This piece owes its first three lines to Anne of Green Gables and references a concert put on by Anne and her classmates for Christmas.
We had recitations this afternoon. Our last practice. I just put my whole soul into it. And now…
I am standing on the stage, holding my cardboard letter turned into me. My letter is M. I turn my letter to the audience and speak. My voice is loud, clear, and stilted. M is for magical- Santa coming down the chimney. Relief, I’ve said it all and now can look down the line as each classmate in turn flips over a cardboard letter, -E R R-, down the line, some yelling out their piece- C is for Christ, the reason for the season- or whispering- H is for holy, Oh holy night- some shocked into silence until loudly prompted behind the curtain- T is for turkey, roasted and stuffed- some giggle, some shuffle, some look down at their feet, until the final card is flipped, a large exclamation mark to signal everyone to shout, “Merry Christmas” and to allow little Evalina to take part. Evalina who is in grade two and who would be in grade two when I graduated from grade eight in that one room school, Evalina still in the same desk, still the same size, with her face like a rubber doll and her hair ever wispy and white like an old woman’s.
We are grade 2’s and 3’s at S.S.11 Public School and we are the closing act of the annual Christmas concert held in the basement of the United Church (established 1873) and this is the culmination of our weeks of preparation. It starts on the Friday afternoon after Hallowe’en when we begin the walk to the church, a stone’s throw away from the school and a blessed relief from the dreaded reading to an older student, possibly a boy, maybe dour Jacob Liemann, the oral math genius, reading that marked long afternoons.
The concert is of course more ambitious than the presentation of my junior classmates. The serious Irene Black who is not allowed to play baseball for fear of injuring her fingers plays a classical piano piece. Three Grade 8 girls sing their song with harmony, the one prepared for the Rotary Music Festival. Shirley Gough plays her accordion. Two of the big boys give a comic recitation. As we prepared, there was an unstated message from our formidable teacher that somehow our work here will be evaluated, hence no writing of our short recitation on the back of our cardboard letters. I am in awe of the bigger kids, those who have a role in the two marquee presentations of the evening- Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the always required retelling of the Christmas story. I am unaware that our twenty minute version of the Dickens’ classic is greatly abridged but am impressed because I have a part in the play. I am one of the Cratchit children though admittedly I have no real lines. Instead, as we play on the floor, we have been instructed by Mrs. McKenzie to say “rhubarb” over and over again which will make it seem as if we are having conversations. We have learned that this is what professional actors do in crowd scenes so feel disproportionately important. But my real awe is reserved for the grade eight boy who plays Scrooge who has many lines and never stumbles.
The retelling of the Christmas story is required every year and never varies much. The central figures, Mary, Joseph, and the Christ child doll take centre stage. Mary has nothing to say but has mastered her look of wide-eyed adoration as she leans over the manger and beholds the Christ doll. I am dimly aware that the girl chosen to be Mary is the prettiest of the senior girls, a slim girl with long wavy blonde hair and no trace of pubescent imperfection in her creamy skin. She seems as serene and elevated as a fairy tale princess awaiting a troop of suitors. Joseph is the dark haired captain of his bantam hockey team and already marked as cool. The angels come and go, the shepherds guard their stuffed toy sheep, the Wise Men trek across the stage to deliver their three gifts and few words to the holy couple, and circling this tableau, the massed choir of the rest of the school sing carols artfully chosen by Mrs. McKenzie to link the story together. There is huge applause at the end of the presentation.
I look out from my place at the side of the stage near the front where the smaller students sit to sing. I can see my mother and my father. They are sitting in a row with Evalina’s parents and grandparents, the only people in that row. My father is right next to the grandfather, the scary Mr. McVicar with the sunken face and the jaw that looks all eaten away. “Cancer,” my mother has said and it is rude to stare at him. Evalina’s parents are there, her mother looking almost as old as my grandmother, her father looking as if he has just come in from the barn, still wearing a denim smock coat. I have asked my mother why they look so different from everyone else. “They are poor,” my mother said, “but Evalina has such a pretty name.” My mother is most impressed with names and has saddled me with a name I greatly dislike at this time. I am Briony and I will not hear that name given to any other girl until I am an adult of some years.
The basement is overflowing. Every pupil’s parents and many grandparents are there along with younger siblings. There may be over one hundred people. So many that some are standing at the back. These are mainly youths as old as seventeen or eighteen, all young men, all tall and gangly, looking uncomfortable in starched shirts and dress jackets, hair freshly combed and brylcreamed, young men who have just finished the evening’s milking. They are both awkward and intimidating standing there, sometimes laughing together for a moment between acts of the concert. They are intimidating but not so much as they will be in a few years when I am on the cusp of being a teenager and am a large girl in a pink taffeta dress, tragically the same dress as a grade eight girl who has recently lost many pounds of weight from a magic pill her doctor gave her, and we must make our exit from the stage, down the aisle, and past that clutch of perennially looming youths.
But this night is one of great happiness. I have remembered my words. I have been a Cratchit child. Santa has come at the end of the program. And I do know already that he is just pretend, that the thin man with the skimpy beard is Mr. Hipley the Sunday school teacher and that the present he handed to me is the scarf I saw my mother accidentally leave in a bag on the table. I do not yet know how much I will later think about my mother and my father sitting with Evalina’s parents nor how the mysteries of early memory shape us and visit us especially at Christmas.
Sources for story ideas can be found everywhere. As a way to jumpstart our group’s creativity, I thought ‘filling out’ the stories behind obituaries might be a good place to begin. Some were local people, but most were found online. I Googled a few key words like military, immigrant, beloved, humour, and found ten beautiful people who had excelled at life. From there I erased all names, funeral homes and hospitals, leaving blank spaces to fill in with our made-up names.
I encouraged the group to do a bit of research into the history of what was left in our outlines. A woman who fled Eastern Europe, a mother growing up in the south, a Winnipeg orphan and so on. Life was to be added back into our obituary outline.
The results speak for themselves. A journalist meeting a famous Canadian on a kibbutz, a doctor who dedicated his life to restoring sight around the world, a train aficionado ruled by his tomato harvest, a young ambulance driver who met the love of her life in a time of war, and a young woman rescuing her boyfriend from his mother’s claws.
Obituary Stories
Obituary Memory (Madeleine Horton)
Sand was whipping around the bus as Randy Kerr prepared to board. She reminded herself through the stark light that fitfully shone through the sand, that she had wanted an adventure. Her plan, if she had a plan, seemed more and more absurd.
She could see through the shadowy windows the outline of many figures. The bus was nearly full. A couple of soldiers, clearly late comers, stepped back to allow her to board. She stood at the front, quickly glancing at the passengers and the two empty seats at the front. No one would think it strange if she moved to the back and sat in one of the two seats with a single passenger.
She had been here in Israel before. Twelve years ago when she was still an idealistic younger journalist. She had scored a much desired assignment to write a long article on kibbutz life. It had probably been the piece that really ignited her career and set off the stream of prestigious awards that followed. She was here now for a different reason. She had felt for some time that she was coasting, taking cosy domestic assignments, being paid to stay in posh hotels and given unquestioned expense accounts. After all, she was Miranda ‘Randy’ Kerr.
This would change everything. A war had started. The Yom Kippur War they were calling it and she had a scoop. Leonard Cohen was here secretly to entertain troops. That was the payoff from keeping in touch for all these years. A tip from a friend in a kibbutz, a call to the commander the friend knew and here she was boarding a troop bus to the camp Cohen was going to.
Her plan, if she had a plan, was to wander around the camp. If questioned she would show her press credentials and use the chutzpah she hoped she still possessed. She stood at the front of the bus. She was the only woman. No one stared up at her. With her loose beige shirt and baggy cargo pants and long hair tucked under a floppy sun hat, she drew no approving glances. And the dozen more years on her face, middle-aged, she reflected. She knew at once where she would sit. She couldn’t believe her luck.
“I had forgotten the sandstorms. Maybe because I was at a kibbutz, indoors a lot.” She sat down. “Will the sand affect your guitar playing?” she said with no introduction and the presumption she knew who he was.
She had already heard he had called a soldier his brother, cementing his ties to the tribe. It was all they talked about at the kibbutz.
“I called a man my brother,” he said, as if he were reading her thoughts. “He wept and grasped my hands. ‘You, you understand us’ he said. I told him we are all brothers, I have many brothers, across many borders. His hand went limp and fell from mine. I’m not sure why I am here. Forge a bond with those like me….” He looked at her, “May you find what you seek.”
Randy sat in the silence for a long time. This alone could make a sensational piece. More came as she free floated from topic to topic without the questioning she’d heard he abhorred. Later she watched him sing surrounded by men, no stage, no barriers. Such good details for a story.
He was not on the bus she took back. In her room, she jotted quick notes for her story. “I am here and not here.” She thought of his crushed identity, never really to have a tribe, a people. The true artist, always the outsider. And herself, an undercover scavenger gnawing on his torment. She grasped her notes and tore them up.
Obituary Project (Cathy Sartor)
October 22, 1921 – October 7, 2023 – Doctor John Alexander Campbell
A routine “turn around the sun” ended abruptly after 102 rotations which was a goal achieved by “Doc. J” as he loved to be called. He would be especially pleased to know that his passing coincided with the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend of October 7, 2023. John’s mother was a Canadian at birth and she launched the family tradition of celebrating both Canadian and American Thanksgivings which John celebrated throughout his life.
Enjoying life to the fullest and in the face of challenge was a preference John embraced wholeheartedly. His partner in life for seventy-four years was his awesome wife Matty who supported him during his academic years while qulifiying to practice optometry. John and Matty met when they were high school students in Hudson, New York.
John was the devoted father and father-in-law of Neil and Shirley Smith, Robert and Mary Brown, Douglas and Margaret Matthews and Ronald. Adored grandfather of Jacob, Cameron, and Lara. Dear brother of Michael and the late Mary Jones, and brother- in-law of the late Ronald and the late Elizabeth Hewitt, brother of the late James and Johanna Caughlin. Cherished uncle of Peter, Susan, Camilla, the late Judith, and the late Teresa.
In recent years, his love of jazz sustained him while in palliative care. Born in 1921, Jazz was ingrained in his upbringing and throughout his young adult years. Performers like Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong influenced his love of jazz from a very early age. He and Matty enjoyed years of wintering in Palm Springs where he riffed and jammed with many jazz performers that he met during his extensive travels. During his winters in Palm Springs with Matty at his side, Dr. John continued to enjoy and fine tune his jazz repertoire. Sadly, Matty predeceased John. Following her passing and in his remaining years he was able to maintain his well-being and enthusiasm for life by sharing his love of music with fellow long term care friends.
Jazz was not Dr. J’s only passion. Dr. J’s career passion to provide eye care followed him into retirement. With the conclusion of his practice of Optometry, he volunteered travelling into remote areas of Canada providing support and diagnostic eye care for residents living in remote Canadian locations. He was especially proud of his work with ORBIS. Over the past four decades, ORBIS the Flying Eye Hospital has flown world-class professionalsto provideeye care in over 95 countries and has been a call-to-action for better eye care around the world. Wherever ORBIS lands, specialists raise awareness, create change, and ralley support from local governments, global organizations, and philanthropists in an effort to contribute to the global fight of ending “avoidable blindness” particularly in children. (can.orbis.org) John’s enthusiasm and determination to engage will be missed by all who knew him, those he diagnosed and those who may have benefited from his expertise and connections.
The family wishes to thank his wonderful caregivers, Mary, Matthew, Danielle, James, and William for their years of compassion and loving care. Their dedication touched us profoundly. The family is also very grateful to the Palliative Care Unit at the St. Joseph’s Hospital. Funeral service took place from St Peter’s Basilica on Monday, October 9th 2023 at 2pm.
Obituary Reflection (Catherine Campbell)
Obituary – Henry Nichols – Sept 22, 1946 – Nov 19, 2022
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Henry Nichols on Nov 19, 2022 after a two year battle with cancer. Henry is survived by his loving wife Thea and his sons Brendan (Leslie), Jeffrey (Rachel), Derek (Laura) and daughter Deirdre (John) as well as his loving grandchildren Francis, Serena, Elsa, Daniel, Stephen, Indra, David and Richard. Henry was predeceased by his parents, Andrew and Emily. He was born and raised in Richmond, attended Vancouver College and graduated from UBC. His love of travel began with a backpacking trip through Europe and the Middle East in 1969. Henry was a great provider for his children and coached many of their sports teams – football, baseball, lacrosse and soccer. He began working in Prince Rupert Pulp Mill’s technical department as well as serving in production, marketing, management in various other BC mills.
After retirement, Henry and Thea pursued a life of travel visiting 138+ countries in all seven continents. Travel also comprised of train trips in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Morocco, Peru, Europe, India, China and Mongolia. His passion was collecting model trains especially those made for the Canadian market culminating in a published book. He also loved to work in his vegetable garden each year providing great crops for the family. We would never leave on vacation until the tomatoes were harvested!
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Mark’s. Rest in peace, Henry.
Reflection on a life
Rest in peace, Henry.
Rest would certainly seem to be needed. Filling a couple of paragraphs with a lifetime of activity. Can’t help but look at the selfless presentation and question how it was possible.
I had known Henry in his younger years – ironically he got involved in smuggling. Perhaps that unmentioned past is reflective of his fondness for travel.
Although I hadn’t spent a lot of time with him over recent years I remember his joie de vivre with fondness. Then he packed up and headed out west.
So I headed to googling several of the details in his obituary. Only Henry’s name shows up (not his wife or family) – reflects the uniqueness of his life’s passions.
Henry and Thea certainly didn’t have reservations about a big family and that aspect of the obituary suggests a real family-based life. Let me work it out – Henry’s travel started in 1969. A typical backpacking post university jaunt – 23 years old. Then back to British Columbia to marry, work, coach multiple sports. I am going to assume he retired at 65. And I am going to assume that his children were born in the 1970’s, grew up, went to university, married and produced grandchildren in short order. During this period Henry seems to have taken up gardening (and provided generously) and developed a passion for model trains. He had the time to write a book. I have a friend who is infected with that train passion. It is an intensely time-consuming activity. Without writing a book.
Given his focus was Canadian trains it is surprising all the travel references are elsewhere. Train trips were still a focus. Planning and organizing a series of tours through Zimbabwe and South Africa to see the falls and safaris is time consuming not to mention the actual trips.
All the other locations mentioned for the travel are stand alone. Exotic. Add them up though and the total is a long way from 138 countries on seven continents. Maybe cruising – no suggestion he and Thea chose that mode of travel.
It doesn’t feel credible.
Impose the growing season of tomatoes, the social and sports activities of children and grand-children Henry and Thea must have spent zero time at home during some key events in the years.
Who was this obituary written for or by? No intimate anecdotes about activities with his family, friends, workmates. No memories of coaching the sports teams – winners or losers. Was it written by a grandchild impressed by ticking off the numbers and not missing a relationship with his/her grandfather.
Perhaps the absence of reflections on a deceased’s personality, uniqueness, is common in obituaries. It is uncomfortable to dwell on the loss. But it reads like a Wikipedia post. Cold. Unreflective. No recognition of the deceased’s personal essence.
I don’t care about 138 countries and harvesting tomatoes. I remember the young, vibrant Henry. Laughing over a glass of wine. Talking about the backpacking adventures. Making his friends feel special.
That Henry – rest in peace.
Obituary (Diane Chartrand)
NAMES FOR OBIT 8 WRITING
OBIT PERSON-
Amelia Brook Kirk
HUSBAND-
Noah Kirk
CHILDREN-
Sadie (Daughter) and Christoper (Son)
GRANDMOTHER OF-
Tilly, Pearson, Arthur, Petunia, and Elroy
PREDECEASED BY-
Husband: Noah -Sister: Mazzie – Brothers: Max, Donald, Stuart, Allen, David, Nathan, and Michael
OBIT SCENE FOR AMELIA
A year before her passing, Amelia contacted her remaining family members and asked them to come to the house for a special dinner. She wanted to show them a secret she had been keeping. Amelia just got several copies of the memoir she recently published. She wanted to read portions of it to them.
Amelia selected specific sections and marked each one with a sticky note. Her children Sadie and Christoper knew some of how she had met their father, but Amelia and Noah never talked about their lives in England before and during the war.
In the memoir, Amelia revealed her entire life, starting with growing up in England with her older sister Mazzie and her seven brothers Max, Donald, Stuart, Allen David, and Nathan, who always were her protectors since she was the baby of the family.
There are sections telling about the painful times during the war and her work as an ambulance driver while serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Force of the RAF. Her job was how she met the wonderful man she married in 1946.
Amelia wanted them to each have a copy and read about her life, but she needed to tell them about a special time for her that created the family they have become. It was time her children and grandchildren knew how she had met Noah that terrible day.
After everyone had taken their assigned place at the nursing home dining room table, Amelia brought in a box and set it in the middle of the table, taking her book off the top and sitting down.
“I’ve summoned you all here for a surprise. In my hand is a copy of my memoir that I published. Before giving you each a copy, I need to read a section to all of you.”
“Mom,” said Sadie. “You wrote a book? How did you hide this from us?”
“I had a lot of help from the staff who typed it up for me and helped to get it up to the publishing site.”
Amelia opened the book to the page she had marked. “For years, a story was told about how I met my beloved husband Noah, the father to Sadie and Christoper and grandfather to the rest of you. That tale wasn’t completely true.”
“What are you saying, Mom,” said Christoper.
“Your father and I didn’t want to revisit that terrible time during the war, but now, since I’ve put it in the book for the world to know, I thought it was only fair that you hear it first from me.”
The room was so quiet you could hear the rain hitting the two windows next to the table. Amelia looked around the room and began to read.
As the sound of guns and explosions could be heard, I drove my ambulance to a location given to me. I found a young man lying on the ground with a lot of blood flowing from his chest area. My assistant and I did what we could to stop the bleeding. We loaded the young man into the back of the vehicle and drove at high speed to the field hospital a few miles away. For some reason, I couldn’t leave this patient and waited to see if he’d make it or not…..
Obituary – Lila and the Ladder (Marian Bron)
Process: I first googled Ooltewah, Tennessee to find out its history and if anything, interesting had happened that would affect my character’s life. It was a Union stronghold during the civil war which I found interesting since it was in the traditional south. Her parents are mentioned but not her late husband’s, only a sister-in-law. That gave me a reason for her elopement in October of 1960. I made her the descendant of a rebel, something her mother-in-law could hold against her family. From there I had fun.
The twelve-foot wooden ladder I had lugged from my parent’s house thudded against the second-story windowsill of a white clapboard house two streets over, making more noise than wanted. Wesley Freichuk had always been a sound sleeper, his mother not so much. My luck she would find me standing beneath her pride-and-joy’s bedroom window in the middle of the night and spoil my plans. Squatting next to the leafless lilac bushes beneath the kitchen window, I waited until I was sure she hadn’t heard me.
Wesley’s very manhood needed saving. If Mrs. Freichuk had her way, those apron strings of hers would never be cut. Especially for the likes of me, the great-great-granddaughter of a rebel. But I loved Wesley, and he loved me, so there was no way ancient hostilities were going to ruin my happiness. His sister Melinda liked to joke that those strings were tied tight around her brother’s neck. He couldn’t breathe without his mother’s say so. Mrs. Freichuk was a force to be reckoned with, and I was up to the task.
The Freichuk house was locked tighter than Fort Knox. There were no spare keys hidden under flowerpots, especially since flowers were sentimental wastes of money according to Mrs. Freichuk, and no windows cracked open to catch the mountain breeze. Since no lights came on, I started my climb up my father’s rickety ladder, avoiding the rotten third rung. The seventh rung was also a bit punky. I stood on the tenth and tapped on Wesley’s window.
He slept on.
I tapped a bit louder.
Still, he slept on.
The window wouldn’t budge. Knowing, Mrs. Freichuk she had nailed her son’s window shut to preserve his chastity. No gold-digging princesses were going to get at her boy and ruin his virtue.
I tapped louder yet.
The window one room over flew open. I pressed myself against the wall.
“Lila?” Melinda whispered. “What the blazes are you doing?”
“Shh!” I whispered, finger to my lips, almost losing my balance. “Your mother will hear you.”
She shook her head and shut her window. Moments later, Wesley’s window opened.
“The dope’s still asleep.” She tip-toed to his bed and plugged his nose.
His eyes whipped open in a panic. He looked from his sister to me at the window. Melinda put a finger to her lips. He nodded in understanding.
“You are crazy,” was all he said as he started to dress. He filled a paper sack with clean underwear and socks. The family’s only suitcase was in Mrs. Freichuk’s bedroom closet.
Before her brother could climb out the window, Melinda said, “Wait.” She slid from the room and came back moment’s later with the keys to her brand-new Chevy Bel Air. “Don’t scratch it and don’t eat in it.”
“Thanks Sis,” Wesley said as he pocketed the keys and kissed her cheek.
The seventh rung snapped under his weight, and he crashed through six and five on his way down to four.
“Shh!” Melinda and I hissed in unison.
He rolled his eyes and reached for the third rung with his foot. He crashed to the ground, taking two lilac branches with him.
He dusted himself off. “Who knew eloping with you would be so dangerous? I take it that is the reason for all this subterfuge?”
As a young man, my grandfather Walter Freidrich Karl Ernest (anglicized from the original Ernst) spent much of his life in Africa, from about 1895-1910. His apparent facility learning languages led to employment as an interpreter with the native labourers building the railway in British East Africa. He was also a keen amateur photographer.
My Aunt Dorothy, my mother’s older sister, seventeen years her senior, had many albums of his photos, which she dramatically called the Safari Books. On an early visit to Canada, she brought one. It cemented my fascination with this branch of my family which seemed then so much more exotic and interesting than my farming grandparents who lived down the road, a mere half mile from my family. All this was, of course, before words like colonialist and settler had taken on the negative connotations they have today. Interestingly though, in the early eighties my Aunt Dorothy said she would not be offering the Safari Books to Africa House in London. She was aware, with the many newly independent nations in Africa, photos taken by a dead white man from England might not be welcome.
When I made my first trip to England, my aunt offered to let me choose an album. It was the nicest gift she could give me. I felt honoured that I was being entrusted with a piece of family history.
So for a long time now, I have felt an ongoing sense of guilt. Somehow I have lost my Safari Book.
I did not lose it during my travels. Nor on the way home. For many years, it was in the same place on my bookshelf in my den. Periodically I took it out, always amazed at the enduring quality of the sepia photographs. Others in my family enjoyed seeing it. I remember only once taking it to my school to show an art teacher who had travelled to Africa. I remain sure I brought it home and remember packing it up to clear the room when the den ceiling needed major renovation. I have turned out every box and scoured all the places where I squirrel away papers. I have looked under beds and taken apart closets. All to no avail. I regret bitterly that I did not have the foresight to scan the photos.
For myself, I seem to remember the photos clearly, their sepia tones ever bold. Though, as time goes on, I wonder how many I have already forgotten. The pages seem to flip before my eyes ~ two views of the forbidding Zambesi River flowing into impenetrable jungle ~ a small building, dwarfed by the jungle behind it, seemingly set on stilts, captioned in my grandfather’s flowing cursive “Hotel, Umtali” ~ a very tall man in a flowing white robe in front of an arched and carved doorway framed by the two huge elephant tusks he holds. The building a mosque, the man perhaps a Somali or Ethiopian from his features ~ a panorama of the port at Mombasa, the end point of the railway ~ several photos of the railway being constructed in British East Africa. Men dwarfed by the giant jungle trees on the slopes behind them. Wielding pickaxes behind the trains in front of them. Perhaps clearing land for a small settlement ~ my favourite, a Black youth standing on the front of a locomotive. (I’m not sure why. I never asked myself if he was posed.) He isn’t smiling. He just looks like a young boy who has scrambled to a cool position to get his photo taken ~ a portrait of a priest, presumed Anglican or Catholic, formal, unsmiling. (One wonders about this context too.) ~ a room titled someone’s office. The desk, a table really, covered with a fancy linen cloth, draping to the floor. A coal oil lamp. an inkwell and fountain pen in a stand. Papers. On the wall, several animal skins. Zebra, leopard, some kind of antelope, horns ~
I wish I could see it once more. Though I feel differently now about pinning the skins of animals to walls for decor. I still have the feeling of the room. It feels stuffed and stolid. As if the walls could be wood panelled with a fireplace. Perhaps an attempt to conjure up faraway home. But is it not simply a hut?
~ a group of men dressed in suits. The background now unclear. But I remember the caption “The Ananias Club” and then a strange quote about wood and water which I can no longer remember but never did understand ~
I have discovered what may be the origins of “Ananias Club.” It is apparently an expression, used as a euphemism by Teddy Roosevelt, for the word “Liar.” In my imagination, it is ironic or perhaps ironically accurate. A Club where men got together and told of their exploits in those lands. I recognize the short man with the trim moustache, my grandfather.
~ finally, three grave markers: simple slabs of stone etched with names and the stark details. One died of malaria, one was killed by natives, one was killed by a lion ~
Are their gravestones too now lost?
I confess I have shed tears over the loss of that album. I am not sure why its loss has bothered me so much. The world it showed is itself lost and most would say good riddance.
On a personal level, I never met that grandfather, who was over sixty when my mother was born. But I do remember my formidable Aunt Dorothy who still had some memories of her early childhood in Africa and how her stories nourished my imagination. She entrusted me with the album which had endured so long and travelled so far.
Social conventions dictate a polite opening sentence. I’d ask how you are but I don’t care. You are still here, have been for quite a long time in fact, so I know how you are. Persistent, annoying, ever-present, relentless.
It’s time we parted ways. I need the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a story, a chapter or even a well-written paragraph. I need to lose myself in a fictional creation, another life that isn’t mine. I need the escape.
You see the sameness of life is getting to me and you are to blame. I miss those productive two hours surrounded by books, sitting at my old secretary desk. The one I spent a summer refinishing in my teens. A desk that connects me to my youth and more stories.
To be fair, writer’s block, you aren’t completely to blame. My insecurities are part of the problem. In capital letters they scream, “YOU SUCK! YOU’RE NOT A REAL WRITER!” But I write, therefore I am. So there. I may not have the ten-thousand hours or whatever is needed to perfect a skill, however I am getting there.
Let me throw myself into a good story. Let me create. Let me cry and giggle as I write. Don’t block me with your presence. Scram, get lost, let me be.
I am a storyteller. I come from storytellers. It’s in my genes. It’s who I am.
I’d ask you to go bug someone else but I don’t wish you on anyone. Disappear, vanish. Don’t take the high road, just get lost!
Wait on second thought, I know where you can go. There’s a guy named Donald down in the U.S. that I’d like you to visit.
“Well, it’s nice, but a bit bright for someone my age.”
“Your age? You look to me like someone who loves to show off your car.”
“Well, yes that’s true.”
“Check out the engine. I think it sings and purrs like a kitten.”
Melvin turned the key and listened for a bit and turned back to the car. “Actually, it sounds a little rough to me.”
“Rough man! You have to be joking. I think that I’m just what you’re looking for. Smart looking, a few years older, and sounds content.”
Melvin walked around the car again. He could agree that it seemed better than all the other ones he looked at so far.
“I have one more perk for you.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“I come with an eight-track player and a CD player. Now, where else can you get that. I think all the new ones on the lot have gone to just a radio. Please say yes sir. I will always be faithful to you and never let you down.”
Melvin called over the salesperson. “I’ll take this one if I can drive it away today.”
After all the paperwork was done, Melvin climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and said, “Okay sweetheart, the wheel is yours.”
Across the street Teagan comes out of his house. Plaid hat, snow pants, large gloves, swimming in his coat. The lawn is covered with snow. The boulevard is banked high with huge chunks of snow after yesterday’s storm. Teagan begins to carry chunks of snow to the lawn. He is choosy. Sometimes walking further down the street to find the perfect chunks. He is building, not a snowman, a snow fort. Some of the chunks are so large he struggles to carry them, until one overcomes him, and he falls. Face down in the snow he lies for long seconds until he rises, snow covered, shakes himself, and trudges over to a smooth piece of snowy lawn. He lies down and makes a snow angel. Refreshed, he arises and goes back to finding the next perfect chunk. Refreshed, I turn from my window to do an adult task.
As I was drifting off a thought came about. Maybe in a different life. A world appeared with a young high school girl. She was popular and smiled all the time. As I looked closer I could see that girl was me.
I was taken through her time in high school and then to university where she became a teacher. She, that girl, was me. What a wonderful happy life was happening right before my eyes.
The other me was happy, accomplished, and had so many friends. Somehow my dream cycle was now doing a comparison of the current me and the different life me. What was it trying to get me to see?
My time went back to watching a life of joy, fulfillment, and moving forward. There was love, marriage, and a couple of children now growing up in a happy environment. I felt good there and hoped that maybe that could be my life now.
How can I swap that one for the one I am in now. I did ask but no one answered any of my questions. I now knew that we could have and experience a different life but only in our dreams. The life we have is the one we have, or maybe, just maybe I can do something to make changes and fulfill myself with what I saw and experienced in that different life.
Abruptly, I jumped up in bed shaking. I took a drink of water and calmed myself now being able to remember what just happened and where it took me. The rest of the day my head kept telling me, “Do it, do it, you can do it.”
Writers, solitary by nature, may have gotten off lighter in the pandemic. We were quick to ZOOM and share work online. But I regret that in-person classes, the ones that forged the Wordwrights, may be gone forever.
It is impossible to replace human contact. For this literary group, road trips to Hillsdale for pie and a gander at the vista of Lake Erie from the old and now lavishly refurbished homestead, were postponed with Alison in regular lockdown. Libraries removed furniture and did not want anyone lingering, let alone talking about books and writing in quiet corners. Covid made our existence all high tech when we yearned for more high touch.
So today, we are grateful beyond measure to Catherine for gathering us, once again at Christmas, in this beautiful space. A private club where we are free to be ourselves, together – a luxury to meet as colleagues and friends. Over the many years we have been together, the Wordwrights are about much more than writing. I am grateful that Catherine also provides leadership for technology and task mastering. But there is a secret sauce here. Recently, with members passing on and punching out to deal with family matters, new members were welcomed into this tradition of shared writing and support. This may be the single most important thing you do to get words on paper. I am thankful for each one of you in my life and hope these new writing sessions will yield more prize winners.
I don’t remember writing a letter to Santa. I believed in Santa – sort of. I mean we moved every year so maybe a letter making sure he knew where to find me would have been an excellent strategy. But I don’t remember…
If I were to write a letter to Santa today it would have to start with apologies. This year the tree is not up and nor was it the last two years. I couldn’t get psyched to pretend we were welcoming the “joy” of Christmas when everything was locked down and no visits, gifts were delivered online to distant recipients. Phone calls seemed alienating. Reluctant to hang up but nothing really to say.
I did take a picture with my favourite snow bear sitting on the piano – I wore my Campbell tartan kilt – floor length. I took a picture with Kohl admiring that same bear but, in the sunroom, not the top of the piano. Kohl’s place is under the piano. No playing of Christmas carols on the piano. Not the year before either. My fingers stumbled over the notes on the couple I tried to play today.
So back to writing a letter – worth a try.
Dear Santa:
I was actually close to you, maybe one of your first stops. Goose Bay, Labrador. You did well by my sister and I that year – 1960, I think. A beautiful doll for each of us and handmade cradles. But we figured it out. Our father had hidden in the basement making the cradles and had brought the dolls back from a trip to “civilization”. All the hokey stuff on TV about your progress across the world was just that – hokey.
Like many families ours scattered. Personal visits became rarer. The holiday lost its importance. Guilt about forgetting to phone my mother on Xmas. She didn’t call me either, but I found out she had been quite sick. Three weeks later she was dead in a car crash.
I wish you were real, Santa, and that you could gift me a do-over.
I am being a little misleading. I say that fat, jolly man in red is not real, but Saint Nicholas was real. We viewed his coffin in a church in a small village in Turkey. Who would believe that Nick originated in Turkey. Connecting that saint to the Christmas hype over the centuries requires real imagination.
Maybe that is my problem. Christmas is not “joy” but belief in fairy tales and ceremony and pageantry. And most important wanting and needing to share the magic with others.
Thank you for your Holiday Greetings and for the delicious carrot cake and thermos of fresh coffee. I trust the coffee and your delightful snack will fortify me onward during this long, cold night on my mission to fulfill most Christmas wishes.
About your Christmas Wish…I understand the possible need but I fear my inability to grant it. Most Christmas Wishes are tangible and my elves are readily able to make them possible. Granting traditional wishes like a toy truck for a little boy or a doll to fill hours of enjoyable play time for a little girl is my job. Granting an intangible wish for a grandmother is a challenge beyond my pay grade.
In Santa’s workshop, the elves labour tirelessly all year to produce gifts for me to deliver. Over time, I have enjoyed many experiences and requests for wishes. Your wish requires the wisdom and insight that only Father Christmas can muster and provide. Delivery requires no searching or wrapping but instead it demands a lifetime of expertise and a loving heart.
Cathy, your Christmas Wish for “Inspiration” is impossible to wrap and deliver. I am aware that retirement, relocation, a pandemic and the unthinkable world events since February following knee replacement surgery and recovery have caused the world to seem out of balance. As with Alice in Oz, you are feeling confused and frettful not knowing which way is up or how to find down.
Rather than remainng stuck while enduring this period of uncertainty, imagine life differently. This should be a period of remaining strong, of taking stock and of preparing to move on. Buck up buttercup. Define your hopes and dreams. Decide your priorities and preferences. Stay focused and keep busy. Hold joy and gratitude in your heart. Trust that your “Christmas Wish” will be granted. In due time, you will be inspired and ready to move on.
My job is done. Now it is your job to do the work in your search of “inspiration”.
It was Christmas morning, me and my bowl cut hair style were wide awake. We had a rule in our house that you couldn’t open or touch anything under the tree until Mom and Dad had had their first cup of coffee. So, my brother and I would wait.
We would get up and look at the tree and the stockings while our little bodies teemed with excitement. When Ian got a bit older, he would make the first pot of coffee which was likely terrible. Ian was almost four years older than me so he was wiser, more accomplished in life and could spell his whole name, so he was in charge of coffee. Ian would also turn on the outside Christmas lights, a signal to the neighbours that we were up. A competition between the two houses to see who was awake first.
On Christmas morning when I was 7, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the presents from Santa were wrapped in the same paper as presents from Mom and Dad. A curious kid who was always encouraged to ask questions – I asked: why is the wrapping paper the same? Mom quickly answered something along the lines of isn’t that special that the wrapping paper we picked is the same as Santa! Must mean you were extra good this year! This seemed like a reasonable answer as I had been very good that year.
The following Christmas we were opening presents, and to my surprise, there were some price tags on some gifts. I asked: why are there price tags on these gifts from Santa? Mom quickly answered that sometimes Santa asks the Elves to pick up items at local shops because there are so many children around the world, and he can’t always make all the presents. It seemed a reasonable answer and it really didn’t make sense for Santa to make all the presents when they were already available elsewhere.
The next year we were opening presents, and Mom jumped up and said Santa forgot something! I thought this was extremely weird as she raced into another room and came back with two presents, one for Ian and one for me. As we were opening them, I asked: why did Santa forget these and why were they in the other room? Mom quickly answered that sometimes Santa gets startled when putting everything under the tree and drops presents in places they shouldn’t be. Again, this was a reasonable answer and something my primitive brain could imagine.
But my suspicion was increasing and the following year I asked: Mom, is Santa real? Mom quickly answered: “well I believe in Santa because there are presents under that tree that I didn’t put there”. I bought that answer too. And went on my merry way with the full belief that Santa was real, and my mom wouldn’t lie to me.
I was at least 10 years old when I learned the hard truth. I was at a new school, and it was the period when the class would go to the library. We were sitting in “the pit”, the carpeted story reading area. As I looked down at the beige-grey carpet, perfect for hiding the residue that comes off the sticky and dirty hands of children, a classmate made some passing comment about Santa not being real. I couldn’t believe it and kept staring at the carpet. All the other kids started to nod their heads and shared how they couldn’t believe kids our age still believed in Santa and that they had known for years. I was in shock. On the way home from school, I asked my brother. As you know he was wiser, in high school now and could do complex math problems so he would tell me the truth. He replied: “Yeah I’ve known for a while, but Mom asked me not to tell you to not ruin Christmas for you”. I couldn’t believe that for years my family, possibly my friends, had all been in on the cover-up. It all started to make sense – the identical wrapping paper, the price tags, “Santa forgetting” and obviously there would be presents under that tree that my mom hadn’t put there.
I don’t recall what happened next, if I told my parents or not. I don’t recall if I was upset for longer than an hour or a day, but I don’t carry any resentment towards them for the cover-up or how I found out (officially and very very late). I’m only thankful. My Mom believed in continuing with the magic for years and that is precious to me. She and my Dad would have been exhausted at Christmas time. They both were working, getting me and my brother to school, participating in seasonal activities and having to do the never-ending task of feeding us daily so no wonder on Christmas morning after a marathon evening of wrapping presents there would be price tags. As a thank you, and now that I can spell my whole name, I will make their first cup of coffee on Christmas morning.
I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me. The last several years have been hard, but I got through them. I usually don’t write and ask for things, but I need your help this year.
I have a special request that I hope you can help with. A special person in my life needs a unique gift this year. I don’t know if you can take care of it, but I’m still going to ask.
My youngest granddaughter is due to have her fourth son in March of the new year. I don’t think she’s ready for so much responsibility yet. She gave birth to her third son only a year ago. So far, she has found a way to manage day by day most times, but the stress of being alone to take care of everything must be difficult.
My ask, if you think it could be possible, is to have her husband home more to help out. I know being in the service fighting for your country is commendable, but he’s always gone. Each time he returns, it takes the family a long time to adjust then he leaves again.
I’m putting this request in your hands and praying that you can find a way to grant it, if only for a short time, until the older children can help Mom with the younger ones.
I blame love. Possibly hormones. The change started when the cousins and my brother started pairing up more almost forty years ago. Never mind that it left me as the odd wheel out, it was bigger than that.
On their own I had no problem with the individuals they paired off, they were friends from our own social circle, but why couldn’t things be left as they were? The Christmas shopping expeditions of our tweens where we set off on foot and met downtown Strathroy and spent the afternoon together or the trips to the town fair where my oldest cousin lied and said she was under twelve to get in free like the rest of us, gone forever.
Christmases together with the two families and occasionally cousins from Holland, a whole other story there, was laid back, festive, fun. It was family. But with pairings came logistical problems. Christmas Eve no longer suited everyone, and it became the Saturday before or, if there were conflicts, squeezed in Tuesday after a completed work day. Christmas Eve with the extended family no longer happened.
After marriage came babies. So many babies. The two families became too large and separated. However even with our own family unit Christmas Eve gatherings was still a problem. It was my sister-in-law’s parent’s anniversary. As far as I’m concerned only selfish people get married on big holidays but that’s beside the point. Christmas Eve, the only holiday we actually celebrated as a family, was no longer ours.
As time has passed my own little odd family out has paired off too. Christmas is further complicated once again. It was time for me to become selfish. I didn’t care what anyone else did but I was spending Christmas Eve with my parents whether or not my brothers and kids could make it. Both sets of parents, the husband’s and mine, are in their eighties, I need this while I can.
And for the last two Christmases it has worked. Both sets are basically under the same roof now so it’s just a matter of meeting in one apartment. Now we sit, eat gebakjes and other assorted tasty treats, and visit. There are no gifts exchanged because we’ve all outgrown that. None of us need more stuff.
As for the cousins? My aunt and Uncle are five units down from my parents. A knock on the door and an exchange of Merry Christmases works. Christmas Day whoever is free can come for dinner at our place. Simple.
Today, I’m reminded of the last Christmas lunch we shared, and would have to say that probably no one could have predicted the bizarre route our lives would take in early 2020. For me, looking back on our gathering that December, in this exact room, enjoying great food and company, I was blissfully unaware that I was soon to be drop kicked through the goal posts of life. And while the world wrestled with Covid, my life took on another challenge that made the fear of infection almost something to look forward to.
That which does not kill us………..makes us want to kill ourselves, and often times during the following months, I contemplated on long sleepless nights, a particularly heinous form of hari-kari, leaving me gorgeously pale in a black lace negligee; of course, never to be found until my rotting corpse ruined the whole Juliet effect.
And I had to accept that after twenty some odd years of a life partnership, mine crumbled in moments. An unpredictable and misfortunate betrayal that left me more vulnerable and wounded than if I had been dismembered.
Faced with property management alone, aging and grieving dogs, loss and failure, I had to put away my bicycle, my hikes, writing and my life of ease. I was left to pay our home equity loan and my income diminished by two thirds, but my expenses expanded.
Would some future movie scene portray me emerging from the mist, in combat gear, dishevelled, and dirty, but victorious? Certainly!
I did some epic shit—I know that now. Chain sawing and retaining all limbs, caring for the dogs, the property, and the house. I sold it all, disposing of Blair’s existence into landfills and goodwills. I relocated into a highrise (a story unto itself). I fought and won a legal battle, said a sorrowful goodbye to my beloved Jasper, who for all his quirks and disobedience was the most amazing creature that ever wore poodle attire.
Presently, Zola and I live in Blackfriar’s Estate, where a variety of eccentric residents entertain and delight us. And, we enjoy the presence of ghosts that slip up and down stairs and around corners unexpectedly. What could be finer? Except for the two chihuahuas that wear pearl necklaces and indulge in vodka in the afternoon, or the dashounds that bark incessantly. Or the parrot named Joey that likes to imitate the back up alarm on a garbage truck—first thing in the morning. “Joey, shut the fuck up,” I hear from my open bedroom window.
It takes three years to heal; five years to heal, and I’ve also been told ten years to heal, as though time is infinite. I don’t think I will ever heal, not completely. When I drive country roads from my past, I feel strangely detached, but also shaken by the familiarity of a bridge I have crossed hundreds of times, and I can still anticipate that bump in the road. I know those beautiful country homes that changed season by season; artistry of nature and decor. Often the sky over the horizon brings brutal nostalgic beauty. Was that the same cloud formation that would drift slowly by, as we ventured on our Sunday tours of the countryside? The driving rain—the same as when we drove to the airport. I will be haunted forever, but that is something I must come to love and cherish.
I have learned how to be alone. I can handle anything, and my motto has become ‘what’s the next logical step?’ A mantra that unravels the complexities of yet the latest disaster. I look forward to my future, to adventure and am quite happy in my solitude—mostly content and free. I am fortunate that I have wonderful, and not so wonderful friends (the latter makes it all so interesting). At the end of my life, I can say with certainty that I did not take the easy road. I did not back down. But more importantly, I did what was right.
Sometimes it feels as though my heart is stuck between zipper teeth, tugging and pulling will only result in more seizures and pain, so I am resigned to live with my damaged heart, because I know my soul is one of brilliance and light.
This Christmas, we are once again together. We are all different people after three years of isolation, separation, and tragedy. And I could say something cliché about living in the moment, caring for those we love, or getting hit by the proverbial bus—wait, my mother did get hit by a bus, so I’ll leave that one out. We are lucky, even when we are not. We are walking each other home. It is all we are doing—we have no claim to anything, I have learned that well. Anything can happen and it likely will.
So, here’s a suggestion for the new year; let’s all take out our damaged hearts, our pieced together with duct tape, shoe laces and packaging twined hearts. Take them out, put them on the table and let everyone admire them. We are all heroic to be standing in this difficult world.
Let everything happen to us, the beauty, the magic, the horror and let’s keep standing against it to let it fall around us, like rain.
