“Till a' the seas gang dry . . .”

Doug’s care home is located on a road we’d driven many times as it’s a short cut between our house and my childhood home, when Mum still lives, just over 100 miles away. The building is well known - originally the site of a dark episode in Canadian history, but the morning he moved in was the first time we’d stopped there. As I parked, I knew that when I left at the end of the evening I’d be alone in the car. Leaving him behind. And I did, though I had to sit in the car for a long time before I felt safe to drive. 

The first two weeks were absolutely the worst (until Covid struck and I realised how much worse “the worst” could be). I arrived at the home after breakfast and stayed until he was tucked into bed in the evening. We had lunch and supper together every day, joined in all the activities, and both of us endeavoured to navigate this new routine. I tried to hold my tears while we were together, because my crying upset him. I was often unsuccessful, but I managed (I think) to suppress the worst of them until I was once again alone in the car, driving home to Piper-the-Cat. 

About four minutes from the home there is a house which, then, had an elf on a bicycle at the end of the driveway. The elf was dressed in seasonal outfits, and his bicycle was decorated to match. Over time that became my cue to pull off the road, blow my nose, wipe my eyes, and find a big smile. 

Sometime during Covid the elf disappeared. (I liked to think he was on a round-the-world trip.) Then the house was sold. (I hoped the elf had relocated with his family, and was given a new bicycle.) The new owners posted signs making it clear they supported the freedom convoy and were not in favour of vaccinations - views diametrically opposed to mine. 

Pavlov knew what he was doing. Even now, when I am far less likely to arrive at Doug’s home in tears, the empty bicycle where the elf used to live reminds me to find a smile in preparation for our visit. 

Recently a late season snowfall coated the bicycle so it resembled a ghost bike. I remember reading about the white roadside bicycles when I first started noticing them. They are part protest, part memorial, a way to make visible the invisible, and bear witness (Reverend Laura Everett, author of Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels).

Doug is NOT dead. 

But. 

But.

It has been such a long time since we were able to make new memories together. Every (one-sided) conversation we have is a distressing reminder of how far apart we are. Of what we used to do together, and how very much we’ve lost.

The day of Burns Night we listened to Burns’ poetry and songs; I was okay until “A Red, Red Rose” - the song to which I walked up the aisle on your wedding day. I had brought Doug’s wedding sporran for him to hold, but he wasn’t interested in it, so I was the one who clung to it, stroking the tassels and tracing the pattern engraved into he cantle. 

Holding on and letting go; I struggle with both.

So then to my blog: a way to make visible the invisible and to bear witness.

Again, December

 

I am not a stamper, but I’ve used this stamp multiple times this year. It reads: sometimes this time of year is just hard.

In amongst the Christmas cards on my mantle is a condolence card which arrived this morning. My Uncle Richard died last week leaving my mother, the eldest of four, the only surviving sibling. I tried to write a poem about the incongruity of sympathy cards arriving in the same post as Christmas cards the year my dad died. 

My mum and her brother, a few years ago; 

I have far more snapshots of them foraging for mushrooms, hiking, and sitting by campfires

My best friend’s mother has been diagnosed with cancer, and within days of being admitted to hospital has been moved to the palliative wing. This woman has been a second mother to me for my entire life; a world without her is impossible to imagine. My friend is somehow managing to balance caregiving and grieving whilst also creating Christmas for her children.

Many other friends are struggling with other challenges.

And everything set against the utterly horrific news from other parts of the world. 

Yesterday Doug and I had lunch together. “Had” lunch - his care home is currently in outbreak, so I was masked. Our lunch date comprised my feeding him and making a one-sided conversation. But then we held hands and listened to Fireside Al Maitland reading Frederick Forsyth’s The Shepherd, and for just a moment my eyes were dry and my heart was full.

 Our Christmas Eve tradition.

Early this year, but just as meaningful.

My wish for everyone is that the coming weeks hold many of those precious moments, when, if only for a brief time, all’s right with the world. 

Physics of A Car Crash

November was your epitaph, Dad --

That awkward month when maples, stripped

of their impulsive sobright leaves, scrape

the pre-snow pale sky

filled with leaving shadows.

The world was rushing toward holidays;

but inertia overcame me; I stopped

slitting thick, ivory envelopes.  

Christmas cards addressed to you 

and sympathy cards for us

lay in a random pile on the edge

of your oak desk.

But nothing is random, I heard you say,

explaining Newton’s laws of motion

energy and force and the ordered

behaviour of the universe,

saw rows of formulae in your neat script

like skidmarks etched into black ice.

Bittersweet

Why bittersweet, I wonder, not sweetbitter? How did this compound noun come to be created in this order, putting painful first and pleasurable second? (Yes, yes, I could open my OD of English Etymology to delve into the history of the word and perhaps discover a suggestion as to why it’s constructed this way . . . but that will only lead me down a rabbit hole . . . .)

I was thinking about the exact definition of “bittersweet” yesterday as my new step-dog and I walked a (tiny, tiny) portion of the Bruce Trail. 

I was trying to focus on living in the exact moment - truly appreciating the last of the bright autumn trees, the crunch of fallen maple leaves we were walking on, the difference in temperature between the sun and shade. 

But earlier I had read the BBC’s explanation as to why they don’t use the word “terrorist” after several Guardian articles about the Israel-Hamas war, so my mind kept circling back to the power of language.

When I passed a map of the entire Bruce Trail my first thought was, “Oh, Doug would have loved this walk.” I don’t know how much of it he walked - he lived in Southern Ontario for most of his life but I remember many stories about hikes in Algonquin Park, none about this trail. Still, my thought process was sweet first - then bitter - then sweet again.

We loved planning long walks in the UK, we loved the walks themselves, we loved having walked them. Hours spent pouring over maps & making picnic lunches, hours walking, hours reminiscing about the highlights of the walk. Win-win-win. 

I used to want to walk every mile of every walk, start to finish, including every side trail. Doug taught me to relax a little - and jump on a steam train for a mile of two, go off on a tangent at the risk of missing a few miles of the exact path, spend longer in a museum or at a ruin or foraging for mushrooms or berries, or admiring a view - then make up the difference with a bus at the end of the day if necessary. Once day we stopped for “just an hour” at an airplane museum in Carlisle because it was marked on the OS map. We spent the entire morning there.

I was reminded of that visit when David and I were in Germany last month. We went to the Technik Museum in Sinsheim; I had no idea how big a collection it was, or how fascinating I would find it. In four plus hours we barely scratched the surface. I sent Doug a postcard - even knowing he can’t read it, or even understand it when it's read to him. I was here, I thought of you, I thought of us. In this way I can witness what we had, what we’ve lost, and what I have. 

And how incredibly lucky am I to be able to turn to David and say, 'Doug would love this,' knowing that David will understand? 

That was the week of September 11th. For the first 17 years after the hurricane, I woke on September 11th every year and thought “Ivan.” Last year I was on holiday with my Mum, and the significance of the date didn’t register until mid-morning. This year it was late afternoon before I realized what day it was. It’s possible there will come a time when the entire day will pass without my acknowledging Ivan (though unlikely because that is also the date of 9/11, and the news coverage of that anniversary reminds me of my own before/ after life-changing moment).

In the library this week I picked up a novel in which a Caribbean hurricane plays a part in both scene-setting and plot. For many years I would have put it down again, but this week I checked it out. I may even read it before it’s due back. 

Thanksgiving Monday - another day of ‘remember whens.’ I was lucky enough to spend the day with my dear friend, Donna. We reminisced about Thanksgiving 2019 which we spent with our husbands and another couple. 

Doug moved into long term care soon afterwards, and the two other husbands have both since passed. Despite the many changes in our lives since that meal only four years ago, Donna and I are both still thankful for fundamentally the same things now as then. Sweet  . . . bitter . . . sweet. 

Random Thoughts on Bravery

Thankful Grateful Blessed

I have discovered that I am marking the passage of years by the appearance of this sign in Doug’s care home. Thanksgiving - again? Has an entire year really passed since last Thanksgiving? I find myself taking stock of my year - accomplishments & disappointments, joys & sorrows, blessings & burdens - and thinking about what I can (try to) achieve in the last months of this year. 

Live music at Doug's care home; a post-Covid joy I'll never again take for granted 

My problems fade to insignificance when I read the news, and between reports of wars and deaths I interpose Jay Rayner’s restaurant reviews and the Culture & Lifestyle rabbit hole that leads to. Recently an actor whose work I admire said of another actor (whose work I don’t know) “ . . . this woman showed up and claimed her seat at the table with nothing on her face. I am so impressed and floored by this act of courage and rebellion.”

In the past I might have scoffed, “That’s courage?! Come on!” But today I try to imagine what it might be like to be a person who is expected to present a certain image in public, or even a person who wears make up on a regular basis. I have zero lived experience of this, so I can’t judge the degree of bravery it takes for someone who is photographed a zillion times a day to leave her house makeup-free. 

Visiting Doug: I rarely wear make up so this is not a show of bravery on my part

(I have chosen to crop his face from the picture; I'd rather remember him as he looked, not as he looks)

As a creative writing teacher, I ask my students to include an aesthetic statement when they submit a piece of work. I explain that if I have an understanding of what they are aiming for, I’ll be better position to mark their work in a way which will be more useful to them. Not only “I think this worked well because/ you may wish to revisit this because . . . ” but also “I believe you met your objective in this way/ perhaps your desired result is let down by this section because . . . ”

For some classes I use as an example the poetry of Rupi Kaur, who writes in lowercase, almost punctuation free. She has explained that this is not a random, meaningless choice, but “in the gurmukhi script... all letters are treated the same. i enjoy how simple that is. how symmetrical and how absolutely straightforward . . . a visual representation of what i want to see more of within the world: equalness... so in order to preserve these small details of my mother language i include them within this language. no case distinction and only periods.” I choose to believe the ‘bare faced’ actor has as compelling an explanation for her choice, and wonder if she considers herself a courageous rebel. 

Back to the newspaper: I have become my paternal grandmother; I remember her reading the obituaries every morning and I do the same. So many speak of the “brave battle” a loved one has fought, with cancer, with heart disease, with a mental illness. Apart from my ambivalence about the war metaphor so often used, I question the use of “bravery” here, but remind myself - again - that I can’t guess at someone else’s lived experience.

Spring 1973 - my sister and I with our Granny Ells

I speak of Doug as “living with dementia” knowing it was not a choice he made. It’s not anything over which he has any control. He IS a brave man - he’s made lots of courageous choices in the past, and done many things I consider deserving of the term. (If the Toronto Star’s archives weren’t kept behind a paywall, I’d link here to his reports from the front lines of El Salvador’s civil war.) I am thankful that I knew him when he was well, and was able to witness his courage.

The ping of an incoming email. A friend, who ends her note with, “You are brave and good.” I hope she is right. I hope that I am brave and that I am good. I’m grateful that she can see those characteristics in me, especially on the days when I cannot. 

On to the book reviews where there will be one that applauds the bravery of the writer to tackle a certain subject, to expose secrets, or to dare to craft a novel in an innovative way. I tell my students they are brave to write at all - and brave again to share their writing with the rest of us. I am blessed to have students who are willing to push themselves far from their comfort zones, with the added bonus that their confidence helps me grow too. 

The weather has turned. A long, warm autumn, with hot summer-weather days has, overnight, become the start of winter, with the first snowfall of the season causing two highway accidents north of North Bay over Thanksgiving weekend. Next time I visit Doug I'll bundle him up, and together we'll brave the cold. 

A path divided

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .” Frost’s The Road Not Taken was a grade school standard when I was a child, and I’m surprised that I can’t recite it by memory. (As ever, when I notice my memory fail, I reach for paper & pen in order to draw a circle, make it into a clock adding numbers and setting the hands to ten past eleven, two to two. Still ok. So not a sign of memory loss then, just a sign of aging.) 

For years when Doug and I walked together, I led, if only because I had the longer legs and the faster pace. Turning to make sure he was behind me became second nature, until it became clear that I couldn’t be sure he would follow me, and we started to walk everywhere hand in hand. 

Long after Doug moved in to long-term care and I walked by myself, I’d stop and look over my shoulder. Even though I knew he wouldn’t be there. I thought this would be a habit for life. That I would never stop pausing, looking over my shoulder, making sure he was there. 

But Dementia created a fork in the road, and neither of us can truly follow the other. I thought about this a lot over Labour Day weekend, which was glorious - warm and sunny. I sat on my deck with a coffee first thing in the morning, before joining my family for a local walk we all love. Doug loved it too, and we often walked it together when he was still able to. 

After that walk I visited him in his home, where he was on isolation due to a respiratory illness (he has since recovered!) so I wasn’t able to take him outside in his wheelchair to feel the sun on his face. I was in full PPE, unrecognisable even to myself. I looked at him in his bed, knowing he was unaware of the gorgeous weather, and I tried to pretend for a few moments the fresh Ontario peaches and local raspberries I’d brought him were a treat that in some small way made up for his quarantine, and the fact that he hadn’t joined me for coffee on our deck, or for a walk with the family.

In the beginning he lost his words. Now I’ve lost mine. I read other people’s words to him whilst holding his hand. If I can make it through a visit without crying, I consider that a win.

I am currently reading him non-fiction (half-memoir, half-history), a book about the American Civil War which we both enjoyed reading together in the past. It was only published in 1988, but I am surprised by the language. There are words I won’t read aloud, so I change them or skip those sentences . . . which is making me think about censorship, change, freedom of speech, banned books, my past offences . . . all subjects I’d love to discuss with Doug. (One podcast I listen to calls them “deep dive conversations.”)

What I want to tell him is this:

After over six years’ deep friendship with a woman I first met via the Breakfast Club (a woman Doug knew well), I recently met her son. It is, in retrospect, extraordinary that our paths hadn’t crossed before, as I’ve met her daughter, son-in-law, sisters, nieces, grandchildren, great niece and great nephew, brother-in-law . . . Doug and her husband were very close friends.  Her son has a busy life (job, pets, friends) and for the past many years he was his wife’s primary caregiver. And then there was Covid. Last year he was widowed; this year we met when his Mom suggested we might be compatible travel companions. 

We are indeed compatible.

A door has opened unexpectedly. I have walked through it, and embraced this new relationship. If our roles were reversed, and Doug had lost me to dementia, so that I was no longer able to go to the movies with him, have dinner with him, travel with him, I hope he would do the same, and allow his heart to expand. I am choosing to continue living my life; my new companion is not replacing Doug, and he understands - with first hand experience - what it is to lose someone to an illness, what it is to say goodbye again and again, what it is to grieve the loss of someone who is still alive. He knows that Doug is my husband, and still very much a part of my life, and we are navigating the circustances of our relationship with care and love for all.

“Decisions and events. Some we control.  Others we don’t. But we do what we have to do to survive and create lives around what we have.” (Karen Dunn Skinner)

Too Late

As my great decluttering effort continues I am still finding scraps of paper with notes from Doug - often something as ordinary as a shopping list, sometimes a deeply personal note to himself. His handwriting in and of itself is a message from the past, the words add another layer of meaning. 

a love note

When I was a child, mum read me poetry at bedtime, often from the anthology of her childhood, Other Men’s Flowers. (“I remember, I remember/ The house where I was born,/ The little window where the sun/ Came peeping in at morn (Hood)”) and dad told me stories about his childhood, growing up on a dairy farm during the Depression. (“When I was a little boy in Nova Scotia . . .”) 

 looking up the second verse of that poem led me down a delightful rabbit hole 

I don’t remember being read fairy tales, but I must have been (I do remember being so impatient to read them to myself that I rushed through some words. For several years all my princesses lived in “places” - which made sense - doesn’t everyone live in some place or another? I distinctly remember the day my grade one teacher, Mrs. Sears, asked me to slow down, and I discovered that Cinderella was attending a ball held not in a place, but in a palace . . .)

I believed in fairy tales. 

For years I have held tight to that fantasy despite all evidence to the contrary. Unicorns, rainbows, good luck, hard work, a positive attitude, a stiff upper lip, a glass half-full . . . My fiction rarely ends with a classic HEA (happily ever after), but there is often hope, or the possibility of hope.

the ending of 'Moon Jellies' (from my short story collection, Notes Towards Recovery)

Doug and I had a fairy tale wedding. I would like to say our marriage was also a fairy tale - but that would be a lie. We were (we are) both human. Imperfect. Fallible. Though with the clarity of hindsight I see myself as the most flawed.

There were days I came home from work to discover the breakfast dishes still sitting in the sink where we’d left them hours before. There were occasions he didn’t meet me somewhere at an agreed time, or ever. Frequently I assumed he’d done nothing all day. It’s too late for me to apologise to Doug for being short tempered back then, when neither of us knew what he was dealing with.

I wish . . .

I wish . . .

I wish I’d known he was already struggling with memory issues. I wish we’d talked about it.

I wish I’d understood then how unimportant things like clean dishes were. I wish I’d not been disappointed by what I assumed was his lack of energy. 

I wish . . . I wish . . . 

Too late. Too late now to wish I’d reacted differently.

A short note recently rose to the surface of a pile. It's not one I wish to share. I must have said something unkind about his memory; he must have been heartbroken by my callous disregard for his feelings. 

 in a sad, sad note, covered with happier memories of our Two Together railcard & tickets from adventures we shared in 2015 & 2017

This is one thing I’m glad to know he’s forgotten.

I’m ashamed to admit I don’t remember that day, that moment, what I was thinking, why I lost my temper, why I didn’t keep silent, why I didn’t separate the illness from the person I loved. 

That I broke Doug’s heart then breaks mine now. 

I wish I had apologised immediately after I spoke. 

I hope apologised immediately after he wrote the note. 

I hope I asked his forgiveness. I hope he forgave me. 

I don’t remember.

(And now it's too late.)

On this day in history . . .

August 4th, 2012

Eleven years ago Doug was full of energy, exceptionally happy . . . and so was I. 

This photograph is full of stories about our wedding day: the beer keg was sent with the wrong spout, so moments before the Beer Store closed my sister & David loaded up the car with bottles; the wildflowers were gathered by Mum & my niece; Mum, Tom, and I picked the berries for and made the jam; my brother-in-law (pictured) was living with a brain tumour at the time and passed away three months and two days later. 

I see all those memories- but most of all I see Doug. Happy, energetic, wonderful Doug. 

We loved our wedding.

"love is more thicker than forget" - e. e. cummings