The Adoration of Sally

I mentioned in my previous post an 84 year old resident of my building I'll call Sally whose 6 daughters take turns in taking her out each night for dinner.

Our weather has been consistently so glorious that all our windows are open to the front courtyard where Sally gets dropped.

I'd missed some afternoon excursions, obviously, as I'd only heard and then observed the after dinner drop-offs.

It's always hard to miss the laughter when Sally gets decanted by one of her six daughters.

Today at three p.m. she launches out of a red sports car clutching a pair of black pumps in her hand and flaunting her sparkling new bright blue running shoes.

"They're fine, see?" Sally stands on the pavement and flexes one foot at the daughter driving.

"Just as long as they're comfy," replies her daughter, "I can always get you another pair."

"Ah, no need for that," Sally says, "Until I wear them out running around."

"Who's turn is it to take you tonight for supper?"

"I forget," says Sally,"But one always shows up and I'll be ready. I should wear a tracksuit to match the new runners, right?"

I am obviously fascinated by Sally as she is completely oblivious to this charmed life she leads and treats her daughters as mild nuisances for I've seen her bat them away on the stairs (she scorns the elevator) when they follow her up, telling them she's got plans that don't include them and to go home. They look literally crushed with disappointment that they can't spend more time with her.

Of all my neighbours on this floor, she is by far the happiest, the joy exudes from her.

I must sit down with her and hear her life story.

Etiquette - Blog and Otherwise.

I stopped responding to comments. Is this good blog etiquette? I don't know. Some of the blogs I love don't ever respond to their commenters. Some respond directly via personal emails while others are meticulous about responding to each and every comment. I was. But I find that mentally I've moved on from those past posts lately. I don't want to put my head back there, you know? Do you think that's rude?

A former fiancé died. I think I mentioned him before. A question about that too. I found his daughter had posted pics of him in the few months before his death. (I don't know her). Memory-shaking photos in showing his deterioration. And in my decluttering here I found some nice photos of him. His daughter, I would imagine, has no inkling of who I am. Would it be alright, d'you think, to send her on pics of her dad in the peak of his youth, his joie, his handsomeness from a former "friend". I don't know how else to classify myself.

My mother was a stickler for etiquette. She said it was all about respect. Everybody was more at ease when they knew the proper social rules. That way there would be no nasty surprises or ugly sounds or smells. One of her rules was you never arrived as a guest in a place with your arms the same length, even if it was just an apple or a facecloth or a bun to honour the host. I've passed this on to my daughters. I think of her this weekend as it is Canadian Mother's Day. I think of her every day of course but more so on anniversaries and days of significance.

Picture above is of me at 11 months, dying to launch myself off her lap and on to bigger things. She encouraged me in that and was so supportive of all my endeavours.

Thank you dearest Mum, your voice often echoes in my head.

The calendar ticks over.

In her sister's arms.

Today, on her birthday, every year, I write about her - my estranged child.

What more is there to add? Nothing has changed. The pain can bite me out of nowhere some days. Catching sight of someone who looks like her, hearing one of her songs on the radio, remembering her acerbic wit, astonishing intelligence and outrageous humour.

How can you give up hope? asked a friend the other night. It's easier not to hope, I respond, if I have no hope of a reconciliation then I can't be disappointed, right?

Sometimes love is just not enough.
Or the right kind.
Or unwanted.

Some Lessons

Favourite and rare blue fog outside my front door, May 2013

My father was a cautious, careful man. A man who didn't take risks. A man whose boundaries were very clear. A man formed by his own childhood, for aren't we all? It took me years to understand him. Another few years to toss out the stuff from him I didn't want or need. Another few again to sort out the chaff from the wheat. One of the most startling things of all was when I asked him (in my own middle age by then) what he would have done with his life if earning a living was not a priority and he said: "I would have bred roses". It was a side of my father he had rarely made visible.

We take from each of our parents character traits that are helpful or not. I don't like the words "bad" and "good". For that is too subjective, truly. What works for some doesn't work for others. It's neither bad nor good in my mind.

This thought process was rolled out by a simply marvellous book I just finished about a mother and a daughter - "Amy and Isabelle." by Julia Glass. There were many great lines in it. One of the most profound (among many), I found, was this one:

"Bewilderiung that you could harm a child without even knowing, thinking all the while you were being careful, conscientious."

As I slip and slide into the more serious elder years I share more of my inner with my loved ones. My ongoing struggles with procrastination. The changes I make in the behaviours that do not serve me well - like procrastination. In my own case I tend to get overwhelmed when there is too much on my plate. And it's not about the "too much on my plate" at all. I finally see this. It is in the way I manage it.

So for now, today, I strike one item off the list. And I feel accomplished.

And most important of all, I do not look at the rest. Until I pick another one from the list tomorrow.

Mother Stuff

My mother and me. When I was her only.

This mother-stuff is so very complicated for some.

I've often said, and kinda half meant: I wish I wasn't so complicated. I'm fairly intense at times. And I feel. Oh, boy do I super-feel. I've heard addicts feel things seven times more intensely than non-addicts. Hurts, slights, dismissals, wounds. I've nothing to compare to, right? So how would I know? All I know is I can feel demolishing pain at any kind of betrayal, whether real or imagined. It's all the same to me. So I talk to people who are just like me and who feel the same sense of hopelessness and sadness and loneliness now and again over, well, the mysteries of life.

Some days I can be over the moon, really happy. Next day, and for no earthly reason, I will wake up in the depths of despair. Analyzing doesn't help at all. Picking up the phone often does and gentle listening and soothing and often laughing at how ridiculous life is, can comfort like nothing else.

I'm guilty of loving my daughters to death and also another "daughter" who, at times, felt more close than my birth daughters. For we do the best we can with the love we have to offer.

But maybe it's not the kind of love that they want or need. I get that. And maybe they've given us all the love they're capable of and there's no more in the bucket or they've moved beyond needing a mother and thus sever all contact.

And that's the part I don't understand at all.

Every day I think of my own mother and how valuable and wonderful she was in all her humanity. She wasn't perfect, none of us are. But I miss her with such an intensity at times it takes my breath away. Her little phrases, her wit, her creativity, her positivity, her support of me, her only daughter for many years in a household of males.

So today, Daughter and I chat for long time. She was upset. Her daughter had broken a promise to take her for Mother's Day brunch. And I felt her pain deep in my heart. But we talked it through, we managed a few laughs over pictures she had posted on Facebook and the lovely things she'd said about me there.

And I focussed on this most precious connection with her.

And then I lit a pair of candles and incense for my two other mother-beloveds locked in my heart but never out of my mind.

Happy Mother's Day to all celebrating on this side of the world.

May your mother-stuff be the size of a lunchbag and not of a trunk.

Memoir

I started this memoir a few years back. A chap book (strictly for family) about my mother. Two of my family members have read it so far and are enthusiastic about it. I feel if I don't write all of it down and quickly, my memories will start to fade. Letters (she was a prodigious writer to me being an emigrant) have survived which I will include. And some photos, particularly of her outside of her maternal experience as mother to us, her children.

She had first hand experience as a young child of the horror of the Black and Tan era in Ireland and the blowing up (by the IRA in Rebel Cork) of the local barracks in her village.

She was put out to service at the age of twelve to the local merchant even though she had skipped a class at her village school as she was so bright. No opportunities then. For anyone.

Through this process of writing down her life I feel I am getting to know her all over again and with the distance of her passing, see her struggles and evolution more clearly.

There is never a day goes by when I don't think of her. She died far too young and I surmise she would only have gotten more interesting with age.

Mother's Day Canada May 9th, 2010

Motherless

For all of us who cry alone
And blunder on, so brave.
Her voice a merest whisper
Echoing from the grave.

We wonder how we tough it out
Without her shining face
Many are times both glad and sad
She leaves an empty space.

We hear her voice at moments
From deep within, a laugh
We catch her carefree open smile
In a yellowed photograph.

Time doesn't have the answer
To this puzzling mystery
Though we are old and tired and worn
Still Motherless Children are we.

I wrote the above for those of us who don't have mothers to celebrate with on this special day and wish we did.