a toddler lisp soared up and over and into my ears from behind me. Good for lots of later laughs but a stark reminder of how often I must have used the word for the grandgirl to spout it out so casually.

But I would never think of endangering anyone else or even showing the finger as the photo above has it. I often joke when I'm driving with passengers and some idiot on the road has nearly sideswiped me, "Any volunteers in the car to show him the finger?" and we laugh and bury the incident and forget how very close to death we have all come.

Like tonight. I'm driving north on a ramp to the 404, trailing a very slow moving white SUV. So I move to the right of him and all the cars behind me do the same. He's doing at least 40kms under the limit. Briefly I wonder what's wrong with him and then I put the pedal to the metal as they say and accelerate to the speed limit to pass him. I don't like passing on the right but here there is no choice. I'd like to be safe and at the right speed before hitting the highway just ahead.

Without warning, the SUV swings into my lane and I catch one look at the driver's face before swerving my small car on to the shoulder on my right, barely missing this behemoth of a vehicle and the concrete barrier. Thank goodness for the slight shoulder. Thank goodness for my quick reaction.

The driver of the SUV had been laughing at me. A great big horse laugh. He sped away at double his former speed, pounding on his steering wheel in glee.

I will never forget his face.

A Positive Facet of 9/11

OR - The Day the World Came to Town





This is a book that would warm the coldest heart. In the aftermath of the day of devastation that was 9/11, the tiny town of Gander in Newfoundland took to its heart 38 airliners and their passengers that were refused entry by the U.S. The stories recounted here restores faith in the very goodness of people, particularly in the innate kindness of Newfoundlanders who took these lost and frightened men, women and children into their homes and bosoms.

"For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed."

When thirty-eight jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, 2001, due to the closing of United States airspace, the citizens of this small community were called upon to come to the aid of more than six thousand displaced travelers.

Roxanne and Clarke Loper were excited to be on their way home from a lengthy and exhausting trip to Kazakhstan, where they had adopted a daughter, when their plane suddenly changed course and they found themselves in Newfoundland. Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, who had been on vacation in Ireland, were forced to receive updates by telephone on the search for their son Kevin, who was among the firefighters missing at the World Trade Center. George Vitale, a New York state trooper and head of the governor's security detail in New York City who was returning from a trip to Dublin, struggled to locate his sister Patty, who worked in the Twin Towers. A family of Russian immigrants, on their way to the Seattle area to begin a new life, dealt with the uncertainty of conditions in their future home.

The people of Gander were asked to aid and care for these distraught travelers, as well as for thousands more, and their response was truly extraordinary. Oz Fudge, the town constable, searched all over Gander for a flight-crew member so that he could give her a hug as a favor to her sister, a fellow law enforcement officer who managed to reach him by phone. Eithne Smith, an elementary-school teacher, helped the passengers staying at her school put together letters to family members all over the world, which she then faxed.

Bonnie Harris, Vi Tucker, and Linda Humby, members of a local animal protection agency, crawled into the jets' cargo holds to feed and care for all of the animals on the flights. Hundreds of people put their names on a list to take passengers into their homes and give them a chance to get cleaned up and relax.

This book reads like a novel. I couldn’t put it down. A validation of all that is best in the human spirit. A perfect antidote to the horror of 9/11 and the horrors that have been committed in its name ever since.

Highly recommended.

The Books of 2021

Gosh the reading was way down. Granted I was quite ill for most of 2021 and well, all of 2020. I try and reach a 100 books a year but fail usually. 2021 saw me reading barely 50.  Here's the list, 5 stars were a super read for me. BC is book club. DNF - did not finish, the agony of terrible writing exploding my brain.

For previous years see 

(1) Unravelling Oliver - Liz Nugent ****

(2) Lying in Wait - Liz Nugent ****

(3) The Abolutist - John Boyne ***

(4) The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett - Annie Lyons ****

(5) Slow Horses - Nicke Heron ***

(6) The Guest Book - Sarah Baker *****

(7) Five Days Gone - Laura Cummings *****

(8) The City of Shadows - Michael Russell *****

(9) Purple Hibiscus - Chimande Ngozi Adiche *****

(10)The Searcher - Tana French **

(11)Eugelia's Daughters - Gerd Brantenberg ***1/2

(12)The Glass Hotel - Emily St.John *****

(13)The Arrangement - Robyn Harding 0

(14)Cruel Acts - Jane Casey ***

(15)Sins of the Mother - Irene Kelly ****

(16)The City in Darkness - Michael Russell ****

(17)The City of Strangers - Michael Russell *****

(18)The Dutch House - Ann Patchett *****

(19)The Old Drift - Nanwel Serpel DNF

(20)A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan DNF

(21)The Night Fire - Michael Connolly ****

(22)The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read for style) *****

(34)A Ghost in the Throat - Doireann Ni Ghriofa *****

(25)The Last Thing he Told me - Laura Dave ***

(26)The City of Lies - Michael Russell ***1/2

(27)The Midnight Library - Matt Haig **

(28)Moon of the Crusted Snow - Waubgeshig Rice ****

(29)Son of a Trickster - Eden Robinson **

(30)Our Darkest Night - Jennifer Robson ***

(31)God is not Great - Christopher Hitchen *****

(32)Local Woman Missing - Mary Kubica *****

(33)The City in Flames - Michael Russell ****

(34)Working the Rock - Frances Rooney *****

(35)The Best Kind of People - Zoe Whittall *****

(36)Memories of a Catholic Childhood - Mary McCarthy re-read *****

(37) The Springs of Affection - Maeve Brennan - *****

(38)Fight Night - Miriam Toews *****

(39)The Last Bookshop in London - Madeline Martin *

(40)Open-hearted - Ann Ingle *****

(41)The Longwinded Lady - Maeve Brennan *****

(42)Being Mortal - Atul Gavande *****

(43)Hostage - Clare Mackintosh ***

(44)Becoming - Michelle Obama {BC} ****

(45)Wintering - Katherine May *****

(46)Anxious People - Fredrick Backman  ***

(47)Born A Crime - Trevor Noah {BC} DNF

(48)Pluck - Donna Morrissey ***

(49)We Don't know Ourselves - Fintan O'Toole (1/2 way through, massive book)*****

(50)The Push - Ashley Audrain - just started.

Time of the Year, Time of Life

A bloody downer today.

The legs were appalling, like concrete. I was flitting around (I use flitting in an optimistic way, I don't really flit anymore) and had a few errands to run and after the 3rd errand I kind of came to a screeching halt. I was the one screeching. In fear, truly. I just knew I couldn't carry on for a minute more. I drove, fearful, to my ocean. And took a pic. And cried and cried and cried. A total snorfling pity pot. A mess.

Luckily there was no one else around. It was a wet blanket of everything wrong. The madness (I think) of getting an animal when this seizure of immobility grabs hold of me, the sadness of missing my last dear departed Ansa, old age, my effing limitations, my pain, my this, that and tho other. And no improvement in sight.

Woe is me, woe is the world around me.

Now look at that ocean. Stop sniveling. It'll be here long after you're gone. Long after everyone's gone. We are stardust. Make the most of yourself. Accept Accept Accept

Life is not hopeless.

Work with what you can.

I came back into my building, leaning on the safety bars along the the halls and a friend saw me and hustled me into her apartment and told me to sit down, put my feet up and vent all I wanted and for as long as I wanted.

And I did.

Leaving Normal

In times of fierce and unrelenting grief, I notice this:

Reading is too intense, requiring too much concentration. Toss.

Even an intelligent TV series like The Good Wife Season 3 requires more brain cells than I can fire up. I have to replay and replay and the threads evaporate as readily as they hove into view. I miss key information, I get frustrated. Toss.

A friend, through her father's lingering death played endless games of FreeCell on her laptop. This was a good thing.

People don't share what they do on a deathwatch. There I said it. Deathwatch. Horrible word.

And why not the distractions? You can only stare and cry and moan so much, right? Then there's knitting. I tried that. I get frustrated. That concentration thing. Toss.

And there's the telephone, the chatter seems meaningless but then what can people say? The odd few I reach out to are never home. And tripling my efforts to connect is more energy than I can summon. Hell, getting dressed is climbing Everest.

I find my family is immeasurably supportive and understanding. Bricks. We don't realize this until we're going through hell. They support me through my missing daughter, through health issues and other miseries. They say the right things like "take care of you, don't forget."

So I fire up FreeCell and get intense about that. And Mah-jongg.

And yesterday I show up to this Boxing Day bash and to my surprise I stayed and had those wonderfully distracting conversations with authors and artists and doctors and others who knew nothing of my deep pain. And that was a good thing until I got home and I felt guilty for forgetting even briefly, like I was on a short vacation.

And innocuous stupid news services on line that normally insult my intelligence I now find gripping.

And I wonder where elusive and lovely Normal is.

Stund

Yes, the word stund is a real word out here on the Edge. A Newfoundland word. It is exactly as it sounds. Usually applied to a person. Spelt just like that. A half-wit. Stupid. Moronic.

I was out with my good friend last night. A long drive back and forth to St. John's about 100k from here. A trek. But I was driven and that is so lovely. I must have racked up in my lifetime over 1,000,000 miles of my own driving. I do love driving so that's a bonus, but even more so nowadays I love being driven.

We're chatting in the way of good friends, when out of the blue I said to him:

"When is Daylight Savings Time? Shouldn't we have had it by now?"

Long silence.

"You're joking, right kid?"

"No, shouldn't we have had it in May?"

"Are you stund?"

"Wha?"

"We had it in March, b'y. Are you thinking of Solstice on the 21st of June?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's right. Of course." And I changed the topic.

But you know? I'd been harbouring that thought for a while, why on earth didn't we have DST in 2015 so far? But naturally not sharing it. Because. Well, I don't know. Stund. But I trust him enough to share my newfound dementia.

So Daughter was over today and I finally blurted it out to her. And we sat there staring at each other.

"Oh, my gawd," sez Daughter, snapping her fingers, "I've got it".

"What, what?"

"That was the time of your concussion!"

"Shyte. Yes!" Relief, oh, the flood of relief.

And then we talked about what an extraordinary organ the brain is. How some files get damaged after a blow to the head or spine and recover or just get deleted. I wonder what else is missing from my internal files.

But something I can't answer is: who adjusted all the clocks in my house to the new time? AND my car.

Something in my head was on autopilot. And that's pretty amazing too, when you think about it.

This Day

This day rocks and slides around every year. The day in 1969 I gave birth to my second child. The day she was placed in an incubator beside me, I couldn't touch her immediately as her skin was too delicate. In those days there was a long post- natal recuperation in hospital (8-9days) so she was laid out at the end of the nursery beside a huge window, stark naked, below the weak December sun so the Vitamin D could embrace her. Which it did. I read many books and smoked many cigarettes as I recovered. (Smoking in a maternity room sounds impossible now, but yeah, us funky daredevil hippie mothers all did.)

I got to hold her when the sun went down in the first couple of days as I healed and then could go to the nursery and be with her as she sunbathed. It worked. Her skin cleared up.

She was a bright and curious child and when she was in kindergarten she sat me and her father down and asked us seriously if there was a night school she could go to as her days were far too busy for day school. She ran with boys mainly as she found girls far too wishy-washy to her liking as she climbed trees and built a small tree house with the assistance of her far more "proper" older sister. Her seventh birthday, which took place at the Ponderosa Steak House (her choice) had only boys, her gang, in attendance apart from her sister. A cowboy outfit we bought her was worn to shreds on her. She wore her socks with one matching her sweater and one matching her pants or skirt. That made total sense to her. And to me.

She was unique and different and extraordinarily bright with illuminating insights on how the world worked. There was a patch of enormous trouble with her at fourteen when she found drugs and ran with an alarming bunch of teenagers. I didn't deal with it well at the time, I had my own demons. But through Tough Love, a support group for parents which was absolutely fantastically helpful, I began laying down tough rules and curfews and she ran away from home for a few weeks. It was a hellish time, but she did come back (long story), bedraggled and subdued and got back in school and off the drugs, shining in scholarly achievement after the first semester. 

She lived with me, just about, until she was twenty-eight. And subsequently back- emigrated to Ireland.

She is currently in the UK. And about twenty years ago now, cut off her entire blood family and her friends here.

So there is this huge chunk of wandering love chopped right out of all of our lives. I understand that not being a mother herself she has no idea of the pain of loss I and her father suffer. Or her sister and niece. 

It's like missing a limb. And the phantom pains never leave. 

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

 

Everything, everywhere, but not all at once.

 Checking in with you, my dear blogmates.

I'm dealing with a lot of exhaustion, though my last two specialist check-ins were good for my age and overall condition, i.e. just north of falling apart completely.

My days are unpredictable and sometimes the little battles that used to be a breeze overwhelm me.

(1) A breakdown between the provincial overseer of senior drug benefits and my clinical pharmacist and my regular pharmacist and me in the middle flailing around without my suddenly uncovered pain drug. Unconscionable, but sorted. Finally. Bout seriously? I didn't need the stress.

(2) My car hit a pothole and is doing that weird noise thing under the passenger side. I finally booked an appointment with the mechanic and will deal with the logistics of leaving her there all day and finding my own staggery way home. 

(3) The stress of the election I felt in my very bones. Squeaker. Truly. Carney meets with Cheeto today. Fingers crossed. Haven't watched it yet.

(4) Trying to plan an itinerary for my siblings who are ALL coming to visit me this month. Realizing my wee Toyoto won't fit them all and I'm too old to rent a larger vehicle. You read that right. Over eighties are deemed ga-ga and unable to navigate traffic. I have an accident free licence for 65 years (another you read that right). Millions of kilometres driven. Cheapest auto insurance on the planet.

Such things plunge me into a kind of paralysis. An unusual feeling for me. 

I say to myself: what am I missing that is making me feel so helpless. Looking for my mother to take care of me? To manage it all like an adult.? Decided I need to work with the Spotify sub my daughter gave me and load on all my stuff from the Ipod that has been my good friend for years and years. So I started and am delighted at how Spotify is set up. It has all my weird stuff on board. Delightful. It's like listening to my playlists it all over again for the first time as I listen to Ella and Beethoven and the Irish Kings and Oscar Peterson (eclectic I am). And oh yes a new artist I saw on PBS Sierra Hull, if you're a fan of mandolin - she's first class bluegrass.

So some pics from today when I went up to my deserted ocean and enjoyed the birds and the ever-rolling sea which always grounds me.

I'll catch up with you all now.