Holding On & Holding Hands

For as long as possible I held on to the hope that somewhere deep inside some part of Doug recognised something about me. The sound of my voice, the feel of my hand in his, my scent - something, anything. And then I held on still longer. 

No one who knows me was the least bit surprised: I struggle at letting go. I cling to things long after their useful lifespan. Relationships which aren’t beneficial to either party, bits of paper (theatre and train tickets) I may scrapbook (‘one day’), more books than I’ll ever read in my lifetime, mementos which continue to collect dust after they’ve ceased to spark joy. 

There are two bookcases, every shelf double-stacked, with Doug’s collection of non-fiction. Sometime in the future, when I can no longer stack my books against the sides of our other bookshelves, or when Piper knocks them down yet again, I will box up his through tears, and deliver them to a place where they can be discovered and enjoyed - maybe even read - by someone else. 

I am better at giving away his clothes to people who need them. Better, but his kilts, a suit we bought for a super special dinner, his Maple Leafs hockey sweater, a few of his favourite ties, and a few other items are still hanging in our bedroom closet. His last pair of walking boots and his poles are tucked into the front hall closet. His golf clubs and guitars are taking up space. 

When Mum and I cleared out Aunt Em’s flat we shared memories about the objects we were packing and donating until we ran out of time. It was lucky, we agreed, that anything we wanted to keep had to be shipped to Canada. (Though I do regret being quite so harsh in my refusal to bring back much at all, I have photographs to remind me of the happy memories the objects sparked.) We left her wardrobe for last, so that we had to rush through everything that still held the suggestion of her fragrance. 

But Doug hasn’t died. And nothing in our house smells like him. (And, in reality, he no longer smells like him. Not the Doug I knew and loved when we lived together. That’s gone, along with his voice, his mobility, his recognition of me.) 

‘Whose needs are you meeting by visiting your husband?’ My therapist asks me. 

Today I can speak the truth she has known for much longer than I have. Mine. My needs. 

He doesn’t know me. There is nothing about me that differentiates me from any of the other people who care for him. Even when I read him one of our scrapbooks, recounting our past adventures. Even when I sneak us away to an empty room and take off my mask to show him my face in one of the rare moments his eyes are open. Even in his heart of hearts. (And yes, this is also a blessing. I am confident his intelligent, active mind is not trapped inside his deteriorating body. That would break me.)

But I know him. I recognise him. I need to sit beside him, to feed him some of his meals, to hold his hand, to read to him, to hug him, to kiss his forehead. I don’t know how else to express my love for this man. The person he was, the person he is now. 

The other day he was napping, and, whispering a memory of another time we’d tried to share a single bed, I squished myself next to him. His hand had been raised above his head and it fell over my shoulder. As close to a hug as I could imagine. 

I am holding on to that moment.

2018: happier times, when we were able to hug each other

Remembering

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning/ We will remember them.”

October sunrise

I often open my classes by reading, or asking a student to read, a poem (or several poems). The week of Remembrance Day we read some of the classics: Binyon’s For the Fallen, Magee’s High Flight, Gould’s This Was My Brother, and spoke of others. We also read the poetry of other wars, other losses, including two poems from Dikra Rider’s chapbook, There are no Americans in Baghdad’s Bird Market. 

We spoke too of 9-11. Ancient history to a few of my students, pre-history to most. (Yes, yes, I was momentarily startled, as I always am when I realise that my having vivid lived experience of that day makes me decidedly old.) And I looked at these bright young people and wondered - when they are my age, how will they remember the pandemic of 2020-22?

It will be interesting to compare the literature of 2022 with that of 2042. In twenty years’ what will a pandemic background look like? What will we have learned? (Note my strength-based optimism! Partially bravado . . . because I am not entirely sure we have learned anything yet.)

Kerry Clare recently wrote about Emily Urquhart’s essays which are set “against the backdrop of the Covid-19 Pandemic.” 

And my work in progress is very much set during the time of Covid. It can’t not be. The social isolation and the choices my characters have to make are all vital to the causal unfolding of events. (I hope this is a novel. It’s supposed to be a novel. But some days I write pages which are clearly just me trying to make sense of things and have no place in the work itself.) 

My Mum, sister, and I recently, quietly, marked the anniversary of Dad’s death.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning/ We will remember them.”

On September 30th I wore orange in memory of those who survived, and those who did not survive, the residential school system.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning/ We will remember them.”

Tomorrow, December 6th, The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, I’ll light candles in memory of 14 women who were murdered in Montreal in 1989. 

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning/ We will remember them.”

Victoria, BC, 2018

I am currently reading Doug Above the Fold, John Hondrich’s memoir. Doug’s years at the Toronto Star comprised almost quarter of a century. (He and his Dad wrote & edited that paper for over half a century.) It was the most important part of his life, for much of his life, and a time when I didn’t know him at all. I was sure I’d find mention of him, his dad, and all his friends and colleagues I’ve met. When I read an anecdote and know (or think I know!) the names of those not mentioned, I am adding them in the margins. (Ha! I hope Hondrich might see the humour in my editing his prose.)

There is a link here - but I’m aware I’m asking you, dear reader, to fill in some blanks*. Memories. Witnessing. Loss. 

November sunset

*But there you go, I am setting you up for success next time you read a short story, as you’ll approach it with the understanding that the author requires you to do some of the work! 

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”

Thankful Grateful Blessed

I was pleased to see this sign in Doug’s care home again this year. Last year I posted a picture of it on Insta:

"louiseellsauthor

My husband’s care home is decorated for Thanksgiving. Many of our (one-sided) conversations this week have started with my reading this sign, debating the difference between “thankful” and “grateful” and then listing ten things I am thankful for, ten things I’m grateful for, and ten ways I’m blessed. It’s been a lovely reminder of just how rich and full my life is, and how very spoiled and lucky I am. #happythanksgiving #thankful #grateful #blessed #dementiasucks #loveforthewin"

Then, I had turned to the OED and the internet to remind myself of the difference between “thankfulness” and “gratefulness” as I tended to use both terms somewhat interchangeably. (Good thing I’m not an English teacher or literary fiction writer . . . oh, wait, oops! Ha ha.) 

One year on, I still use the terms as synonyms, but at least I’m more aware of the distinction (as I understand it).

To be thankful is to be pleased, aware of my good fortune, a feeling and a reaction which is internal. To be grateful is to show appreciation, often towards a person. Thankfulness is a feeling, whereas gratefulness is an action. 

I use the word “gratitude” to cover both, which may not be precise, but really, when I’m listing all the reasons & things I’m thankful for, grateful for, blessed to have & to be . . . precision is less important to me. 

Two reasons I am full of gratitude and know how incredibly blessed I am:

I fed Doug his dinner on Thanksgiving Monday, and went home to an empty house. I hadn’t invited myself to a dinner anywhere; Thanksgiving was going to be a non-event. (And that’s okay.) When I opened the entryway door - there, waiting for me, were pumpkin pie, whipped cream, and a jar of cranberry sauce, from Lorie. (We’d picked the berries earlier that afternoon in our local bog.)

This weekend I was unable to visit Doug.

On Sunday afternoon, when I was feeling especially tired and grumpy and old and discouraged, my phone pinged with a text. 

A wonderful photo of Doug, and a cheerful, lovely, loving message from my sister. 

I am truly thankful, extremely grateful, extraordinarily blessed. 

On Liminality

Autumn has always been Doug’s favourite season. He loved the colours, the cooler temperatures, the camaraderie of his Hunt Camp friends, and harvesting from the garden and the wild. The outbreaks (yes, plural) under control at his home, I am able to visit again, and take him outside on these glorious days. His eyes are closed most of the time, but I hope he still loves what he can feel and imagine of the colours, the temperature, his remembered weeks at camp.

Were he well we’d have gone foraging for mushrooms this weekend, and picked cranberries at the bog. Our kitchen would smell of pickles, chutneys, and jellies; fall preserved in jars to gift at Christmas. Or maybe we’d have seized the chance for a paddle on the placid lake, or tackled the garden. Were he well he’d be preparing for his hunting week with his friends, and talking already about ice fishing.

I am aware of liminality at this time of year. Waking to frost on the ground and feeling the first hint of winter in the air, but peeling off a layer of clothing mid-afternoon to embrace the late summer heat. The shifting shoreline - sandbars appearing and disappearing in a matter of days. The transition from summer to winter is slower than that of winter to summer, but equally dramatic. 

I am keenly aware of the clouds’ reflections on the lake today. Soon there will be ice and snow - beautiful in a different way. 

The sky fills with the smoky scent of the last of the summer camp fires and the first of the fall bonfires, and the sound of flocks of geese, and the sight of the trees in their autumnal colours. Muted & brilliant, ochre & orange, red & burgundy, mustard & mulberry. 

Next weekend will be Thanksgiving, and three weeks from today the third anniversary of Doug’s first day in Long Term Care. In my dissertation I argued that “care homes for the elderly are transitional areas, home yet not home, often a last place to live before death.” The transitory, liminal nature of a care home. For the “elderly.” Ha. What did I know? (Yes, Ms Munro, who did I think I was, indeed?!)  

The day before yesterday we finished the novel we were reading. The ending, although happy, caught me unawares. I blinked quickly, and steadied my voice, but nonetheless my nose dripped into my mask.

I am surprised, every time, when something catches me off guard and I cry. His handwriting inside my lunch bag; I am trying not to wash it off, but it’s fading away and will soon be gone. One of his photographs which hangs on the hall where it has always hung, some days makes me stop in wonder that we ever walked that path together and realise anew that we’ll never walk that path again. 

I think I should be getting better at endings. I am not. 

"Backward Glance & Forward Movement"

Well hello, September. The older I get, the more quickly summers seem to fly by. 

Laurie and I had supper on the deck last night in quiet remembrance of Ian. We were visited by a heron, and watched the sun set, and listened to the waves hit the shore as the wind came up. Autumn was in the air: not only the dip in temperature (our second frost warning of the month), but the great flocks of honking geese in their V formations, the bright maple leaves, some already falling, the scent of bonfires . . . 

I had a lovely summer, full of the joys of the season. Swimming in Ontario’s lakes and rivers. Weeding my garden. Reading on my deck. Sitting with Doug, eating ice cream. Walking with friends. Picking wild blueberries. Once, maybe as recently as pre-Covid, I would have referred to those as “simple joys.” This summer they were everything. 

Well hello, Summer!

And there was more! My summer was filled, unexpectedly, with live music. How had I forgotten how much I love listening to musicians and bands and singers? Sometimes inside, often outside. (And the weather cooperated for every outdoor concert and festival! Extraordinary!) Always a touch bittersweet because I am always aware that Doug is missing. The majority of my summer experiences were ones I had without him. (No, not true. Not just “the majority” - all of them.)

sunset cruise on the Chief Commanda, which Doug always loved

On Thursday August 4th, we marked our tenth anniversary. Well, I marked it, with Doug by my side. There was an outbreak at his home, but I was able to visit. We watched our wedding video on the big screen with some of the other residents. (A 92 year old gentleman commented, “Oh, you’ve always been old.” That made me laugh through my tears!) 

portrait of Doug, by Mum

This was not our plan. (Of course it wasn’t.) When we were on our Honeymoon, walking Hadrian’s Wall as a coast-to-coast, and the Speyside Way, we realised we couldn’t poke around every single historic site and visit every museum and also walk all day. We balanced as best we could, but agreed that we’d celebrate our tenth anniversary by retracing our steps with a museum day in-between each walking day. Doug joked that he’d be twice as fast a walker then, after a decade of running to keep up with my long stride. I promised I would never leave him behind.

August 4th, 2012

It feels as if I have. Left him behind. 

sunset

A new acquaintance, whose wife is living with a rare dementia, described it this way. “My role has evolved - from spouse, to caregiver, to, now, support person.” He cried as he said it. I cried as I listened. And then another of our new acquaintances asked, “And what would each of your spouses say to you now, if they could talk?” 

I believe - I truly believe - Doug would tell me to follow my bliss. To live life to the fullest. To keep going to concerts, and on road trips with Donna and Lorie. To pull on my shoes and go for a walk. To plan visits with Mum, Mo, Laura, and Karen. To make the most of the next few weeks when I can still sit on the deck and read.

I have been carrying Kim Fahner’s These Wings with me all week, reading to anyone who’ll listen. (Bless my students for allowing me to start each class with a mini meditation or grounding moment, often in the form of a poem.) 

Backward Glance & Forward Movement, by Kim Fahner

From the Vault

Dearest Doug,

In this case, the vault is a floppy disk - !! A moment I captured fifteen years ago at the last writing retreat I applied to before I met you. I had a vague hope that there was some good advice from my then-older self to my younger self about what to do when I missed my ex and our shared memories.

Alas, no. 

But interesting as an artefact, to see how much (I think!) my writing has improved since I wrote this. (And yes, to note how far I've come.) 

Onwards, with love. 

Without a Map

All travellers have a few fantastic stories.  Riding the Hiram Bingham from Cusco to Machu Picchu. Getting lost somewhere in Japan and being offered a beating fish heart in a sushi bar.  Trying to explore Cairo in a painfully gritty sandstorm.  Being joined on a dive on the Great Barrier Reef by seven minke whales.

Over time I’ve polished these anecdotes, shared them at gatherings often enough that my syntax and pacing almost make them sound like someone else’s story that I’m simply re-telling.

Always searching for something, I spent twenty-one years travelling from country to country.  Everywhere I looked for one moment that would solidify the experience in my mind and remind me of the difference between one perfect sunrise and another.  I delight in the more obvious – sitting by a Queen of the Night on the only evening of the year it unfolds into flower or passing through a remote hilltown on the same day as the Dalai Lama – but I also seek out the more obscure like finding, fifty years later, a café in Calcutta where my Dad once ate, an island about which nothing is written.

In Montevideo I wanted to see the sea lions.

And that was the start of my most unexpected journey – that evening in Montevideo.  In an avant-garde Italian restaurant I broached the subject looming between my husband and I like a uncrossable mountain range. As my nouvelle tasting platter of pasta arrived I took a sip of the strong Argentine red.  “I’ve been studying the Rotarian four-way test,” I said.  “I really don’t see where it’s OK for a sergeant-at-arms to have an extramarital affair with his president-elect.”

He didn’t compose himself quite quickly enough.  Still, I had to say the words out loud.  “You and R___ are having an affair.”  And with those words I embarked upon a journey with no advance planning.  I hadn’t spent hours in bookstores, the library and online, researching points of interest and looking at glossy guide book photos.  I’d spoken to no one else who’d been here before me, had no ideas real or preconceived to guide me.

For years he’d denied all his infidelities and claimed I was insane until I almost believed him.  My single hope – that he would take this last opportunity to speak the truth – was not to be realised.  The relief at leaving an abusive marriage didn’t come for over eighteen months; that night I was only broken. My dream he might one day change was destroyed under his cruel, uncaring gaze, and I cried loud, ugly tears over my beautiful, untouched pasta.

Suddenly I was travelling without a map to help me navigate the alien terrain.  Separation.  Divorce.  No sign posts or landmarks to guide me when I was lost.  There was a new language to learn but no phrase book and no one else with whom to speak it.

Like a nightmare from which I couldn’t wake myself, I carried on through Uruguay and Argentina with this man who no longer loved me.  He barely spoke, I could barely breathe.  The sea lions, when I found them, were blurs through my tears.  I have no photographs, not a single scrapbook page of those weeks.  At Miami airport I boarded a plane heading north to my sister and her family while he flew south to our island home and his mistress.  I watched as we circled above Toronto, wondering how the deeply familiar city with its CN Tower and Skydome skyline suddenly looked as foreign as the moon.

I have often travelled solo, but I have never been as alone as I was this time.

Although I adore the freedom of a one-way ticket, I usually have a vague idea of how long I’ll be away and always before I’ve known that I can return to the place from where I started.  I have many homes – my mother still lives in the house where I was born and I have left boxes of books with friends across the world with the understanding they mark a spot to which I will always be welcomed back.  I used to say I carried my roots with me, but suddenly I had no roots.  I wasn’t sure I’d recognise the end of my trip.  There’d be no flight back to anywhere, no real way to know I was done, it was over.

The days from that evening in Montevideo to this moment are not ones I care to recall in great detail.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was right.  That journey – starting at Denial with far too long a stopover at Depression – took me the best part of three years.  Some days I wondered if Acceptance was just a fiction meant to keep one from suicide.  The cost – financial, physical, emotional – the cost has been astronomical.

I have now reached forty without the happy marriage and children I always thought for sure were in my future.  No career, just a series of jobs, some more interesting than others.  And now stories sadly familiar to many others who have travelled this route, which I have not built into polished anecdotes.  I talk out loud, instead, to my new companions, insomnia and loneliness, during the night.

When I miss my ex-husband because I can no longer turn to him and ask “remember when?” about a restaurant we discovered, a path we followed, a breath-taking moment we shared, I remind myself it’s not true that no one else was there and I have no one else with whom to relive the memory.  I was there.  I have always been there.  Here I am.

Can it have taken me forty years to grasp the most basic concept that one can not run away from oneself?  Is it perhaps time for me to stop peering over the edge of the horizon in wonder and instead look inwards? Maybe it was not the sea lions I was really searching for in Montevideo, or the orchids in Costa Rica or the Rhone off the coast of Salt Island.  Maybe all this time I have simply been searching for myself.

        Maybe I needed this mapless journey to guide me to exactly the place I am supposed to be.

Light

Dearest Doug,

You are so missed in church. Donna and I always remember you and Dennis sitting in our pew, whistling, singing with words real or imagined, tapping your feet. 

This blog has changed since I started - and isn't that the beauty of blogging? These are the words I wrote for and spoke in church recently. I am never not missing your physical presence in my daily life. 

Rev Dennis Landry

April 10th

It is always such an honour to be asked to lead these prayers. Sometimes I call them prayers for the people, and sometimes I call them prayers of the people. I think they are both - of and for - and I think that’s one of the many strengths of the St. Andrews Church community.

Let us pray together:

Oh Mystery that we call God, we give thanks for this community, and that we are able to gather together both in person and through the magic of technology.

In this part of the world, at this time of year, there is such a dramatic change in the way light fills our days. As winter ends, and we transition through spring towards summer, we are reminded of cycles - days, seasons, lives.

Patient God, help us sit with the early morning mist which hides a sunrise, or the slow reveal of a morning sky through thick cloud cover. Help us do more than look for the sun, but also smell the new growth and listen for the songs of returning birds. 

Help us, please, to trust what we can’t always see, to remember that you move in mysterious ways, to hold tight to the faith we have in you and your plan for us. Help us start our days with determination and confidence to do our very best, and then help us to have the difficult conversations, make the seemingly impossible choices, do the hard work.

Loving God, help us pause during the busy morning routine to look outside as the sun rises above the horizon and bathes our view with the radiant glow of the magic hour. Help us remember to pause through the day and face what it is we might otherwise turn away from. And remind us too that we can see things from a very different perspective than others, but we need only pay attention in order to find the thread that will bind us together. Help us listen. Help us love.

Generous God, ground us, please, in the moment. The sunlight catches diamonds in the last of the snow, and also frames reflections in the first edges of open water. These are the days of late winter - almost summer - early spring - back to winter. The overcast day is as precious as the postcard perfect blue sky day. Let us close our eyes and hear the rain, stick out our tongues like children to taste it, jump in puddles along the sidewalk. 

Without losing sight of the moment we are in, help us too, anticipate what may come next. When the rain passes there might be a rainbow, there will be flowers. God, gardens of sunflowers will hold deeper meaning for me this summer than every before; thank you for such a simple yet profound, constant constant constant reminder of Ukraine, and of the work we must do to end that war. 

Gracious God, as our days begin to close and the sun starts to set, take us back outside to experience the hazy light of the evening magic hour, when we still feel the warmth of the day’s sun on our face. Fill us with optimism and with hope.

Merciful God, please hear the names we are saying now, both aloud and silently in our hearts, and know we are asking for your help in giving our light and yours, our love and yours, our hope and faith and healing healing and yours, to these loved ones. 

Karin, Tim, Monique, Joyce, Doug  (*silence)

Beloved God, we know that “hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that” (MLK). Help us all to be that light, reflecting your light into our world.

These are our prayers.  Amen

And p.s. Mum reminded me that Paul, the apostle, taught us “Faith is the evidence of things not seen” and so with patience we may discern your path for us.