The Dang Mother of the Groom Dress

You’ve probably heard of Say Yes To The Dress – the reality show where the bride chooses her wedding dress at a fancy high end shop, and once she’s made her dramatic decision, the small crowd she’s invited to be her witnesses, all cheer wildly. Well, I’m here to tell you there is no such TV show for the mother’s of the bride or groom. Those moms do some lonely shopping as fraught older women mumbling to themselves with a dressed pulled down tightly, “Probably not.” Or it makes me look too wide. Or too prim, or like I’m trying too dang hard, or even more alarming – how many dresses did I order on-line at four am waiting for my night time Benadryl to kick in?

            My son is marrying his lovely fiancé in a few months. I am excited (like really excited) for this gig. I believe I’m a person who knows how to shop, can look reasonably put together in her clothes, and most importantly – I’m capable of decision making like a grown up. Alas – all false when it comes to the mother of the groom dress. It’s as if I’m a neanderthal who’s never worn clothes before, making outlandish mistakes on what might look best. 

            Let’s see – first there was the slip dress. I know. I know. What was I thinking? But the wedding is in Portugal in August. The bride’s family is from there and we’re thrilled to be visiting but everyone talked about how hot it would be – thus the on-line ordering of the light weight pretty slip dress. It arrived when I was pasty white from our northern winter and to put it simply – it was a tragic mistake. The next was its replacement – the company didn’t do returns, only exchanges. Postage required to return it. Postage required to receive the next. I’d ordered a bigger size and went from revealing every bump and bulge to something too large, creating an amazon-woman effect. Rather than pay more postage to the US I had it altered to be smaller which helped me realize that it wasn’t just the fit I didn’t like. I hated everything about the stupid dress except how it had looked on the decades younger model. 

   In-between waiting for mail order (that expression shows my mother-of-the-groom age) I was browsing in-person in big shops, little shops, shops in other cities and finding …. nothing. The salespeople who were always sure to congratulate me on my son getting hitched, said things like “how exciting” and of course, “Portugal in August, that will be warm.” And then showed me too heavy prim gowns, with some notion of mother of the groom written all over them; solid colours, lots of draping with accompanying jackets meant to cover everything that I suppose I’m intended to cover. At least three of the saleswomen said, “You’ll wear spanx, right?” And tried to convince me that the magical modern girdle is what all the well-dressed ladies are sporting these days. In Portugal? In August?

     I have three friends whose thirty-something kids are getting married this summer and all of them seem to agree that us moms of the groom and moms of the bride are tossed into some sort of fashion box assumption. Most of us probably didn’t imagine we’d be this old when our kids tied the knot, but it feels like the fashion industry imagined we’d be even older. 

    When my daughter got married twelve years ago, I wanted to look like Kate Middleton’s mom at that spectacular royal wedding – she wore a simple but elegant shift with a slim fitting jacket. I doubt she ordered it on-line at four am in a sleepy stupor. I didn’t quite pull off the princess look Kate’s mom had but I kinda, sorta did. That wedding of our daughter’s was on an island on Canada’s west coast in the fall. I guess I’m hung up on the European guests at my son’s summer nuptials and how they will exude style. 

I bought dress number three at Nordstroms and now I’m worried it’s too fancy, too floral, and here’s the kicker – maybe even too shapely. It can’t be returned because Nordstroms closed shop in Canada (though all I got was a lousy five per cent off.) Oh, did I mention in all this grumbling that the right dress must be able to be cleverly rolled up and travel in my carry-on because we all fear lost baggage. This fancy floral will roll up, but is it – I don’t know – silly? Not staid enough?

Perhaps I’m just worried that it doesn’t fit mother of the groom status and calls for the dreaded annoying spanx in the Portugal heat? I think … but I’m not positive, that in the wee hours last night I ordered a backup dress off one of those sites with beautiful dresses styled for mature women (with young models) and too good to believe prices.

    All this insane shopping aside, in a quiet moments when I forget the search, I’m able to focus on the overseas celebration; on meeting the bride’s far away family, on being nurtured by the feast that they promise is central to the whole affair, on how thrilled our granddaughters will be to finally be flower girls, and on our loved ones who have been able to orchestrate the long trip with much anticipation of the affair. The truth for us mothers of brides and grooms is that we will look just fine, and all eyes will be on the couple, who will be stunning – and what will make us most attractive will be our splendid beaming grins.

I Like Where We Live

Here’s a thing to think about – because we are at a certain age and stage – friends and family ask me, where do you think you’ll retire? I feel as if I’m supposed to have a dream location – a little casita in a safe Mexican town with a red tile roof and a balcony overlooking the Bay of Banderas, or somewhere familiar and loved, such as our family

cottage in the Shuswaps – with its copper roof, and wide patio overlooking the blue-green lake. New or familiar, it’s the process of getting to this vision that has me flummoxed. 

            I like where we live. Plain and simple. My parents bought this property on the edge of the city, in 1966 when I was seven years old. The house was brand new and had lots of room for our family of seven. They’d purchased it, but because my dad was employed far out of town, they had to wait to move. My mom, a person who never drove, was anxious to begin the transformation of the big yard from unadorned soil to a landscape both pretty and useful, and so had some of us kids help carry spades and shovels from the old house, a long walk away. Not having transportation wasn’t going to prevent her from getting started on constructing flowerbeds and a wide vegetable garden and preparing places for shrubs and flowering plum trees. 

         My husband and I bought this home and garden from my parents when I was thirty years-old and our four little kids, age one, three, five and six, needed more space then available in our small rental.  It wasn’t until the year 2000 when our youngest was ten, that we felt ready to renovate, and update the home no longer anywhere near the city’s edge. The house had good bones and my parents understood updating, still my mom was practical and penny wise, and must have looked on aghast as we expanded into the yard and added granite and tile, gas fireplaces and two more big bathrooms. 

        Oddly, both my parents were more at ease than I was when the giant evergreen out front had to go. They said they might have also added the big deck if they were staying. Their new smaller home had one. In the twenty-six years they lived in that new house my mom grew splendid roses, lined her deck with pots of geraniums and nourished her own raspberry patch.  A year before she died, she helped us dig up her prize English rose bush and transplant it to this yard. I pause beside it some evenings to feel her spirit. It isn’t just that conveyor of soft pink ruffled blossoms that grounds me here. What makes me like where I live is what remains from those early days of my mom creating the garden we love – the tall over-reaching lilacs with the first fragrant blooms of summer, the dainty bleeding-heart blossoming in the shade, the nan king cherry bushes she made tart jelly with, the mass of lily of the valley on the shady north side.

            I feel rooted to this spot on the earth when I picture my seven-year-old self climbing the hill from our old neighborhood. I remember sitting on the steps, eating our brown bag lunch of ham sandwiches and home baked cookies, drinking from the hose she’d set up and watching while she watered her new seeds and skinny raspberry plants that still line the fence. A new family could move into the house, I suppose, but I don’t want anyone else to mess with what grows here. And so, I imagine, we’ll stay.

Letter to Mom – Written Two Months After She Disappeared

Dear Mom,

I’m so sorry about all of this. If there was something wrong with you before you broke your hip and had surgery for it, why didn’t we figure that out? I’m not supposed to think like this – because you were old and old people die.

God Mom, I miss you so much. I want to talk to you. It’s just little things that I’d say. Today I’d tell you that I went for a swim in the rain. And that I’m scrapping off some old wooden chairs to repaint. You’d admire the chair job because it’s frugal – and will be bright and colourful. You lived a whole long life without learning how to swim so you might not think of it as enjoyable in rainy weather, but it was.

And I’d tell you about going to the farmer’s market at the near-by community hall. Remember, it’s not like the ones in the city. Out here at the cottage they really are farmers selling cucumbers (got some) and zucchini’s (got those too) and fresh potatoes and corn (our supper). Maybe I wouldn’t tell you I bought a beautiful little bird house made by a local artist. It’s exquisite but you’d wonder how many bird houses I could own?

Did I ever tell you that we got the birdhouse off your garage before your house sold? How many birdhouses do I have to own before I’m a bird house collector?

Those are some of the things I’d talk about with you if you were still here. But you’re not and so what I want to talk most about is Dad. God it’s so hard with him. When you first left us (where did you go Mom?) his dementia seemed suddenly less of a factor. Like he was shocked into being clearer. Mom, I know you were 89 and I guess in worse health than we thought, but we were shocked when you died. (You know Dad doesn’t like the term ‘passed away’ so I try not to use it.) When you were first brought to the hospital with that stupid broken hip you said, You didn’t want to do ‘that hip thing’. And I knew what you meant – how a broken hip and surgery can lead to a slow downward spiral. But it wasn’t a spiral at all. It was way faster than that. I’m angry with myself for not staying with you at the hospital 24/7 but I had no idea we were going to lose you. If I could go back in time – I’d go back to then, but I’m guilty of magical thinking believing that I could have changed anything by being there. Your lung collapsed Saturday night but no one knew that . I’m glad I had a sister with me at the hospital, holding your hand and wiping your brow, but she and I are also glad the others didn’t see you, so they can remember you differently than that.

So yeah it’s hard with Dad. Cause he’s not clear now like he was that first week. He’s so lost without you. But maybe I shouldn’t tell you that. Though is there some way that you know? People I’m close to are saying there is. I don’t know what I believe. Are you looking over my shoulder at my fingers moving quickly over my iphone keys right now? Or are you just gone? I thought that I would have somehow felt you by now. There was one morning when I saw you in a dream and it was comforting then, but it wasn’t enough. I’m waiting for something like that again.

Mom we’re doing our best with Dad. It’s so hard as he doesn’t always seem to know that. And they are wonderful with him where he lives. He’s getting out a lot – like really a lot. He asks us to take him places constantly and none of us can say no, even if we’d taken him on a long drive in the country the day before. But we’ll barely have him back and he’s asking when we can do it again.

You’d be proud of your grandkids – they’re visiting him too. Hey, we made the family jelly – your special rose petal (maybe I felt you watching me that night), and raspberry jelly, and the peachy pear. I think we did alright.

Oh – and in this high tech world I taught my granddaughters how to embroidery one evening at the lake. I knew that would make you happy. Oh mommy. I miss you so much. I thought this letter might help. Maybe the first try is the hardest.

I could just imagine your response. I know you’d give me advice about the jam (it all set, but I did have one runny batch). And you’d just love that your six and nine year-old great-grand daughters were embroidering. It was cool to see how much they liked it and went free hand with their names above their carefully stitched puppy and butterfly.

I think you’d tell us we were spoiling dad and we don’t have to take him out so much. I know behind the dementia is my ‘real’ dad, who would never be so demanding. But both that dad and this dad are so lonely for you. I’m sitting here on the end of the dock, feeling as lost as daddy. I’ll slip into the lake and swim, I guess. I don’t know how to sign off.

Love you forever Mom.

Ps. I haven’t done the best job with your bills. Some got paid late. I know you’d hate that. I’ll do better.

Pps. Did I ever tell you that Rose says if she ever had a baby girl she’d name it Vera – after you. I hope I did.

WINTER – A LOVE STORY (sort of)

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Dear Readers, It’s been a strange kind of year, post the big C word, in a divided country with so much that doesn’t feel right with our world. Last autumn I finished the writing of a novel I’d worked on for ten years. Afterward, I fell into a self-imposed foray away from writing. Now it’s time to return to the healing  power of creativity (and chocolate cake). I made the chocolate cake yesterday and I will start writing again very soon. Right now I am staring out my back window, looking at the February landscape that inspired the following post in a February a half dozen years ago.  My back garden doesn’t get the afternoon sun so it is still heaped high up the trunk of the apple tree with crusty snow from December. This is a milder February that the one I wrote about when my granddaughter was a little girl, but the sentiments of waiting for spring and honey bees, while hanging on to the hopes of a few more days of skating, remain the same. New tales will come soon – here’s an old one for reflection.

…..It’s a familiar plot – girl gets winter, girl loves winter, girl wants winter to go away. This year I can’t help but be fascinated by this season, to examine all his strong points before I beg him to leave me alone. (Let me make him a ‘he’ for my analogies Kind Reader.) Oh, I’ll want him back – in a muddled accepting sort of way – but not for months and months, and not seeing a way around his strong personality and in-your-face charm.

I have to say it again – I have never, ever, ever seen so much snow in our back garden, which the weather guy backed up saying there is more accumulated snow on the ground this February than EVER recorded. Photo 2018-02-08, 2 25 57 PMIt was a Bing Crosby white Christmas, preceded by a white November, and followed by a whiter still January.  Albertans who can’t not talk about the weather (how else would we warn each other to not drive, to not freeze off our noses, to not slip and fall) can’t stop marveling at all the piles of deeper than ever snow this month.

I share the belief that if you’re going to live with winter for six or more months of the year you have to find some way to embrace it. Skating is my winter passion. It’s the aspect of winter I adore;  the reoccurring memory of my sister and brother teaching me “one, two, three, glide”, the shiny reflective ice on a late afternoon, the sound of my blades swish, swish, swishing, the marvel of my granddaughters learning now, and along with their mom, becoming my new on-the-ice companions.  Photo 2018-01-19, 1 28 15 AMBut even to skate this year I’ve had to work out kinks with my relationship with winter.  There’s just been so much damn snow! We’ve all had to labour just to leave the house, and to clear the walks, and to stay upright (there’s been record numbers of bone breaking falls in the city), hec it has even gotten tricky to maneuver the bumpy residential roads that are packed higher than the sidewalks with all this accumulated snow.

Now all that said – here’s where my fascination comes in – it’s with the wonder of winter – how it’s larger than life this year. I stare out at in from my writing desk, into the back yard, where the snow is heaped up so high on every surface of the garden. Overwhelmed with  the irresistible urge to plow through the deep piles of fluffy whiteness, I invited my five-year-old granddaughter to join me so I might feel less silly, but had to first make pathways for her short snowpant clad legs. We marveled at how it was almost burying the pedestal bird bath, how the berry patch, the flower beds, and the vegetable garden were several feet under all that snow.  We talked about the seeds in the ground that had dropped from flowers in the fall, about how they were way way down below us as we tramped along. “The snow will melt,” she said, “Right Grandma? And that will make the seeds grow to flowers and then the bees will come and make honey. Right?”

Of course, right.

One of the prettiest aspects of this winter time is how when we shut all the lights out at night before bed, the snow glows a peaceful white under the moonlight and into our home from every window. Staring out I think about the flowers, the apple blossoms, and the bees making honey when this is all over, and I can start a new romance with spring…

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September Nostalgia – No Judgement

It happens so quickly. The day is hot, you’re in your lightest t-shirt, sweating with an icy refreshment, smelling like sunscreen and summertime. The evening brings a big breeze – the winds of change – the temperature drops, leaves turn golden overnight and suddenly it’s a sweater day. A friend said to me once that the new year should start in September – as that is the time of new beginnings, holidays end, work life accelerates, kids start playschool and grade school or even leave home for fresh adventures.  It’s been a decade since our family was knocked off its feet as one by one, yet all so quickly, our four kids were launched from home.

Before that there was a familiar rhythm to getting back to packing lunches and supervising homework and meeting new teachers.  And then suddenly the tune changed – we were helping our kids (young adults really) pack suitcases, buy dorm or apartment supplies – Ikea dishes and clothes hampers, maybe a tea kettle. Possibly you know that drill – or perhaps instead you’ve got a traveler on your hands, causing you some trepidation as they shop for backpacks and the perfect tiny tent. The world’s opened up again and they’re going to navigate the furthers corners of it. It should be exciting, right? So, what’s with this quaking you feel? And sleepless nights rivalling when you had wee babies in the house?  

     That was me – times four. Those autumns of our kids flying the coop were full of chaos and apprehension.  How would our comfortably close family readjust? As we were just adapting to our oldest daughter leaving for university and not coming through the gate at the end of a school day, pausing sometimes to lie on the lawn and gaze at the clouds, the others started to flee, also -one to be a liftie on a far-away ski hill, another for university on an island, the last to travel Europe solo. 

Those times are behind us. Now I’m calling my young granddaughters up to ask what they’ve decided to wear for the first day back to grade school and hearing mostly about their eagerness to hang with friends again. The next morning their mom, my daughter Zoë, tells me that in all their excitement and rush after those lazier summer mornings, she forgot to tell the oldest where she would meet her when her new school gets out. Oh no, I say, but then we’re both consoled in an odd way that for the first time this granddaughter is taking a cell phone to school and so finding her when the bell goes won’t really be a problem in 2022. (As the kids say, “No judgement.” She’s twelve and getting about on her own.)

I tell Zoë that September brings me back to the panic of those under rehearsed autumn mornings when she and her three siblings were young, and then I think about the days when in quick succession they left home. It was Zoë first, packing up her paints and fantasy novels, then Cole with his snowboard and video camera, two years later Hudson with his dry wit and philosophy books, and finally Lily kissed us and flew to Europe – though somewhere before all that she kissed us and ran away. 

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   From our too quiet house I wrote a book about the change from bubbling wrapping to letting go, titled, Text Me, Love Mom; Two Girls, Two Boys, One Empty Nest. It wasn’t easy for this mom of four to adjust to late night anxious calls, to hear from a daughter looking for a place to cry out loud, the way she liked to cry, to adjust to the unease, angst and face it – sometimes new peace – over grilled cheese for dinner, because who cooks for two? The media and an older generation would have us believe that we have overindulged, overprotected and generally, now that parent is a verb, over-parented our kids. I was able to stay connected and endure their flights from home with the aid of satellite communications, during this anxious time of back and forth texting, calling, consoling, and applauding as everyone in our family got their bearings again. If you’re up for a bit of a wild ride – check it out – Text Me, Love Mom offers an opportunity to contemplate and laugh over the perpetual trial and error of another stage of parenting. Or stay in touch with my blog where I’m musing about other topics now – check out the list in the sidebar. And I still feel nostalgic in September….

Do You Remember the Feel of Bike Pedals on Bare Feet?

Remember long August afternoons  when you were maybe, say ten? I do.  I can sit on the front porch with the sun on my face and recall sucking on homemade orange Tang popsicle while I plotted the rest of my day. Or sharing secrets with a friend in the park, both of us perched on big wooden swings, our feet scuffing in the groove in the earth below us. Or how about being sent off walking to swimming lessons with my siblings, with our underwear rolled in a towel and a quarter for the locker.  Or the jubilation of the hottest nights when my dad said yes, to the sound of the ice cream truck.

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For all of that – August could be the most languidly indulgent time of year. If we could just hang on to it and put off thoughts of autumn plans. The never ending winter is almost forgotten – not like in the crisp days of September when you can hear it whispering again, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

The afternoon sun heats the sidewalks and bee’s and cricket’s sounds make me lazy and nostalgic for days when I rode a bike in my bathing suit – helmet-less in the days before safety rules – and sometimes even barefoot. Do you remember the feel of bike pedals on bare feet? You had to slow down your ride by bumping over the curb and onto the lawn. Or how about summer vacations and roasting a hot dog over a fire that someone else was managing – your bare bug-bitten legs hot from the flame, your butt cold from the night temperatures. You couldn’t eat the hot dog fast enough cause after it came the marshmallows – gooey and likely burnt. And if you didn’t bother the grownups around you too much, you could run off after that into a sandy tent or cabin bunk and read Archie comics, or share some giggles with a friend or cousin before you were shouted at to go to bed.

And so I promise myself on this hot August vacation morning that I’m going to just float in the lake and watch the blue sky, and not chastise myself for this weeks calorie ridden snacks by doing laps from the dock to a buoy and back. I’ll skip the Archie comics and barefoot biking, but I’ll sneak away from the group to back float in the evening, immersing myself in a moment in time under the full moon. Maybe I’ll catch some of the last shooting stars of August. Ah August and beach blankets spread over a grassy slope for falling star gazing. August is very fine – let’s not think about sweater weather just yet.

…if you’d like to read more of my writing check out the book Text Me, Love Mom – available at http://www.amazon.com/Text-Me-Love-Mom-Girls/dp/1771800712

This post is edited from an earlier version

Finding the Words – Be Brave. Be Peaceful. Be Truthful – The World is Watching.

Two days ago when we learned that our Canadian Prime Minister had invoked the Emergencies Act I wrote, “I have no words.” I’ve since found my words. Unconstitutional. Insulting. And very Frightening. Anyone can look up the Emergencies Act. RSC, 1985, c. 22 (4th Supp) – The entire point of it is to suspend ordinary democratic procedures and allow unilateral executive/military action. So if the PM had any interest in democratic institution he would not use the act. The prior legislation it replaced was the War Measures Act which was used three times in history – WW 1, WW 2 and the 1970 FLQ crisis invoked by Justin’s Trudeau’s father. The later example is widely regarded by constitutional lawyers as the greatest abuse of power up until today. Even so, in that case they had the excuse of kidnappings and murders by Quebec separatists who arguably wanted to commit sedition and treason. Even so, it is seen as a gross misuse of power. Trudeau is now using it because of political inconvenience in order to crush dissent in the country in which he disagrees. Freedoms mean nothing unless you accord them to people in which you disagree. Everyone in a free country should know that in their soul. And protecting that principle has nothing to do with the underlying opinions of your fellow citizens.

Most embarrassing is how the government and Canada’s own media has insisted on flogging the idea that thousands and thousands of peaceful, diverse, caring citizens choosing to protest the restrictive mandates preventing citizens from keeping their jobs are racists, bad people – despite the protesters chasing away the ugly haters that made their way into the crowds. These lies are being fed to people world wide viewing the turmoil in our country. Shameful! Equally abhorrent is the manner in which our government shut down funds freely raised to assist the people who committed their time to the protest and are currently freezing accounts of private citizens for supporting this protest.

Canadians should know that the government is at all times limited and constrained by the constitution in its actions and is expected to behave that way at all levels of law. The federal government has flouted this entirely. It’s true exceptions can be made but they have to be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. The government has not even attempted to publicly demonstrate its justifications for its numerous, blanket and blatant trampling of Charter Rights. Just a few examples; freedom of peaceful assembly, as the truckers are doing, sec 2(c) the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada sec. 6(1), “security of the person” which would include the choice over medical procedures sec 7,

Mobility rights between the provinces sec 6 (2) (a), the right to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province, which is being denied to the truckers right now sec 6 (1) (b), to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure including diesel fuel sec 8. Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression sec 2(b). The right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned in a COVID hotel sec 9. The list goes on almost without end. In each and every case if the government wants to limit such a right in the “reasonable limits clause” in section one – that “must be prescribed by law”, which means subjected to open debate in a legislature with proof that any such limits infringe these rights in the most non-obtrusive way possible.

None of this has happened and no where has the government even attempted to comply with the highest law in the country – the Canadian Constitution . The conclusion is clear – if there is illegality in all of this it is the Trudeau government that is the worst perpetrator. The truckers are merely exposing it to public scrutiny and now the Trudeau government is invoking marshal law because the ordinary law is insufficient to allow for the suppression of some embarrassing dissent.

I’ve found other words the government is working hard to tarnish. Freedom. And Hope.

Contraband Banana Bread

There’s a bit of giggling before two older women, buddled against the cold, pull sandwiches from their jackets and hand them to a man leaning out of his big truck. You hear him thank them, laughing. “Oh,” one woman adds, “we have banana bread also.” More laughter. The video-ed interaction is wonderfully Canadian. Yet the City of Ottawa has said those bringing food to protesting truckers can now be arrested.

In another video – a huge circle of parents and children, dressed warmly against freezing temperatures, hold hands and sing, It’s a Small, Small World. There’s drone footage of a large crowd in the province of Quebec, where the official language is French. It’s night time and the crowd is singing our anthem, O’ Canada, in French. United.

photo copied from internet

Back to Ottawa – the nation’s capital, an enormous contingency of protesters, started by Canadian truckers who crossed the country in their trucks, mostly men, but women too, many with their families, joined by thousands and thousands of diverse citizens from across the land are asking for an end to restrictive mandates. Near our parliament buildings there are several Sponge Bob bouncy castles, inside children are staying warm by jumping. Others are being helped down a little red slide. Another social media video shows two women with Polish accents talking about how they have brought one thousand sausages and buns to feed whoever wants to eat them.

More than once I viewed video from a father who has brought his two pre-teen children from Victoria, B.C across five provinces to view this great gathering of Canadians because he feels it is a time in history to be witnessed. In one video the three are carrying pizzas for protesters and he asks his son and daughter, “Have you seen anyone from the media here?” They both answer, no.

There’s no looting or fires. It’s safe to bring children to this protest started by truckers, joined by farmers, nurses, veterans, native drummers and dancers, police officers, small business owners, and others of all descriptions. There have been many videos and more importantly live streaming, of warm encounters and conversations between on-duty police, RCMP and the protesters.

Bouncy Castles at the trucker’s protest

Over the last week people around the world have viewed joy, friendship, community, laughter, and great crowds of Canadians – thousands across the land, standing together on overpasses, alongside highways, at welcoming gas stations, so much so that I confusingly believe all Canadians must have viewed this togetherness. How could these scenes not have made it to the news stations that have covered the protest. Media has shown the same few photos of men carrying symbols of hatred – a swastika and confederate flags (which don’t even make sense here) and shamefully picked up on them as representative of the thousands of citizens. A woman was videoed waving her hands on the sacred monument of the Unknown Soldier and someone put a hat, scarf and a flag on the statue of Terry Fox. Those acts were absolutely wrong. Unequivocally. Arrests were made. Police reported those arrested were NOT part of the convoy, but the media won’t let go of those acts, reporting on them heavily, ignoring that truckers have laid flowers at both places and guarded them against further interference. Yesterday, a prominent newspaper falsely said the protest was of far-right extremists. Another paper reported racial slurs against a shop owner – shame on whoever might have done that. But, no footage of the man who told an independent reporter he has seen more acts of kindness in Ottawa this week than ever before. Truckers are feeding the homeless –having brought food in their vehicles for charitable acts. In turn, citizens and churches are happily feeding the truckers. There is an Adopt-a-Trucker program. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram the entire world is seeing videos of co-operation and goodwill but if you don’t access those you get a skewed and biased view of what is happening in our nation. You won’t see the trucker who received a package of valentine cookies from a child in Port Hope – getting emotional as he reads the kind note inside.

included with valentine cookies

Supporters of the protest donated to a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than ten million dollars to go toward fuel and food for the trucks (with any remaining for our veterans). The mayor and chief of police of Ottawa are accused of calling the protest an occupation and had the GoFundMe cancelled. Shockingly, the mayor is heard asking for the money to be given to the city of Ottawa at a recorded meeting. GoFundMe made a wrong decision to take the money Canadians contributed for this convoy and give it to charities they – GoFundMe – would choose. The criminality of that was voiced and the money was returned to the donors. It would have bought a lot of banana bread.

What has been shouted the most by men, women, and children that are joining protests in cities across the country? Shouts for freedom. Freedom to do what some ask? To go into your kid’s schools again. To invite all your loved ones to weddings, graduations, and funerals. To visit your lonely elderly in retirement residences. To decide how many guests to invite into your own homes. To sit in a restaurant with your family members – no matter what their personal health choices were. To unmask your children from the mostly ineffectual masks they’ve been forced to wear. To watch your kid’s sports, or to board an airplane in Canada to visit loved ones in your country without showing proof of your healthcare choices. And most importantly to not be coerced into choosing between your livlihood and a vaccine. Those are freedoms they call out for. 

photo credit Blake Garner Photography as posted online

Myself, I would ask for the freedom to see all sides of the story of what is happening in Ottawa from our Canadian media. I can see it elsewhere. Sadly, the biggest lesson so many have learned this week is how one-sided and unforgivingly bias our media is being. A young woman in Southern Alberta organized the most peaceful convoy – hundreds of cowboys and cowgirls clip clopping their beautiful horses, with police assistance, down the highway, virtually ignored by our media but cheered for around the world. Daily other countries are saying it is time to live with the virus, time to lift restrictions, time to unmask the children. This movement could be Canada’s moment to shine, to show unity, warmth, compassion, and above all hope. To work with our elected officials, instead of being mocked by them. What could those against the convoy’s possibly shout? “No Freedom?” 

Put away your fear. Embrace going forward. Insist our PM meet with the truckers. 

Oh, indeed the trucks have been extremely noisy honking their horns. There was an injunction issued by the court. They asked them to please stop. The trucker’s said Ok. We’ll honk at 5 pm for five minutes. It was agreed on. Oh, such a Canadian protest.

I’ve Had An Achy Breaky Heart – I Just Didn’t Know It

Oh Canada – our true North strong and …. What’s going on in this big, cold country of ours? I think we’ve all been sadder, then we we were aware. Now a convoy of truckers beginning on the west coast and growing through each province is headed to our nations capital to peacefully protest restrictive mandates. Why has this Canadian trucker’s convoy at this time in these long, long months brought out thousands of families waving the maple leaf flag in twenty-seven below weather? What is this that folks as diverse as comedian and actor Russel Brand, entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk, and country singer Paul Brandt are all supporting the trucker’s convoy? Why in frigid snowy weather as the sun rises and sets have Canadians lined the streets to cheer, wave our flag, and offer to feed the men and women from across the nation in a truck convoy that is by some accounts 53 km (40 miles) long? Hutterites, Mennonite’s, Indigenous, Black and Sikh citizens have given their approval. Huge convoys are coming up from all over the United States and support is being heralded from around the world.

What I see now – what I wish everyone could see, but our mainstream media is still doing ‘coverage lite’ , is great throngs of citizens lining the highways, offering truckloads of meals, offering parking spaces, mechanical help, even dental services for truckers with tooth aches – and a chiropractic from Maine is trying to come up and fix trucker’s sore backs. I’ve followed several Convoy Facebook groups – one which grew to 600,000 members before it was taken down. (Why?) There are videos with energetic country tunes, big rigs, small trucks, and on overpasses and in snow banks families of every description packing boxed lunches to feed their new heroes while their kids bundled in snowsuits, hold up the signs they’ve drawn. Truckers are making videos of thanks wearing their sunglasses, as more than one has said – to hide their tears of emotion. Citizens who felt they’d been left alone with their troubles are saying they can’t stop their tears of joy. A Quebec sovereigntist reported feeling ‘Canadian’ for the first time.

Communities supplying meals to truckers who supply us.

Clearly this is not about vaxed or unvaxed. By the numbers alone we know that. There was a time in the beginning of this pandemic where folks were belittled for daring to talk about our Charter rights, liberty and freedom – we believed in flattening the curve. But with that came QR codes – and young hostesses across the land forced into the uncomfortable position of policing segregation and requests for proof of ID to allow patrons to drink a coffee indoors. Businesses small and large have suffered immeasurable losses due to forced lock downs and restrictions. Life’s celebrations – weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, graduations, retirements have been halted. Our elderly have been kept away from those they needed most. My siblings and I allowed our own dad to be isolated from us for nine weeks of his final year before we came to our senses and took action to bring him into our embrace again.

We’ve all masked, we’ve distanced. We’ve suffered horrible hurtful loss of our loved ones to COVID, and along with it our mental health has been strained beyond tolerance. Suicides and drug overdoses have increased. The authorities wanted 80 per cent vaccination rate. They got it, but continued to demonize those who for whatever reason just couldn’t use or abide this vaccine. Omicron is spreading among the vaccinated and the boosted and the vax passes if meant to keep away the potentially sick, don’t make sense and should have been revoked.

Photo from Facebook group

This outpouring of support for the trucker’s convoy might only be a response to too much over-reaching government control. People long to feel connected and united in their delight. Citizens around the world are sending messages of support for our truckers whose mandate is one of peaceful, calm protest. Yet our leaders and news sources find the few crazy’s in the thousands to try to in-still more fear in fear-weary citizens. Global news (shame on them) shows footage of the US troubles last Jan 6th and compares this to that. And yes, in groups of this magnitude there will be trouble makers and extremists to be dealt with, but truckers are reporting police forces and RCMP are helpful and for the most part supportive, directing traffic and guiding them on their way. Media has repeatedly questioned the GoFundMe (currently above six million dollars) which is intended to cover fuel of the registered truckers, with any remainder going to our veterans. Our Prime Minister, instead of offering to listen and talk, called the convoy a minority fringe of people with unacceptable views. What? As in he, the leader, will not accept them?

Hutterite women show happy encouragement in Saskatchewan and others line the highway greeting truckers.

I believe Canadians want to feel free from government control again. They want to feel trusted to take precautions but not be dictated to. To be given their livelihoods back along with their feelings about bodily autonomy, no matter their choices. To feel cared for by their communities, to be heard and feel the joy of togetherness. I know they are thanking this group who are saying end the restrictive mandates, let good people work again. And what is the symbol of this protest? It appears it is our Canadian flag.

What Vera Believed In – (and Love-Pancakes)

“Days may not be fair – Always

That’s when I’ll be there – Always”

Years back when my four kids were small, they liked to make me breakfast in bed on Mother’s Day – pancakes fashioned to look like the word L-O-V-E, served with toast and pb and j because they could make that too, alongside cold scrambled eggs and tea – as they hadn’t mastered timing. Their dad, amused by their muddled efforts, stayed hands off and kept a secret for me, which was that on a day when I could supposedly choose my activities the garden had called to me. So while our two girls and two boys were arguing about who would carry the tray to their sleepy mom I was actually outside listening to birds sing with my hands in the soil, weeding around pansies and tulips, freshening up raspberry canes. 

My husband would distract the kids, I’d sneak back inside, go from dusty garden attire back to pj’s, climb into bed and wait for all their happy faces and my curvy pancakes. When they got bored watching me eat, I’d be able to stop forcing down cold eggs and toast with gobs of peanut butter, and maybe get back to the robins chirping and dividing a bag of glad bulbs up for me and my own mom. 

From there, having had my blissful gardening fix, I’d have gone in to make a (hot) brunch for my parents or maybe a fancy dinner later with my mom’s favorite rice pudding for dessert – the notion of Mother’s Day off a silly sort of fantasy with four feisty kids, my mom to spoil and sometimes my mom-in-law too. 

     With those four kids grown and my sons living away, one of my thoughtful daughters, (the oldest a mom herself), will always make me a Mom’s Day brunch or lunch – I wouldn’t mind if it still was wiggly pancakes spelling out L-O-V-E. I wish like mad that I could make love pancakes for my own dear mom, but she’s left us now. I have more time to garden these days, but I make a point of doing it on Mother’s Day because it is amongst the fresh rose branches and the new shoots of phlox and the pointy arrows of peonies starting to reach for the light, that I feel closest to my mom. 

When we needed a family-sized home my husband and I bought my parent’s place and they downsized. While we’ve renovated the house, and even changed the landscaping, the foliage – giant evergreens, bushy lilacs, resilient bleeding hearts, frothy nan king cherry, and my favourite hollyhocks – were started by my mom’s creative green thumb. I feel I’m tending her garden, googling guidance to make her special rose bush blossom (the one used for rose petal jelly) and to correctly prune the spreading lilacs. This will only be the second Mother’s Day without my mom at our table, telling me it’s too soon to put geraniums out, to just be patient. She’d be okay with me popping my sweet pea seeds into the ground though. 

    It’s been a good week for horticulture – windy maybe, but not too hot or cold. I’ve sat on the grass pulling out the darn creeping bell flower and thought lots about my little mom – (she was much shorter than I am) – she was quiet but wise, not prone to sharing her worries. She nurtured her soul tending to her garden, but nurtured ours with her love-labour of making jam and jelly for our winter toast, by baking for us all year – apple and berry pies, spicy ginger snaps, and snicker doodles, lemon loaves and her magical chocolate cake. While I sat on the lawn beside that favorite rose, which will blossom with fluffy layers of pastel pink flowers, I thought I’d text my four kids my own Mother’s Day message about their grandma. She left us two years ago next month and I’d like to share the goodness of what she believed in. I want to remind them that their Grandma believed: 

That flowers are necessary for the soul.

And tending to even a tiny garden will lift the spirit.

In offering food and drink to anyone that passes through your door. 

In dropping off treats to people having troubles. 

That making your bed first would start your day right.

She believed in offering a helping hand. 

And in making old-fashioned phone calls to reconnect. 

To never visit a friend empty handed. 

She believed in making Sunday dinner special.

It’s Canada. Always bring a sweater, she said.

She believed in the magic of a good chocolate cake.

She believed in going barefoot.

She believed in treating her adult kids to weekends away by babysitting for us. 

She especially believed in celebrating family birthdays, all the holidays, and New Year’s Day dinner. 

She believed in being good. She was good. She would have especially believed in L-O-V-E pancakes. 💕

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Call Me Dad. I’ll Pick Up.

Too much time has passed since I last calibrated my thoughts in a blog post – strange reflective time. In my last Text Me, Love Mom column I wrote about moving my dear old dad – the best dad – to a new senior’s residence, as he needed a higher level of physical care. It was a good move. That facility was friendly and kind, trying to cautiously give the residents as much comfort from visitors as they could within the bounds of Covid restrictions. (People talk about caring for our most vulnerable, but I think we need discussions that include listening to their own wise self-determination.)

When Covid first reared its despicable head the senior’s residence where my dad lived then went into full frightened lockdown. He had a small apartment there and was considered only in need of ‘assisted care’ because he’d originally moved in with my mom – his most loving caregiver, but she’d died nine months previous. His immune system was mighty in that he was never ill but his body was frail and worn out, his lungs needed to be on oxygen, his heart on medication, he was unstable on his feet even with a walker, and his short term memory was gone. Yet he had a robust will to live, to be social, to share what was on his mind, to be part of our lives.

My dad, Thomas Allan, was one of seven children – six boys and the sister they adored. More than once I tried to get him to tell me how nine people were able to find space to sleep in their tiny two bedroom house in Black Diamond, Alberta. The answer was always murky. They managed. The first ones in got the bed. He’d talk instead of the family dog, Purp, of hitching rides to the nearest town with a train station to jump on top of a train for a short prohibited ride to the next stop, or of making a raft that broke apart on its first Sheep River voyage, and of being known around town as one of the Allan boys. I remember at an embarrassingly late age being taught by a new sister-in-law that we shouldn’t start to eat until our mom, the cook, sat down. I think both my parents, but especially my dad, came from families where your instinct was to dig in to get enough grub while sitting around a table with nine hungry boisterously talking family members.

               In those first three months of Covid where we washed our groceries, debated masks, and stockpiled canned goods, the assisted living facility shut us out, kept residence in their rooms, and brought them meals on paper plates to eat all lone. My siblings and I made deals with ourselves, if it goes on two more weeks we’ll get him out. Two would become three … but we couldn’t decide what ‘out’ would be. To live with one of us? All without main floor bedrooms. None of us with medical backgrounds. To rent a place more suited to his walker and oxygen and poor mobility, and hire nurses? My dad would say he was a social democrat, but he never ever could get his mind around his complete loss of control in the exercise of ‘being saved’ from Covid. “What have I done wrong?” he would ask me over the phone. “Tell me, Candy, what did I do?” He was breaking our hearts.

That harsh lockdown period lasted too long but we finally argued our own and a dear loving companion’s way in, as what the authorities called essential visitors and witnessed how Dad had lost ten pounds, not from illness but from loneliness. We could finally ease up on the detailed phone call schedule us siblings and his grandchildren had adhered to, and return to bringing him our love in person. Some of our best afternoons after that were slow chats in his room. It didn’t matter that he nodded off continuously – when he woke it was with a sense of calm to see someone there, rather than a panic of where was he and why was he alone? (My humble opinion? Billions have been spent and livelihoods destroyed in failed efforts to contain the virus. Almost 90 per cent of the deaths have been in Long Term Care facilities. What if the billions were spent instead in isolating the sick from the healthy even in LTC?).

On a rainy fall afternoon encouraging him to eat the lemon pie I’d brought, I pretended to need to know how he met our mom again. “At a house party,” he said. “People used to have more of those back then.” I asked if he’d arranged a second date that night, to a movie, or dinner? “I don’t know,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”  In fact he did know, though he told me just this, ”I drove her home to her aunt’s house.” He paused, pushed the pie away. “She captured me,” he said and closed his eyes to sleep again.

I now have in my dresser drawer the bundle of love letters my parents exchanged during the first months when they lived four hours apart. In one he wrote, “I’m sure glad the search is over. It was getting hard on the eyes hunting for you for twenty-four years.” Mom, less the romantic – someone had to be practical – had written in her beautiful script about getting her hair chopped off much too short. He addressed his next few letters to ‘Chop-chop’. Known for his wry humour my dad wanted always to give someone else a smile, though he kept a straight face before and after.  

It’s supposed to be good luck to have rain on your wedding day. The rain was torrential on that June day in 1953 when Tom and Vera promised to love each other to death due us part. In the next ten years they brought five kids into the world, making seven of us at the dinner table, or sleeping in a crowded tent trailer on vacation, and riding out in a big wood panelled station wagon to visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Black Diamond. In his ninety-fourth year my dad wanted us to plan a family reunion with our big Allan family – imagining us all leaning into each other around a prairie campsite but Covid forbid it.

My dad’s favourite pastime was the circle drive through the foothills landscape he was passionate about. He used to do it with my mom on a Sunday afternoon, stopping for an eggroll in Turner Valley, or a burger in the Diamond, maybe just an ice cream sundae and coffee in Okotoks, before heading home. For the past few years one of us kids would be at the wheel driving Mom and Dad, and then just Dad. Sharing his affection for that small journey, our hearts would lift as we faced the Rockies and we’d make small talk about the measure of snow capping the steel grey mountains, as we as we gave him what he felt was freedom. It became too much effort for him to get out of the car but we’d park and bring him back a treat to eat with the view of the Sheep River – before returning to the city where we’d mask up again to get him and his walker and oxygen back into the tall building he resided in.

Short term memory loss is a bugger. He’d call many, many, many times a day. Sometimes I couldn’t bear to tell him that I’d just left him. Or that it was bedtime for him and me both and I wasn’t going to go there. He’d always ask us to, “Drop by with a latte.” We were both happiest when I could say, I’m on my way and I’ll stop at a coffee shop.

Why a latte? My dad was a Black Diamond boy, who before he gave up his licence at age 86 would drive forty-five minutes to another town to have coffee with his brothers. Coffee was their communion.  But a latte was something that we had to bring to him. A coffee he could get from a caregiver where he resided. Really he was saying, Come over. Bring love.

I wish he would call me now. I wish I could bring him another cup of love. I long for one more circle drive.

My dad died on November 29th, 2020. He died in his sleep. I thank God for that, because it meant he didn’t leave this earth waiting for us to pick up the phone, to bring the latte or take him for a drive. His heart quit beating as he rested. When I arrived before sunup to kiss his head good-bye I longed to tell him that when I stepped from my car I heard coyotes howling at the fading moon. I wanted to tell him that there must have been meaning in that.

John Steinbeck was one of my dad’s favourite authors. Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden, “All great and precious things are lonely.” My dad was precious. I wish that he had never been lonely.

Your Hand In Mine

July 19 2020

Rules. Rules. Rules. We recently needed to move our dad to a senior’s facility with a higher level of care for him. With Covid there are rules, so many rules. Even coming from one residence with no covid to another without the virus, and having had several tests himself – he still had to be isolated in his room for fourteen days. I had to believe that when that non-isolation isolation (we were thankfully still allowed to visit) would be over Dad truly would be in a good place. He’s now on a memory care ward but please please don’t jump to conclusions! Don’t sigh and say dismissively, “Oh, okay, that’s that then.” My dad has dementia – but I know this about the ‘D word’ – you can’t decide what that means for him in particular, or compare it to someone else you know. Yesterday I listened to a poignant podcast about an elderly woman with dementia, and how she told a daughter she didn’t initially recognize, “This is who I am now. Accept this version of myself. Know I love you still.”

In the years since my dad’s had dementia I’ve made irratic frustrated attempts to learn more about the disease, and what I’ve learned most from that is that the way a person’s mind leads them down the path of dementia is unique for every soul. My family has had to learn what sometimes frightening path my dad’s mind has taken him along, as well as all the ways he is wonderfully still the same.

The kind doctor that first diagnosed him told him, Dementia doesn’t mean you’re crazy. It just means your memory isn’t working the way it did before.

My dad is still my dad. He is still honest and good, (though sometimes cranky), with charming wry humour. ‘How long have you been on oxygen?’ – a doctor recently asked. “Same as you,” he said, “since I was born.” And when I try to cool off his hot apartment, instead of telling me he is cold, he asks me if I can find him an ice pick. A nurse brings him his medication and he offers to split it with her.

That humour is evidence of a sharp funny mind. But the same mind doesn’t see the boundaries of his own changed body. Why can’t he get his drivers license back?, he wonders despite being on oxygen, and off-balance even with a walker. It’s on his bucket list to ride a horse again, he tells me and he’d like to get a two bedroom house with a stove to have people over and cook say, a few eggs.

People warn us how sad it will be when he doesn’t recognize us. I can’t predict, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. He knows exactly who his five children are, not always where we live now, but who we are is locked in. He doesn’t know he’s called one of us a dozen times in half an hour. Or that he asked us what time we’ll arrive two minutes ago, or he already called to say Happy Birthday to the brother whose birthday he amazingly remembers. Still if we can get the conversation past why he can’t move into his own place, and honestly sometimes we can’t, we can still engage in conversations about the times that as he says, were a life time ago.

My parents marriage was the union of two people who believed not just til death do us part, but in loving each other completely until then. Their strengths shone through their union but for the last four years our mom had to assume care for the husband who had previously done the heavy lifting for her. Fourteen months ago mom confided to me, “Dads worried about what will happen to him if something happens to me.” I tried to be funny, ‘We are too Mom, so you better stick around.” A month latter, the day after their 66th wedding anniversary, to our childish surprise – she unexpectedly died.

He managed in the assisted living facility we’d helped them choose for a year without her – his guiding light. He’s frail, and weak of body, but not of mind in the way too many think. Yes, he has dementia but he can tell a good story, and set you to laughing with his wit.

Funny what memories we hold onto. Being the middle of five kids it would have been rare to have my dad’s attention all to myself. But I remember going to a department store once – just him and I. I have a vivid memory of how before entering the big store he took my small hand in his big strong one. I honestly remember being so happy to have my dad, holding my hand, just the two of us out together.

What I wish I’d told my mom that day fourteen months ago when she, I realized, was the one worried about him managing without her, was this, “It would be ok Mom. We’ll take care of him.” What I didn’t know as a kid was that my turn to take his hand and make him feel safe would come. It’s not easy to do that always, but listen hard Dad – we’re trying.