My Cousin Michael

I was watching a news clip video this morning, at Mad Priest's. It was lovely, a lovely editorial piece, delivered with conviction and passion, about Prop 8 and love and God and everything. Thinking, my cousin Michael will like this and I'll send it to him. My cousin Michael lives 40 miles away. He was born in England, because his mother was English and his parents lived in South America, and his mother wanted him to have an English passport. (I may have mentioned that my family ranges from dysfunctional to off-the-map-lunatic -- nothing milder than that. One WOULD take a long boat trip, heavily pregnant, in 1951, to make sure one's eldest child had the correct passport.) Michael moved to Canada 35 years ago. We would talk on the phone sometimes, but the first time I met him in person was at my first stepfather's funeral in January 1993,


It was funny. He's three years older than me, almost, raised on a different continent, sent to school in England. Our grandmothers were sisters; he was some other order of relative than cousin, but he's my age, and that's how we call 'em in our family. We have very compatible religious and social and political views. We got drunk together one night, very early in our knowing each other, and had a hilarious time, describing the things about which we were totally unjustifiably unreasonable, and finding out that we both said the same horrible things to our life-partners because of them. Genetics, I guess. He's been on my mind and in my prayers a lot recently. In January he fell down stairs at work and busted up his collarbone badly enough that it took three surgeries to repair it. In one of the series of tests, they did a CT scan and found a something, a one-eighth inch something, in the top of his left lung. That was in the summer. We both knew before the test results came back -- he smokes three packs a day. Last week, he had a quarter of his left lung removed. They biopsied some other parts of both lungs. He'll get the results on the 25th.


Michael and my husband get along well, even after my marriage break-up. My husband called me just now at work, and said that Michael had called his place because he's lost (again) my phone numbers at work and for my cell. His father died in the night. Terry had a massive stroke, I dunno when exactly, and got recovered enough that they moved him out of ICU and into a ward. He saw all his kids, and I think all his grandkids. Michael saw him yesterday, and Terry died 15 minutes after he left. His wife and daughter were with him.


We don't know yet when the services will be -- Michael's mother and brother are going today to make the arrangements. Michael asked if I'd phone my mother's one remaining sister, and tell her. I did, but she was just leaving the Sailors' Memorial after the Remembrance Day service, and asked if she could call me back. I said sure -- there's no need to rush this news. I'll talk to Michael tomorrow and find out when and where the service will be. The aunt I called today may not want to go -- most of the family's been fighting with Michael's mother since 1951, when she did something unforgivable -- married Terry. As I just told my sister, "That doesn't mean one wouldn't do the correct thing in difficult circumstances." If she doesn't want to go, I'll take the train.


I'm tired again. Inside tired, not body tired. Thursday was my Mum's birthday; Friday was my husband's; this coming Thursday is the anniversary of my Mum's death. Today's the anniversary of me having her admitted to hospital, which she'd never wanted, but I had no other choice. I had lunch with an old friend last week, and it's shaken up what I thought I knew about myself and my life. Had a misunderstanding with my best friend on the weekend, and that's always an ache. I need to leave my job -- it's lost almost all of what was joyful in it for me, and I show up and endure days at work. I might find that more bearable if I was getting paid TONS of money, but I doubt it. I miss, ferociously, the kitten I left in Texas -- if you're feeling lonely, bruised and overtired (I played on-line Scrabble with a couple of friends way too late last night), a kitten's a cure-all. I miss life in Texas -- feeling like this right now, I could go lie in the hammock and look up into the trees, which always made me say, "Thank you," to the Force in the Universe that makes them, or I could go find something covered with rust and grind it off and maybe make it into something else. That's restorative, meditative too -- although I'd never have thought that makes noise and metal dust and showers me in sparks would feel meditative. It requires total mindfulness, or it'll tear the skin off your fingers. Ask me how I know. I'm sick of dead people.


What I don't feel is any desire to reshape reality -- either by doing my control-freak-drama-queen routine, or by swallowing something that'll alter my inner reality. I'm tired. Not tired, tired OF. The answer to that is to pray for God's will for me to be revealed and for the power to carry out the vision I'm given. And to share. And to be grateful. Because the truth is, if it never gets any better than it is right this minute, that's okay with me. God's giving me so much, it'd just be churlish to assume I need anything else.

I said I'd write more about fear

Well, I said I’d write something more about fear, and I’m going to. Heaven knows, I’m an expert on it. And I’ve had a lot of practice with it in the last few weeks.

First of all, I’ve got something wrong with my left foot. It’s been bothering me for a few months, and usually in the middle of the night, or when I’m not near a phone. When I am near a phone and the doctor’s office is open, it’s not bothering me and I don’t think to call. That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

Finally, it got too bad to ignore, and I knew I was being an idiot. So in the middle of the night, I e-mailed two people, detailed the symptoms and the fears. The fears are from my expert medical diagnostic skills – it was Parkinson’s, MS, diabetic neuropathy, or residual damage from when a beer truck ran over my foot on March 1^st, 1993. Go ahead and laugh: it really WAS a beer delivery truck. He pinned the foot under the front driver’s-side tyre, and I fell under the cab, tearing up some ligaments on the outside of the ankle. (Someone asked me once what made it important that it was a beer truck, and not full of milk – it’s VERY important!!! This is funnier.) I promised to make the doctor’s appointment the following day, and I did – it was a week away. Having “confessed” my fears, I then prayed for God to relieve me of them. And I was not afraid between telling on myself, and the appointment.

The nurse practitioner did some tests. The high-tech neuropathy test – you close your eyes, and he pokes the bottom of your foot with the cut end of a short piece of fishing line, and you say “Yes” every time you feel it. Pressing on some things in the back of my knee, and on my foot, to see if they hurt. I am TERRIBLY ticklish, and the test was agony, but it didn’t hurt. Stand on my tiptoes. I can do that. Rock back on my heels and lift my toes. I can’t do that; I can with the right foot, but not the left. And I asked, as I always do – Did I feel it every time you touched the bottom of my foot? Yes. He said, I definitely do NOT have diabetic neuropathy. And he’s ordered some tests – I’m having an EMG early in September.

I barely got out of there and home before I flooded the place. Called one of my confessors, and blurted out, “It’s not neuropathy!” He said, “What is it then?” and I said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. They’re not gonna cut off my feet!” Holy cow, who knew THAT was there? I honestly had not felt fear all the time I waited for the doctor’s appointment, but the minute he said not neuropathy, I realized I’d held deep terror. Way down where it’s barely verbal, neuropathy to me means, “They’re gonna cut off my feet.” I am not at all afraid of whatever comes next.

Then there are the other people. My friends in their late 80’s. She’s ready to move into a retirement home, and he’s not. She asked for moral support. What I want for them is peaceful transitions. What I want for me is not to have whatever changes are coming. They have my moral support, and practical support too. and not least of the practical support is prayer.

Someone else I love has been having a lot of medical tests in the last week. One in particular was frightening me to the point that I cried every time I talked about it. And I DID talk about it – the things I’m afraid of are like mushrooms – they grow in the dark. I guess I didn’t talk specifically enough to the person who was having the tests – I totally misunderstood what they were looking for, and I was needlessly afraid.

But I was not constantly afraid. I would talk to someone out loud, and say, I know that fear is based in the future, and the future is imaginary. Roland told me in the spring that when I’m in the valley of the shadow of death, I need to remember – I’m in the SHADOW, not the reality. When I was afraid I’d ask God to relieve me of the fear, and then I’d go do something, like scrub the kitchen cupboard doors, to keep me stuck right in the here and now, and not let my brain wander around in the imaginary future.

The other thing I could do is remind myself that the condition I feared either already did or didn’t exist. If it did, it could get better or worse. If it didn’t, it could start to exist, or it could not. And even if it did exist, and even if it was getting worse right now, that didn’t mean that in six months, it would be what I feared right now. There are an infinite number of possibilities. The internal medicine specialist I saw for the first time last December, because my family doctor was retiring after being my doctor for over 25 years, said, “You’re hardly diabetic at all any more.” Everything changes all the time, and it’s only in my mind that things always only get worse. The fear went away, and it came back, and I’d pray again, and it would come back at longer intervals, and with less force. We get stronger with exercise.

These look overwhelming, because you’re reading them all at once. I’ve been living them serially, over a few weeks. Nothing here is unusual or makes me special; this is life. The answer is always the same – talk to people and pray. I have this feeling that most religions expect that we will gather together to pray and worship, at least some of the time. Jesus said, “Whenever two or more are gathered in His name …” The synagogue across the road requires ten men for a minyan. Muslims gather to pray at specific times each day. Even AA says the only things you need for a meeting are two drunks, a pot of coffee, and a resentment, and they always pray at the start and end of the meeting. The answer is to join together and turn to God and ask for help. It doesn’t even matter what name you call God. It works out – God is so good.

What Is Your Dream? What Would You REALLY Like to Be Doing?

I tell myself a lot, “Everything changes all the time.” I’ve been through a lot of change recently, and it’s felt hard. I don’t WANT this change, I say. But everything changes all the time, whether I want it or not, and whether I try to ignore it or not. I’m not built to ignore it forever; I have to do something else.

There’s been a lot of change. Where I’m living isn’t home. My income’s insufficient for my needs, not for my wants, my needs. What I’ve been doing for a living for 15 years isn’t working for me any more. I’m so aware of how much it’s about serving an institution and not people. The Div College and ordination track I was on – well, I changed, is the truth, and God has different plans for me. My relatives – I’ve lost most of my relatives in the last two years. I have family, that’s a different thing, and it’s pretty portable. Very few of them are right here anyway.

And you know what? I’d love to have my mother and my aunt back. But being and being here while they were sick and dying changed me, and I don’t want to go back to what I was. This is better.

Do you remember at the end of The Wizard of Oz, when they’re getting ready to fly back to Kansas in a balloon? They slip all the guy ropes for the basket off their pegs, and the thing just lifts off. “Losing” the job, the relatives, the sense of call to ordination, the home … My guy ropes are being slipped off their pegs. There’s nothing to hold me where I am, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Freedom. I also feel it as a vacuum sometimes. But nature won’t support a vacuum. I FEEL it that way, but the vacuum doesn’t exist. There is something else that exists, waiting for me to start doing it. I just don’t know what or where it is yet.

Sometimes that’s discouraging. This little statement from Wayne Dyer helps.

Things to Be Grateful For

It went up to about 24C/80F today, first time, and it was sunny. My mother-in-law’s in a nursing home two or three miles west of here. I haven’t seen her since Mother’s Day, and I had a thank you note in a card with a picture on the front by someone she really likes. So I put on a short denim skirt, a white top with a scoop neck and cap sleeves, and my good training running shoes, and no sunscreen, and walked out to see her.

My mother-in-law’s very special. Drives me nuts sometimes, but really – I was kibitzing with my husband at one point early in our marriage and threatened to go home to my mother. He laughed out loud and said, “Yeah. Right.” So I said, “Then I’ll go home to yours,” and he said, “She’d have you, too.”

She sews most of her own clothes, and she used to design and make costumes for the little theatre. She and my Mum were in little theatre together in the last ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Mum took time off, and went back in the late ‘70’s, and both of them took their children along. My husband and I assumed we met when we were adolescents, but we don’t remember meeting til our early 20’s. We were both seeing other people then, but a year and a half later we were both going at speed through a completely dark hallway backstage – from different directions – and crashed into each other. I don’t remember the physical impact so much as the inner impact – “He’s MALE!” That was in 1979. Two people can hurt each other enough that a light goes out.

My mother-in-law made me maternity clothes, and when the baby was born she put zippers in the front of the jumpers so I could nurse discreetly. I have an eating disorder – I was back-diagnosed as “self-medicating a severe post-partum depression”. I didn’t like it the day I’d got on the scale and seen 285 pounds – so I stopped getting on the scale. When I weighed close to 300 pounds, my mother-in-law was still making me clothes, prettier ones than I could find in a store. I lost almost a hundred pounds 15 to 20 years ago, then stuck for a very long time, and lost the last of my overweight last year. My mother-in-law would still make me clothes, but she had a stroke a few years ago, and doesn’t much anymore.

She got sick last summer and went into hospital, and while she was there, there was a mistake in her medications and she became suicidally depressed. She wouldn’t get out of bed, and the original problem was food poisoning – she simply lost the physical strength to get up and walk. She went from an acute bed in a hospital to a nursing home last October. She got out to my sister-in-law’s for Christmas dinner, but she slipped and cut her leg. She’s 85 now and her circulation’s not good. Her leg’s only just healing. They’re going to send her home to her apartment very soon, when the cut’s sompletely healed.

I hadn’t seen her very much last fall. My Mum had died; my stepmother had died; I’d left my husband and we’d moved him and our son out of our old home; my aunt was in hospital, then hospice … I went to see her twice in hospital, and told my sister-in-law, “I just cant.” She understood. So, I hadn’t seen my mother-in-law in most of the weight-losing process. Until Christmas Day. I walked in the door and into her arms and hugged and kissed her, and she looked at me and said, “Oh! Oh! Your mother would be so proud!” And then we cried like little girls.

I dressed partly to catch some sun today, and partly, because I dress brightly when I go into nursing homes. We talked for an hour-and-a-half before I had to leave. I hugged her and kissed her, and she pushed me away a little after, but held on, so she could get a good look at me. Then she said, “There ought to be crowds of men following you everywhere.” The separation was my decision – I do know my husband would never have left me. There are things I’ve felt I need to be forgiven – I’m pretty certain I have been, some of them, today.

I stopped at the supermarket on the way home, and bought oatmeal and coconut so I could make my Dad’s favourite cookies to take when I go Wednesday to weed his garden and cook supper. I stood there in the bulk food section, trying to decide if it looked like three cups of oatmeal, and wishing they had the other kind that needs cooking longer … and I looked at the scoop of oatmeal in my hands and started to cry. Life just swirls around and around.

Alice Walker and The Color Purple -- Boy, It's Hard to Remember to Spell American

This is so cool. It is grey, chilly, damp today in southern Ontario. It’s not supposed to be, at the end of May, but it is. And The Weather Network SAID it was 19C today – but it sure didn’t feel like it. I felt about appropriate to the weather, and I took my camera out to walk the South Shore Trail and see if there were any trilliums left. If not, what there is. I didn’t make it to the trail though – when I woke up this morning I got a bad cramp in my left leg, and it took me a while to realize it was still bugging me. All I knew was, walking was uncomfortable.

The only cheerful thing was a house with wisteria. Not the deep purple kind I love best, but wisteria nevertheless. First I’ve seen this year. Somehow, as I walked into the village and back, I started to think of Shug Avery telling Miss Celie in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple that she thinks God just wants to be admired. Then I started to notice how many purple flowers there are today – lilacs, irises, periwinkle, violets, pansies, columbines, wisteria, tulips. I ran out of memory or battery on the camera before I got to the lilacs – got to smell them though.

I started taking pictures of all the ones I could. The woman at the wisteria house came home from work while I was taking pictures – I asked her if she minded, and she said no. She said, they’d never been as good as they are this year, and she doesn’t know why the one branch in particular was so spectacular. The woman at the Brew-Your-Own-Wine-And-Beer store came out and asked if I was a professional photographer, and I said no, just taking the pictures to make myself happy, and did she mind? Nope. She even offered to come and take MY picture in HER garden!

Then a man with a dog stopped to talk, while I was taking pictures of the hidden purple pansies – it wasn’t his house, it was his friend’s. He said her garden is whimsical. He lives around the corner. His wife had passed away last summer, after more than 40 years. He’s a photographer, and gave me his card so I could see some of his work online. Wow! He’s a PHOTOGRAPHER. Me – I’m making myself happy and learning how to use my new camera. We talked about living alone after decades of marriage, and the difficulties of cooking and eating alone. He has a very nice dog, too.

Then I came home and SAW my pictures. They made me very happy. I wanted to share more of them than I can easily on the blog, and I wanted them big, on a black ground. There was no help for it – had to be PowerPoint. I hate PowerPoint presentations at seminars, in school, in church … And, I’ve never done one. But I DID today, and I did it myself, without asking for help. Then I wanted to upload it here, and found out that’s not as easy as picking up a video from YouTube. I followed links to several sites that are supposed to help you make your PPT files embeddable – one’s not taking new subscriber’s, one didn’t work, one I’d have to start from scratch … Ugh. But I was happy, excited and persistent, and VIOLA!!! Here they are. Well, some of them. I took about 60 – I’m not making you watch them ALL. I won’t be test-driving this til I’ve published – if the pages advance every five seconds like I set them, it should take about a minute.

So -- I met three new people and one very nice dog. I learned two new things. I not only stopped to admire the colour purple, I went looking for it, and I'm sharing. I don’t think God’s gonna be pissed off with us today.

I think it pisses God off - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: I think it pisses God off

Those Dark Nights of the Soul

Last night was one of mine. I got home late and cold, after a too-long day, even though it had really good stuff in it. I hadn’t had supper yet, so I was hungry. I struggle with there not being anybody THERE sometimes – I pray, and there are people I talk to, on the phone or by e-mail – but someone THERE, physically present … I’m still not over living with my son and my niece, and all their friends around all the time. And my present circumstances mean, I don’t have any pets. Something’s gotta change here, and I’ve started shifting something to make the change happen.

I did some of the right things – ate. E-mailed someone else who absolutely loves me, and told how I was feeling. Started looking a little outward at something someone else was struggling with. And – this is hard to admit. Knowing that what I need was time with God and not being willing to take it. Because, I knew if I let go and told God everything I’d cry again, and I just didn’t want to. I was feeling defiant, is maybe the right word. Crying is getting old.

But I did go looking for God. And I found what I needed – funny how that happens, isn’t it? It was the picture that hooked me first. I only skimmed the story a little, intent on going back to the picture. Something about the first paragraph caught me, and I read it carefully, and the whole rest of the article. Then I read it all several times, and rested in the certain knowledge that, no matter how awful and alone I may feel, it is not possible to be in a place or time where God is not.

After that I wrote and thanked the person who pointed me in the direction of this. (I’m keeping her anonymous here, but some of you may recognize the editor of this blog.) Saying thank you is very important – the most important thing we can do. And I e-mailed some more with the person I’d told on myself, got to the point where it was fun, and I felt warm, sweet and happy by the time I fell into bed. God IS good, and always there, and sometimes I’m even willing to find that out.

Catching Up -- Family Stuff -- The Late Mother's Day Edition

Family Stuff can be so hard to deal with; and it’s rewarding or heartbreaking; and God’s always in it. A lot of this is family stuff that rose up before and around Mother’s Day. That was a weekend full of listening to people and trying to carry their messages on to others, and there was no time and I was tired, too. I took a course in Div College once, called “Group Spiritual Direction”. Every Saturday, 9 – 4, for several months – theory in the morning and small group practicum in the afternoon. We were trying to learn to listen with God’s ears – I thnk last weekend that bore some fruit. It all turned out much better than it could have. I grew, at least, some gratitude and compassion for a couple of people who’d only brought aggravation to me before (and they did last weekend too), and the beginning of cordial relations with one of them. I’m not talking family here – these are people I volunteer with.

Okay, on to the family stuff. Mother’s Day has always been kind of an ache. I spent too many Mother’s Days cleaning the house and cooking so HIS mother could have a nice Mother’s Day, and I didn’t get to see mine, and no-one ever offered to take ME out for brunch or supper or anything … My Sister-in-Law at some point took over hosting Mother’s Day dinners – I think so we could cook on the barbecue for the first time all year. Still – I was THERE – didn’t feel like I got to make choices. It all made sense – that SIL and one niece and one nephew all have birthdays to celebrate in May too – we did ‘em all at once. Now I don’t have a Mum any more, and our son works 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on alternate Friday, Saturday, Sundays – and the alternate was Mother’s Day weekend.

What I do have is these amazing in-laws. Almost two years ago, my husband went and told his only sister that we would be separating, and I’d be the one moving out. She had told me and another SIL years earlier how grateful she was, “that my brothers married the sisters I always wanted to have.” The day after he told her we’d be separating, I talked to her on the phone, and the conversation ended with her saying, “Married to my brother or not, I still love you and you’re still my sister.” We’d already kept another SIL one of her brothers had divorced. And the youngest brother was home from far-away places in September. He was 15 or 16 when I started dating my husband back in 1978. We were sitting alone in the garden in the dark, and he said to me, “I heard about you two. I’ve done it twice, you know. No matter what happens, you’re always my sister-in-law.” My mother-in-law has offered to lend me money, should I need it. Holy mackerel.

I’ve gotta tell you – two years ago, I hated my husband, because that way I could make everything be all his fault. I worked VERY hard on seeing what my part was, and cleaning up my side of the street. Not for his sake – so our son could have what I didn’t – if he ever gets married, both his parents will show up and be polite and friendly with each other. And, it’s hard to show up at your SIL’s place for Christmas dinner if you can’t speak to your ex.

It’s not always easy. I’m the one who made the choices about separation, and I’m the one who left. I feel a lot more “separated” from my husband, internally, than he is from me. So he walks into the room and says Hi to me, and rubs my back or shoulder the way he always has – and I freeze. I haven’t figured out how to say, “Don’t ever touch me!” without sounding awful; and I guess I haven’t moved past some things enough not to want to say it. There was also the really good tickets for an event that someone gave him – something we used to do together – the first person he thought of to ask to go with him was me. (He’s a very good man, better than me in a lot of ways, and I can’t live with him.) I didn’t want, or have, to say, “Don’t ask me to go out and spend six HOURS with you!” I got to say, truthfully, I work all day on that day of the week.

So – I got invited to Mother’s Day dinner at my Mother-in-Law’s apartment, and my niece was cooking, and I went and was happy and grateful to be there. My MIL’s been in hospital or a nursing home since last August – there’s some hope she’ll still be able to go back to her apartment. And the person who was supposed to replace my son at 6 a.m. didn’t, so he stayed til 3 or so, when they got someone there. I expected he’d go sleep, but he went home and showered and changed and came back to be with us. Told me, his Mother’s Day present to me would be. my niece is gonna teach him how to make me a new apron. (My current favourite apron is 15 years old, a little grey down the front, and has at least three holes burnt through it – but the strap frayed off entirely in the last washing, and I thought I’d just replace it – he thinks I’m nuts.)

On the Monday, Dad saw the specialist for his liver. They’ve got him on a regimen of diuretics now that’s keeping the fluid levels in his body down. The crisis in March was that there was so much fluid in his belly cavity, he couldn’t eat or breathe. I talked to him after – he’s got blood work this coming Monday, and an appointment with the specialist a month after that. That means the specialist thinks he’s gonna live at least six weeks. Good. I called my sister after – she SEES Dad more than me – and said, “How is he, really?” Being so ill has left him very tired and weak. Her partner says, “He’s in really good shape for a 97-year-old man. Trouble is, he’s 77.”

Then I said to my sister, “I have something else I have to ask you.” She laughed, and said, “Where’s Mum?” Yup, that was it. When our mother died, they held her ashes in the funeral home, to be interred whenever my stepfather’s were. I hadn’t seen much of my stepfather in 2007, and his memorial service was two weeks after our aunt’s. I couldn’t cope, and didn’t go. I hadn’t realized – I didn’t know what cemetery or where. My sister said, “You know this is my busiest time of the year at work – in June, I’ll take you.” Then she told me where, and that there was a nice view of the wetland – this one, from the other side. My sister and me, that's a relationship that needed some healing too. I'd prayed about it a lot -- there was something that I need to apologize for that I haven't -- and I'm not sure what it is. She says family doesn't need to apologize -- that is, in itself, kind of a heavy weight to carry.

I was missing my Papa too, my Mum's father, this week. He died in 1976, when I was 21. He was the Rock in the family. I always thought I remembered him with rose-coloured glasses on, but all my cousins do too, so it isn't just me. There's some 8mm film around somewhere with him in, although mostly, he was doing the filming. I don't have the films though. So I went looking for people talking about their grandparents, and I found this lovely video. Hope you all enjoy it; and I hope and pray every one of us had a grandparent we feel this way about, and maybe we get to be grandparents someone will feel this way about. And that we have churches that feel like this too -- this whole sermon is full of joy and blessing for me.

Amaryllis

On February 14th, a friend in Tennessee sent me an article on Ted Kooser’s Valentine poems. She’d heard him interviewed on NPR, and reading some of his Valentines. I loved them, and I’d been given some book store gift certificates for Christmas, so I ordered the book with the collected poems. (The site hasn't been updated since 2005, so the book's not shown.)

The more I read his poetry, the more I loved it. Right now, I’m reading his Delights and Shadows (2004) and also The Home Poetry Repair Manual (2005). You know the way the information age takes you places – today I found “American Life in Poetry”, a weekly newsletter, with a poem, and Kooser’s very short introduction to the poem. I’ve been reading back issues (not all 162 of them) of the newsletter, and I subscribed to it.

Column Number 84 is a poem called “Amaryllis” by Connie Wanek of Duluth, Minnesota.

Amaryllis

A flower needs to be this size
to conceal the winter window,
and this color, the red
of a Fiat with the top down,
to impress us, dull as we've grown.

Months ago the gigantic onion of a bulb
half above the soil
stuck out its green tongue
and slowly, day by day,
the flower itself entered our world,

closed, like hands that captured a moth,
then open, as eyes open,
and the amaryllis, seeing us,
was somehow undiscouraged.
It stands before us now

as we eat our soup;
you pour a little of your drinking water
into its saucer, and a few crumbs
of fragrant earth fall
onto the tabletop.

My Mum’s birthday was November 6^th. Every year, I’d buy her an amaryllis bulb for her birthday. She would plant it in an 18-inch long terracotta planter shaped like a camel, lying down – the flower would grow where the hump oughtta be. It would bloom by Christmas. Mum loved them for the same reasons I didn’t – they’re huge, and bright red and ostentatiously flamboyant. That’s how she liked things. I like things smaller and quieter, modest and reserved. African violets. Forget-me-nots. Nicotiana. But I bought them for her, the reddest ones, at the supermarket.

Except, in 2006, it was different. Her cancers were diagnosed on September 21^st. Thursday. On the weekend, my sister said to me, “She said the doctors said months. Christmas?” I said, no, not Christmas. “Her birthday, if she can start to eat.” So, I bought the Amaryllis bulb early that year. A friend had taken me to the Mum Show in the greenhouses in Gage Park, Hamilton. A commercial nursery had a table there, with much fancier, more expensive, bulbs than I usually bought. I bought one with red and white striped flowers. I gave it to her right away, hoping she’d see it bloom.

Well, she didn’t. It bloomed about 10 days after she died. Two stalks, four blooms the size of dinner plates at the top of each one. They looked obscene, sitting there in the middle of the dining room table, while they were still two green, growing shoots. I was there the day they bloomed, and my aunt too. I sent it home with her in her car. It bloomed for a very long time.

I’m only writing this because the poem made me cry. She didn't believe in God. The day before her birthday, she asked me if I still believed in an afterlife. I said yes -- no other matter or energy just disappears. I asked if Burnie, her second husband and the one she loved best, had believed in an afterlife, and she said she didn't know; they'd never talked about it. I told her that a few days before he'd died, I'd been sitting in bed with him, both of us drinking diet Cokes I'd smuggled in. (He was on restricted fluids.) That I'd said, "I'm going to miss you, Burnie," and he'd said he'd miss me too. I think that sounds like he was expecting to be somewhere he would.

In the last few days, we told Mum it was okay to go; that Burnie and my brother Steve were waiting for her. I do believe she heard, and I do believe they were waiting for her, with all my heart.

Don't Worry: We'll All Float On All Right

I’ve been thinking about how to write the happy ending Part 2 for the previous post. This isn’t anything like what I thought I was going to write, but my friend Lynda sent me this video this morning. It’s very powerful, and it shows so clearly what I’ve been feeling.

Roland, thank you for reminding me that when I’m in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I’m in the SHADOW. There’s a saying, “Hurt is inevitable in life; suffering is optional.” I get that. I’m dealing with legitimate grief. But I get stuck in the shadow sometimes, and you can’t see things clearly in shadows. That’s when I suffer from loneliness and being alone; when I’m in the shadows and wrong about what I think I’m seeing.

My aunt, the one who died, and I became very close the last few years. We’d both been changing how we’d lived our lives, and this was a chance for both of us to do-over some of the family relationships, mother-daughter, sister-sister … One of the things I valued most, in a family where secrets are high-value currency, was the openness – we talked about all of it. She died on a Sunday morning; the last time I was with her when she was at all coherent was Wednesday evening. She was asleep, and I was praying and watching. I had bent over, had my arms folded on her bed and my head on them, crying, and I felt her hand on the back of my head. She asked if I was all right, and I said no, and I was going to miss her. She kept her hand on my face and said, “She promised – you will never be alone.”

And I haven’t been, but shadow obscures truth.

All right – if I’ve done this right, the video will interrupt the text here, and you can watch it first, and then I’ll tell you why I posted it.

Libby Sauter was the first woman to cross that slackline. I know nothing about slackline-walking, other than what I’ve seen here. It’s seems obvious that it has to be one straight pass. Every time she slipped, she had to go back and start the attempt over. It took about 80 seconds to make the final crossing, but look what came around that.

There’s Libby herself – the desire to do it, the determination to practice before she got there, accepting the missteps and falls and the necessity of getting back up and starting over again. You could hear her yell when she fell one time – she didn't sound scared to me, she sounded pissed off.

There’s her coach. I could see the history in their relationship. So, he helped teach her, helped her get ready. Held her hand as she started the walk until she was ready to let go. (Did you SEE the wind blowing his shirt? Shudder.) He was tied off more heavily than her, so he could go get her when she couldn’t get up herself. The music was off during that successful attempt, and you could hear him talk to her non-stop: “Stay up, it’s yours, you got it. Don’t rush this last part. This is just a slackline to you now …” Then, there to celebrate.

That’s not all. There was the guy with the camera, breathing for her and cheering. The other women who were there – four video cameras and two stills, all with people attached. This was Libby Sauter’s victory, and she couldn’t have done it without them.

The first time I saw this, around the 3:20 mark, I thought, “Oh, that’s Bob.” Not for real. I have someone who teaches me what he knows about living life and looking for God, and holds my hand when he can, and helps me up when I fall, and never, ever says, “Well, of course you fell; what were you thinking trying to do that?” I told him not long ago there’d never been anyone in my life before who always told me I could do that, if I said I wanted to, and he said, “Yeah, you can; look what you’ve done.” I said, “I’ve never been able to argue with you. You say, ‘you can do that, because I did this, and so I know you can.’ And I can’t argue, because so often you were doing it and I could see it had been harder for you than what I'm looking at.”

He’s not the only one. There are others who’d do those things for me if I went to them more often. I still act like a hurt kitten and go hide out, instead of going where there’s people to help. I have so much love and support in my life – there are people here, at church, 12-Steppers, even family. And there are people “out there” in cyberspace, in all those circles too.

If you’re reading this, that includes you. Most of you are new in my life. We meet the way everyone meets – “Ellie or Dennis or Fran or the Mad One or someone told me this today – go over there and see them, and get to know them too. You can say I sent you if you want.” Joys, struggles, caring, loving, prayer – all those things are shared here. I don’t know about you, but I’m drinking coffee with you while I’m hanging out, too. Thank you.

My life is full of blessing, when I stand in the light and look at it. “Hurt is inevitable; suffering is optional.” There are gifts for me in the hurt too, and today I choose to be honest, look for the gifts, and I’ve found some.

It doesn’t say at YouTube what the name of that song is, or who’s singing it – I really like it. If you know, would you tell me? Thanks.

Perception and Reality, Part 1

I haven’t posted anything with personal substance for a couple of weeks now. Mostly, that’s because I haven’t wanted to deal with the substance of my personal life. I’d forgotten what a mistake that is – discomfort in the soul is a lot like an ingrown toenail. You can try to ignore it, and maybe you can for a while. But a sore foot is a sore foot, and I walk on mine a lot, and they affect my attitude and outlook even when I’m pretending they don’t. Sometimes it’s a limp that develops over a few days. Sometimes, I drop something on my foot, and it’s blinding.

There have been many changes in my family in the last 18 months. Mum died. Our 20-year old niece moved in for the weekend, when I was off with Mum, because she loves our son, who was 24 at the time, and wanted to be there for him. And for me. She decided I’d be happier when I got home if they’d cleaned the kitchen while I was away. They cleaned the kitchen – including moving the heavy appliances and scrubbing floors and walls beneath and behind. Went to the supermarket and bought a kalanchoe for me too – it’s still on my kitchen window-sill. Different kitchen, that’s all. The niece has had problems living with her parents, and our marriage was seriously on the rocks by then – she just stayed for four months, and it made things better.

My Mum’s younger sister had been sick with breast cancer metastasized into her liver for six months by then – two weeks after Mum died we found out Jane’s chemo had worked. But the same week, my stepfather was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, into bones. In January, it turned out my aunt’s chemo hadn’t been that successful after all, and it had caused complications that robbed her of mobility and quality of life. It was important to me that I be in my own place by April 17^th, and things worked out and I was to move on the 15^th, Easter 2. On the 14^th, my stepmother had a seizure. She died before the ambulance arrived; the paramedics restarted her heart, but her brain had died already. She was pronounced dead just after midnight on the 15^th, and I went ahead and moved that afternoon.

I hadn’t considered the impact that not living with the kids any more would have on me. But by May, my aunt needed help sometimes, and in July she was in the hospital, and August, the hospice. I didn’t think she’d survive to her birthday the end of September, but she did and we had a party at the hospice. She survived my stepfather by a week. Now, Dad’s sick, and it’s spring, and I’m remembering what solace gardening used to be, and the birds that came to the feeders and the birdbath.

So, last week, I was entitled to feel bad. Wednesday afternoon I phoned my spiritual guide, and cried on the phone. He said, “You need to get out of yourself – pick up the phone and make some calls til you’ve listened to someone who needed it.” And I said, “I don’t want to talk to anyone.” It’d been hard enough phoning HIM, and he’s heard me cry lots of times. He laughed, and said, “What difference does it make, what you want?” I already knew he was right, and I made three calls – got two people and a machine – and I DID feel better. Until I stopped.

I work in a church office – Thursday’s midweek Eucharist, and there’s full coffee hour after; I take my coffee break with them. Someone said to me, “I’m going to the Mission to Seafarers for lunch today – will you come with me?” And I CRIED. Gee, I hate that. He said, “There will be people there, and I’ll know them, but it will be more fun if you come with me.” On the way back to work after, he said, “You don’t have to answer, but why did you cry when I asked you to come to lunch?” “Because I get so lonely.” That’s the night I went home and got the migraine, and spent two days sleeping around the clock.

The migraine was fading Saturday night, and I got back to e-mailing my spiritual guide. I told him, I want all these things, listed them – some were less self-serving than others – the list included, being able to show up and be loving and useful, and to be able to ask for things without insisting that I get them. Then there were things that I want because I want them. I ended up with, “So what the HELL am I supposed to pray?” Went straight to bed after sending that; I’m not always a reasonable person.

Sunday morning I woke up early and had the luxury of lying in bed, looking at the ceiling and listening to the birds. Wish I could identify more of them by their voices – I knew the mourning doves, of course. After an hour of that, I had a very good idea of what to pray. Just in case I didn’t, there was an e-mail. It said this, and that’s all:

“God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always.”

It looked pretty much just like that too, including the red type – we’ve had this conversation before, more than once … He's been very patient.

For those of you who don’t know it, that prayer appears in the AA literature as The Third Step Prayer. The Third Step being, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God, as we understood Him.” I got out of bed and started my prayers as I always do – with the Serenity Prayer. I usually have to do that one several times, to get into the place I need to be when praying. Then the Third Step prayer. Then the Francis of Assisi prayer – the one that starts, “Make me a channel of Thy peace …” Then I prayed for people I love, and as an old friend used to say, “and especially for the ones I don’t.” After that, I told God I still would like the things I’d said I wanted the night before, and patience, and the ability to hear the word No too.

After that, I got dressed and left for church – it was beautiful out, sunny, magnolias and cherry tree in bloom. There’s a quartet at church, sings, guitar accompaniment – highly controversial but I love them and I hadn’t known they were playing Sunday, or I’d have gone earlier for prelude. My favourite homiletics professor is a member of my congregation – he recently finished a book on Paul, and was asked to preach Sunday to tell us about it. I told him before I took courses from him, “I rarely agree with you, but you’re always compelling – that’s why I’m taking your course.” He had a message I really needed to hear; and we talked after.

This is long enough for one night – things have been getting better since then. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow or Thursday. What I’m seeing in all of this, is that my perception of reality doesn’t always line up with the rest of the world’s. Famous last words -- "Of course, I could be wrong ..."

'Nuff Said

Wonderin' Where the Lions Are

I’d been thinking about saving this up for a Friday night, to be a cultural icon, cuz Bruce Cockburn is one. But I changed my mind.

Two years ago last month, God got hold of me in a way I’d never felt before. This song became the anthem of my healing. “Had another dream about the lions at the door, and they weren’t so frightening as they were before. And I’m thinking about eternity. Some kind of ecstasy’s got a hold on me.”

It’s not that the lions don’t show up at the door. It’s that I wasn’t so scared of them any more. Eternity. Ecstasy. That’s what I was able to pay attention to.

Tonight, the lions seem to be right outside the door, and I’m not so aware of the ecstasy’s hold on me. I suspect that like the lions, it’s still here – I’m just wonderin’ where it is right now. I’ve asked for help, and now this is my finding expedition.

I sure hope you guys all like Bruce Cockburn, cuz I love him and you’re bound to hear more. Still writing great protest songs, and songs about God, and the poetry of his songs speaks to me. And he does great fingerwork on that guitar.

An Anniversary

I’ve just been aching the last couple of days. Not physically, on the inside. I went to work and was useful and productive and sweet when I needed to be. Actually, I do ache physically after all that – my shoulders, neck and upper back are showing the strain of having, essentially, lied about how I am all day long.

I don’t WANT to talk about it. I feel like it’s all I ever talk about. I’m tired of feeling like this.

I’ve said a little here about the last couple of years – there’s been a lot of change. In August 2006 my Mum started feeling sick – couldn’t hold down food. She had some tests and called me at work one day to tell me that she’d just been diagnosed with diabetes and it was all my fault. After all, diabetes is hereditary, and I have it, so I must have passed it on to her.

A couple of weeks later she stopped in my office, and said, “I have your stepfather’s glucose meter here, and I don’t know how to use it.” I unpacked it all, and said, “You can’t use it, Mum. There’s no test strips in here.” She was sitting at a round table, and I said, “Mine’s in my purse; I’ll check your sugar.” She held her hand out to me across the table. I looked at the inside of her arm, and said, “You’re yellow.” She said, “Wally [stepfather] says I’m not.” And I stretched my arm out beside hers and said, “You’re yellow.” Then I tested her blood sugar, which was a little high. She said she had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon, and then she left.

I walked into my boss’ office – he was also my parish priest – and said, “That was my Mum – she wanted me to teach her to test her blood sugar.” Rick said, “It sounded something like that. I didn’t know who it was, but you sounded like you had it taken care of, so I just left you to it.” I said, “She’s dying.” There was something about the texture of the skin on her inner forearm. He asked of what, and I said I didn’t know yet. I went home from work and cried myself to sleep, and woke up a couple of hours later. I looked at the clock, and eight minutes later the phone rang. My mother had pancreatic and liver cancers. It took seven weeks. She turned 72 on November 6^th, and died on the 13^th.

It hadn’t been a good relationship. About 10 days after she was diagnosed, I spent Sunday afternoon with her, and put her to bed for a nap around 5 in the afternoon. I sat with her, and said, “You know, you’re a giant pain in the ass. And I’ve wanted to strangle you at least once a week for the last 35 years. I want you to know – I love you and this is breaking my heart.” Mum said, “I don’t want to break your heart,” and I told her she didn’t get to choose. Then she said, “I didn’t want to be a pain in the ass, especially to my children.” I told her, I don’t think you get out of life without being a pain in the ass to your children. That conversation was all it took. I was able to show up, and be useful, loving and kind to her until the end. I moved in on the last Thursday after work – she’d fallen out of bed twice Wednesday night (trying to get to the bathroom) and my stepfather, who was 92, couldn’t lift her and called paramedics twice. I sat up, dozing and knitting, in a Lazy-Boy beside her bed for a couple of nights, to keep her in it.

I did go to work for a couple of hours Friday morning, while someone else was there. Saturday afternoon, I went out with my sisters-in-law for coffee -- it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I love them, and it was interminable. When I got back, one of the caregivers came to clean Mum up and change her clothes. She was taking a lot of morphine, and she’d zone right out, stroke your arm, whatever you were wearing, and say, “I like your shirt.” That’s what she did with me. I hadn’t taken any clothes with me on the Thursday; I’d gone straight from work, and we were about the same size. I said, “I’m glad you like the shirt, Mum – it’s your shirt.” She didn’t say anything, and I said, “The pants are yours too.” She still didn’t say anything, and I said, “Actually, these panties I’m wearing are yours.” She rolled her eyes at the caregiver, and sighed, “Children.” That was the last lucid conversation. I called the ambulance to take her to the hospital that night. Stayed at the hospital with her, except for a trip out to shower Monday morning. My sister came, and we both stayed, and held her hands, and whispered love to her as she crossed over. It was lovely, and holy.

The women in her family had all, until then, lived into their 90’s, even 100’s. It’s not like I didn’t think we’d ever do this – I thought we had 20 more years. Her younger sister was ill then too, and died this past October. I spent a lot of the time between September ’06 and October ’07 fighting, and hating, and being angry, at Death and God. I would cry and rage at God. A lot.

I’ll tell you something – I did that. I KNEW God was there – incomprehensible and distant, it felt sometimes, but always there. And I was being taken care of by God. Addiction’s a family disease, and I’ve got my share. I was relieved of the obsession and desire for two addictions a few months before Mum got sick. I got to show up every day – God did that for me, and in the nick of time. I got to walk out of the hospital after Mum died, knowing that no-one made me do anything I hadn’t wanted to in all this, and no-one talked me out of doing what felt right. That I’d had to make certain decisions on my own in the weekend before she died, and I’d come away, for the first time, the adult in my own life.

So, why tonight? Well, my marriage had come apart too, after 25 years. We were still sharing living quarters, but I’d been sleeping in the computer room for a long time. Mum knew, while she was dying, that I’d be leaving, and she said one day, “I hoped I’d get to see you in your own apartment.” I said, “When you’re a star in the sky, you can look in the window.”

As my one-year anniversary approached in my 12-Step program, I knew – I needed to be in my own place, out of my marriage, before that anniversary. It will be two years on Thursday, the 17^th. I moved a year ago today. My Mum never got to see my place. Her sister, my aunt, was too sick a year ago now to manage the stairs, so she never saw it either. I have furniture from both of them in here. And it’s a clear, cold night in southern Ontario – lots of stars. I just opened the blinds, so any of those stars in the sky that want to, can look in. There is love in the universe, and God is infinitely good.

I'm Going to Have to Change My Profile

It says I’m half-way through an M.Div, at Trinity College in Toronto. That’s no longer true.

I e-mailed the Dean this afternoon. The pressure of not e-mailing him was getting to be more than I could stand. I told him I’m withdrawing from the program.

It also says in my profile – I have doubts. I’ve been a volunteer in the Anglican Church for over 20 years, at a pretty local level. There is much that’s wonderful. And it seems to me, there’s always a fight. There are fights in the parish, and everyone thinks the Rector should get involved. So they try to involve her. Or him. There are fights at the diocesan level; at the national church level; at the level of the world-wide Anglican Communion.

We don’t call them fights; there are more polite names for them.

I’ve also been employed, at the parish level, for 15 years. I started as a church secretary and wound up as the parish administrator. Well, the job changed while I was in it, and that was partly because of me. What that meant was, I got to watch a lot of the in-fighting in the parish close up. I’ve actually been the administrator, part-time, in two different parishes for the last year. In-fighting in both.

The nature of the job is, I know a lot of clergy. Some did their internships in my parish. I’d felt called to ordained priesthood for several years before I enrolled in school five years ago. Scared. I’ve been going part-time, so I’m half-way through a three-year program. Many of my classmates have graduated and are in parishes now. It’s much the same, in-fighting all over, seems to me.

There have been a lot of changes in my life in the last two years, some I engineered and some just happened. As a result, I changed. I stopped doing what I felt was necessary to maintain peace all the time, started setting boundaries. (I hate that phrase, but what else am I going to say?) Even more important, I started holding my boundaries. This past six or eight months, I’ve set the boundaries, and when someone violated them, I’ve walked away from the fight. That’s VERY powerful. And peaceful. I like not being in the fights, and I don’t want to be in any more.

This fall and winter, I've been doing my pre-internship placement. The parish is different than I’m used to. They expect a sermon based on a very literal interpretation of the Gospel for the day. I’m next scheduled to preach on Easter 3, Good Shepherd Sunday. I can’t preach on that gospel – I don’t believe Jesus is the only way for the sheep to enter the fold. On Good Friday, I was helping to say the Solemn Intercessions, one of which says something like, we pray that everyone, everywhere, hears the Gospel preached and comes to Jesus. I had to read that one, and I was silently apologizing to God for telling lies in church.

There are so many good things about the Anglican Church, its people. I haven’t left the church. And, I have come to recognize my gifts: I’d have been a good priest. But I’m not the same person I was when I started this process. I’ve prayed a lot, and discussed it with the person I go to for guidance. I no longer believe this is what God’s calling me to do – there’s a different path ahead of me. I haven’t told the parish priest who’s supervising my placement yet. I haven't told anyone in the church yet, except the Dean of the College. This is public, but it’s not that public – I’m not aware of anyone in the Diocese who reads the Chronicles.

So, at 52 years old, I’m becoming a university dropout. I let go of a burden when I wrote the Dean this afternoon. I’m trying to get ready to tell people in my life. So many people have been supportive, expressed such confidence and hope in me. This will disappoint some of them, and I would rather not do that, but I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing, and lying about it.

Thanks for listening, everyone. And thanks for the prayers you’ve been offering on behalf of my family and me.

A Thank You for Mimi

I had been thinking a lot about writing, writing anything, this winter. Wondering about blogging. When I was in school, our diaries had little hasps and padlocks on, with tiny keys we’d wear on chains around our necks, so no-one would read them. Now we blog. Life’s progress is mysterious. Then there were the huge questions: What would I write? Who’d care? Would anyone read it? I had a question about a blog that vanished (and it had really GOOD stuff on it too) – I didn’t know how one made a blog vanish completely. So I asked the Mad Priest (MP – that means I think you know lots), who asked if I had a blog. No, I didn’t. A week or so later, though, we all got snowed in again – and I just went ahead and started the Morningstar Chronicles.

I’d lived too much of my life waiting for other people or events to make my decisions, and letting them. Being afraid. I’ve prayed a lot for God to remove my fear, because it gets in the way of God and Life. Starting to do this was a way to act deliberately out of faith instead, a commitment to writing, and a deepening of the relationships I’d started to develop with some of you. Thank you, Jonathan, for helping me move forward.

Yesterday, I wrote to Grandmère Mimi, about her new photo. She said she was tired of Jane Austen, and getting used to having her picture on the internet. I said, I’d be shy about having mine up.

Well, shyness is fear. My Dad’s very ill, terminally ill. There’s been a lot of family loss in the last 16 months or so – I’m not afraid about Dad, but I’m tired, sad and lonely. One of the things that frightens me is that I’ll go back to a way of living that was killing me. I can’t do anything for Dad except pray, show up, and love him. I CAN take some action to ward off fear. This is it.

I’m vain enough to post my best picture, for my first picture. I had gone to a concert with David P. (we’ve been friends since we were 11 years old) and his mother. One day I’ll say something about that “newly thin” thing in my profile, but not tonight. I took a rare opportunity to dress up. It was very cold, and when we got indoors and I took my coat off, David said, “Do I have to have you home before midnight? Because you look like Cinderella.” This is my Cinderella picture. Thank you, Mimi, for prayers, friendship, and helping me move forward.

Happy Easter!!!

One day in the fall, I was having dinner with my Auntie Jane, in the hospice. We weren’t sitting where we normally did, and she didn’t like the new spot – she could see bare-branched trees out the window, and didn’t want to think about winter.

I told her that I don’t believe that when we die, we are erased – that something continues. That the trees would have leaves in the spring, and we didn’t know what her spring would look like.

Spring comes in fits and starts in southern Ontario. It was bright, sunny and melting here today. We usually get at least one blizzard in April though. This afternoon I took these photos, at a friend’s house, on a south-facing lawn. The house across the road still has eight inches of snow on the lawn.

In God, all things are made new.

Two Hours Later

I’ve lived here almost a year; Dad hasn’t been here since Christmas. With all the snow and the bright sunshine today, he didn’t recognize the house. Said he’d driven back and forth past it at least four times, and I guess none of them was the times I’d been outside, looking. He doesn’t have a cell. When he was an hour-and-a-half late, I called the house, and he was home. We’ll try again next week.

This hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.

I don’t know what’s gonna come out, but I’m gonna go pray. Because I don’t know what else to do.

More Growing Pains

Any minute now, my Dad's gonna call and say he's leaving his place to come and pick me up. I'll spend the afternoon with him, do some housework if he'll let me (doubtful), and my sister will stop in after work and drop me off home after. That all seems nice and normal when I read it, but I'm feeling like a lunatic because of it.

It's not that I don't get along with my Dad. I just don't know my Dad very well. When I can think about this from a loving perspective, I can see that he's probably as uncertain about the relationship as I am. I get resentful, because he was pretty much absent when I was a kid -- he was a teacher, and got home late, brought marking and things home, and watched the hockey game when he wasn't marking. What I remember most about summer holidays is Dad being in residence in a town 50 miles from here, doing his Masters. We'd drive him up Sunday night and drop him off, pick him up Friday night ...

I remember family vacations, going to the The Beach for camping weekends and weeks. Mostly what I remember about that is the female adults; Dad used to play with us in the water sometimes, and take us fishing. Dad did stuff at home -- there was a bookcase in the room my sister and I shared, that he built. He tied flies for fishing, when I was a kid, and I remember how magical they were, and waiting til I grew up big enough to learn how. But he'd stopped by then.

He and friends, fellow teachers, made wine at home. That wasn't like making wine now, where you go someplace and use bottled grape juice. One of his friends knew a grape-grower down the Niagara peninsula -- a whole bunch of us would go down one Saturday in October, with a trailer on the back of the car, and pick blue grapes. Our house was in the country; the crusher and grape press were in our backyard, and everyone's grapes would go through them on the Sunday. Mum made grape jelly. Dad made wine. The kids would have diarrhea for three days, cuz we'd eat as many grapes as we wanted. It was fun.

Despite all that, it feels like he was absent when I was a kid.

And now -- well, life's hurt my Dad. I get resentful now, sometimes, because he doesn't call. I call, and if he's not there, I leave a message he doesn't return. So I call again. I invite: I invite him or I invite me. He always says yes. He loves me. I think he even likes me. He's just who he is, and I can accept the things I cannot change and make the contact; or I can refuse to, and be resentful and wish I had a Dad who did things the way I want. The person I trust on these things tells me it's my Pride getting in the way of my happiness when I do that.

Soon enough, I'm just gonna be wishing I had a Dad. He got told two weeks ago, his liver's ceasing to function. He's been sick for a while; sick enough he went to the doctor. That's sign enough -- it's pretty bad already. He's not eating much, because he's so swollen inside. Like I said, life's hurt my Dad, and he's ready to let go of it, when the time comes. I'm not ready. I am doing what I've been told -- praying to see this as a natural part of life's process, and not stressful or catastrophic. That helps, and I have to do it a lot.

I've been fussing today, because I'm nervous about the afternoon -- the black blouse, or the black sweater? Tried 'em both on twice; going with the sweater. The brown leather loafers, or the red shoes with sequins I bought in the Chinese mall in Toronto last year? Wishing all kinds of things were different here. Praying about that. I prayed about it while I was washing the breakfast dishes, looking out the window at the sun and the snow ... And I could see all the sudden -- it's not just Pride that's getting in my way here, but Self-Centredness.

Dad's kind of a brown leather guy, but I'm going with the red shoes. I don't know if he'll get the message, but it is a message -- Dad, this is me and I'm all right. The last two years have looked awful from the outside -- but they're wrought wonderful change, and I'm all right, and I'm gonna stay all right, and keep getting better. I'm asking God for the courage to say that out loud, in words, too, and for Dad to be able to hear it.