"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.

The Call

Random fun fact: I used to think I could be a romance novelist. In 1999 I was a Finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart contest which seemed like a big deal at the time. That novel, and the others I wrote, were never published. (Never mind, they were great practice for everything I’ve written since.) When I went to conventions, there was always at least one panel or workshop about what to do when you received The Call (an offer from a publisher, delivered by phone). It never came, but I kept the list of recommended questions by the phone for years, just in case.

That's me! (Bottom left hand corner. In 1999, when I was blonde.)

When our Care Coordinator put Doug on the Crisis List for a bed in a care home, I understood that it could be months before a suitable bed would become free. In fact, it was only weeks before  we got that Call.

It was a big shock. I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, or for the decision to be so difficult. That’s when I ought to have had a list of questions waiting beside the phone. What I knew was that my options were to accept that bed, or to decline the offer, at which point his name would be removed from all wait lists and we would have to wait three months before we could reapply, at which point he’d go back to the bottom.  

The person I most needed to talk to - Doug - was of, course, unavailable for the discussion. 

It would have been easy to ring my best friends, but I knew they would tell me to put on my own oxygen mask first, to allow myself the chance to have a full night of sleep, to let professionals help with the heaving lifting, that I wasn’t earning earning points for endurance, that no one would judge me-

Instead I sent an email to four of Doug’s closest friends, trusting his long-term friends would put his needs first. “I’m not even sure what I’m asking you. What should I do? Is it too soon?” They all wrote back to say, as gently and lovingly as possible, “Now is the time. Take the bed.”

I also emailed Doug’s neurologist in Ottawa, who replied: Louise: This is a heartbreaking situation, as you know.  In my experience, long-term care is recommended if someone needs assistance with all daily activities, including bathing and toileting. Long-term care is recommended if someone is too difficult to lift up at home. Individuals can remain at home with additional private homecare services, which are expensive, and may or may not be available in your area. The decision must come from your heart, as only you can know if care at home is adequate and sustainable at this time.

So I did what I do when faced with decisions, found a used envelope and wrote out a list of pros and cons. 

Then I rang my sister, and my Mum, and my best friends, and Doug’s family.

Then I cancelled that morning’s respite care, and we went to the Farmers’ Market. We bought butter tarts, and sat on the grass in the late autumn sun to eat them, then walked along the waterfront admiring the fall flora and foliage. 

There was a third option: I managed to negotiate an extra two weeks with Doug at home, and a care home only a third of the distance away. This allowed us to spend Thanksgiving at home together. 

And with hindsight, we are ever so lucky to have made that choice. He was ready for long term care, with professionals to care for him, and so many new people with whom to socialise. Had I declined that offer, he’d have been at the bottom of the wait lists when Covid struck - and the following year would have been very different for both of us. 

Time

Doug is now officially in ‘Late Stage’ Dementia using the labelling system that divides dementia into Early, Middle, and Late stages. Other systems have five numerical categories, others seven. On every chart I’ve looked at, in books and online, there is little difference towards the end. 

2013: Bricked off door, abandoned church

Four years ago I thought this would be the worst news and I dreaded the day I’d be told. But when the care home doctor confirmed it last week as we discussed reducing some of Doug’s medications, it was just news. Not good news, but not the worst. Just a fact. It’s a label, with all the benefits and disadvantages that come with so many labels. 

2022: when testing oneself for Covid isn't the least bit unusual 

The medications we’ve decided to decrease with a view of stopping altogether are intended to slow memory loss. Did they work? Impossible for me to know. There was no control group for comparison, and the challenges of Covid added to my difficulty in judging (guessing) how effective they were. I’m not sorry we tried them; I’d make the same choice again just in case they did give him - and us - a little more time with a slightly better memory. 

Time. Time is what I most long for. Time denied the Ukrainian mother-to-be and her child who were killed in the bombing of their maternity hospital. Time is also what I most celebrate. Individual moments of clarity are all the more precious when they emerge from a fog. 

2015: Walking the Weaver's Way, Norfolk

Two of Doug’s fellow residents passed away last week: both were 100 years old. Long lives, and, from the little I saw and learned, good lives until the last few years. They both sometimes sat with Doug in the dining room. The gentlewoman always asked for “more salt! more salt!” and if I tried to get away with pretending to shake some on her meal she called me on it. If I live to be 100 I hope I'm still that sharp! When she wanted to get someone’s attention she’d clatter her false teeth; it was the most annoying sound and I’m sure she knew it, and did it deliberately. Ha! The gentleman was a local hero, and leaves behind many improvements to our community. I am grateful for the short time I knew them both. 

Time. Time in a care home seems as fluid as time in one of Munro’s short stories. It slows and loops and speeds and reverses . . . and it feels exaggerated in such a liminal setting. There are two people who actively enjoy watching the news on TV, but if neither of them is there, and everyone else agrees, I turn the channel to the home and garden network, where people renovate an entire house in half an hour or build one from scratch in a sped-up 100 days, or to the game show channel where men and women from the 1970s make risqué jokes of that era. 

2022: last week

This is the week, if weather predictions come true, that winter will magically turn to spring. Temperatures will jump above zero, and precipitation will change from snow to rain. This is the time of year when I feel the most hope.  

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” asks Mary Oliver. I’m optimistic that there is still time for me to answer well, to make a real difference. 

Everything

Dearest Doug,

You were fast asleep today for the entire duration of my visit. I held your hands - I love holding your hands; I love your hands in mine. Usually I can, and do, rouse you. I’m growing used to your eyes being closed when you’re awake, but today you were fast asleep. I chatted to you - I hope my voice brought you some comfort, on some level. 

I would have liked to talk to you about the war, practiced the correct pronunciation of Kyiv, discussed the Vigil that is being held in town this evening. I would have liked to have talked about Covid for the past two years as it arrived, unfolded, changed our way of life. I know people have been glued to television sets; I know you would have been devouring the Toronto Star and the Guardian. You would have contributed some Op-Ed columns, I’m sure. Thoughtful, concise, well-researched, beautifully written. 

Instead I told you how well my lecture at the uni went, how bright the students are, how close a reading they’d given the work, and how much hope for the future I feel having met those young people. I tossed around a few ideas for papers I could write. Should write? (Only a few years ago you would have gently chided me: “those papers won’t write themselves, get on it!”)  I read to you  from one of our scrapbooks, describing the photos and the memories they hold for me, making sure I didn’t ask “Remember when we . . .? Remember when?”

Mum did all the Christmas baking this year; I had the last almond square for you - but even that didn’t pull you from the sleep you so obviously needed. (Confession: when I came home I had a cup of tea and ate the almond square.)  Holding the square in front of you, trying to tempt you awake with the scent of almonds, I talked about the marzipan figurines we saw in shop windows of patisseries in Europe. And that Easter is late this year, but Mum and Donna made the Simnel cakes in Deep River when we visited for Family Day weekend.

I still think of Family Day as a “new” holiday as it wasn’t invented when I was a child/ teenager living in Canada. But it was first celebrated in 2008, so it’s older than us, as a couple. Donna, Lorie & I spent the weekend with Mum & Tom in Deep River; snowshoeing, playing Scrabble & Scattegories, reading, baking, cooking, eating. Exactly the sort of weekend you’d love. I thought of you - and how you’d enjoy the moment we were in - many, many times.

We’ve never walked through an almond tree grove together and smelled almond blossoms, or picked nuts from the tree. We’ve stood over a pot of hot water though, to blanch almonds and squirt them from their skins. We’ve deep fried elderberry blossoms and we’ve made elderberry jam, and we’ve picked blackberries and blueberries and forged for mushrooms and wild garlic. 

You don’t need to open your eyes, Doug. I can use my words to describe the things we’ve seen, and smelled, and tasted. And the cuckoos we listened for in the English springtime, and the sting of nettles we picked for soup. My voice may be a little muffled by the mask, but this is me speaking. My skin is winter-dry, but this is my hand holding yours. Right now, this is everything. And more than enough. 

Six Years Ago

Doug has always been a cat person; he re-homed his cat, Milo, when he moved to the UK with me. At the time I had no idea how great a sacrifice that was. I’d grown up with both cats and dogs, but always thought of myself as a dog person. (Wrong! Apparently I’m an animal person.) I have made a lot of poor decisions in my life, and regret things both done and undone. But wen we moved back to Canada, I suggested to Doug that we adopt a cat. Such a good decision!

Piper's first day in her new home

We went to our local humane society, where there were six super cute, energetic kittens, and a significantly older cat. I expected Doug to choose a kitten but he immediately pointed to the bigger, older cat. ‘Middle aged women need to be loved too,’ he said. In that moment I fell in love with him all over again. Later he admitted that he was worried Piper would be euthanised if she wasn’t adopted. When we signed the papers, one of the workers gave another a thumbs up and told us, ‘She’ll do so much better by herself.’ (True. She doesn’t not get along well with other cats, dogs, or spiders.)

We didn’t own a car, so brought her back in a taxi. After a half hour exploration of her new home, she nodded her head as if in approval, and curled up for a nap on our bed.

Doug's last night at home - Piper didn't leave his side

She kept us awake for most of that first night while she discovered places to play hide and seek (inside the box spring! behind a row of books on the top shelf!), and took great care to remind us that cats are crepuscular animals - waiting until we’d finally fallen asleep before waking us up by licking our faces and asking for breakfast.

It's not really a challenge to do a jigsaw unless you have a cat . . . 

She was absolutely Doug’s cat for the rest of his time at home. She followed him around like a puppy dog, and waited by the door for his return when he was out. I hope they kept each other company when I was at work; I know she still misses him.

She wakes me at dawn most mornings. I continue to buy her toys - even though boxes, paper bags, and hair elastics remain her firm favourites. She takes up an incredible amount of space in the bed, and often feels the need to sleep on top of me. 

And I wouldn’t change a thing. She knows when I’m sad and in need of comfort; she licks away my tears when I cry; she holds her paw in my hand. She grooms me daily.

We had hoped for children, biological or adopted, but the universe had other plans. I suspect, truly, Piper chose us and let us pretend we were choosing her. I am not for a second suggesting that a cat replaces a child, but she came into our lives when we most needed her, and we have loved her ever since. 

So much change in those six years, but through it all this unconditional love. 

#love for the win!