Whatever He Says

"To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside a touch of time." - Clara Ortega. "We know one another's faults, virtues, catastrophes, mortifications, triumphs, rivalries, desires, and how long we can each hang by our hands to a bar. We have been banded together under pack codes and tribal laws." - Rose Macaulay.  A set of photos was taken on a summer's day long ago. They always make me smile and feel sorry for being such a meanie. Rob  was having so much fun until I came along!    We had our share of sibling rivalry growing up, but now it is rare for more than a few days to go by without calling the other, even though we have lived on different continents for so many years.  We can talk for an hour about the most menial details of our li...

In the morning we begin our journey home from Florida--from the land of voices that fall like sugar on the ear with their soft, "Honey's" and "Y'all's." The people here have been just out and out happily polite and pleasant where ever we went--the epitome of "nice." This time away has been wonderful way to start the New Year--a gift--from the journey down through the states, away from the frigid cold of a recent ice storm in Canada--to the simplest of things enjoyed together as a family. I have tucked away some precious memories. One memory is the excitement of crossing the border with Tippy and Tori, who have never been out of Ontario, and the laughter inside the car because I wasn't sure at which exact moment we had definitely crossed the border and could start cheering. The sheer beauty of West Virginia as we drove by the Appalachian Mountains was stunning. Just hanging out with two of my granddaughters for so many days strun...

This Mother's Day we woke up in Ontario, to a joke being played by Mother Nature! It was snowing. In May. After being over 70  degrees in Toronto last week! Not only that, but as the snow swept down from the leaden sky, a blustery wind blew full force. As I drove to church, I thought of the 10 K run that Brenda had signed up for. Surely she wouldn't be doing it in this weather, I thought, especially since she hadn't been running for the past three months after her training schedule was interrupted by some health issues. I couldn't imagine anyone running in the freezing cold of this morning. But I was wrong! To my daughter, a promise is a promise. Pardon me for using the Mother's Day Ticket, to be proud. It was the  Toronto Sporting Life 10 K  for children with cancer, and she managed to run 5 kilometers without stopping, and walked and ran the rest of the way. Brenda is cold at the best of times, and she said that parts of her were completely numb as she ran...

By Belinda In the countdown to my trip to England, I will land there 6 weeks from today! One of the things I decided to do was have copies made  for Rob  of some of the old family photos I have--and while I was doing it for him, I made extra copies for other family members.  They were ready today and after picking them up I gave Brenda her set of 32, 8 x 10 photos. As we sat at the kitchen table looking at them together, I realized that I will have to number them and make a chart to go with them, explaining who it is that is on each of the photos as Brenda did not of course recognize the faces, some of them in photos taken 90 or more years ago. But there was one that she picked up and said, "Mom, who is this?" as she stared at it,"Those are my cheekbones, and my jawline." It was a photo of her great grandmother; my father's mother, Lucy Cater; taken in about 1920, that she was looking at. I had never noticed the striking resemblance before. Brenda...

  By Belinda We had some great news on Friday. Tippy ( (of chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream fame)  was accepted into the  Secondary Arts Program  at Huron Heights Secondary School this fall. The website describes it as:  A four-year intensive arts program for artistically talented students in York Region.    Tippy had to put together a portfolio and audition for a space. There were 48 applicants for about 20 spaces. Brenda was intensely stressed!!! Tippy had a quiet calm. When I talked to her after she heard the news and asked her about the audition, she said with a smile, "I was pleased with my work." We are so happy for her! And it called for a family celebration with ice cream cake.  Chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake of course!

By Belinda I have been working hard over some time off from work, getting my upside down house in order. There's still more to be done, but my soul is happy with what has been done. One big job tackled and done, as I mentioned in a recent post, was dismantling all of our photo albums covering 1966-2006--that's 40 years of photos--and putting them into photo storage boxes. It was hard work just taking them out of the albums, then breaking down the albums for recycling. But I also wrote on index cards the main events covered in the photos in that box. A wonderful surprise was finding photos of the part of our lives that I've recently been writing about--Mum's stroke and our journey as a family that surrounded that event. It was a strange feeling seeing photos of things that I tried hard to capture in writing. I wished that I'd had the photos as I was writing, but what I plan to do is scan the photos and then post little catch up "albums" with links to...

By Belinda After our misadventures of the night before, Mum and I woke up on the day of the wedding that we had traveled so far to attend, in the well appointed comfort of the de Lint's guest cabin.   I peeked through the slat of a blind and saw that we were in beautiful natural surroundings, with mountains beyond the trees that encircled the cabin. We had not been up long when Cors de Lint came over from the house to check on his "patient."  As he carefully unwrapped the dressing that he had applied in the early hours of the morning, we both saw that the jagged gash was serious and in need of medical attention.  This only confirmed my assessment of the night before but we were grateful to at least have been refreshed by a few hours of sleep before going to Langley Memorial Hospital.  With Cors' directions we dressed for the wedding but set off for the hospital instead of the luncheon at Ingrid and Arthur's home We had no choice but to go with a differ...

By Belinda My friend Dave asked me on Saturday, "So how is your brother?" "Well, we haven't talked for a while," I said. It sounded and felt strange to say that. Our weekly Saturday morning phone calls have been sacrosanct for some nine years after all.  But I wrote here in early August about how the the loss of someone sometimes means other losses ,  or at least the need to redefine other relationships. And that is what we have been doing, my brother and I; finding a new way to be with, and to, one another. I called him a few weeks ago and panicked when I couldn't reach him. So silly! I sent a frantic message through Face Book, to my nephew and his girlfriend, seeking reassurance that he was okay. He surfaced safely, a little bemused at my worry, having been with an old neighbour, keeping her company, out on a bench in "the close!" We decided that we didn't have to stick to 10 o'clock on Saturdays anymore, that had been "...

By Belinda Their home had a stork on the lawn, announcing the birth of their first daughter, when they moved in, 14 years ago. Two brothers and a sister came along since then, to fill the little house with love, laughter and memories. In those14 years the house has been spruced up, painted many times, re-roofed, had energy efficiency upgraded and a deck built, but without expanding the walls, it was just too small, and yesterday, the time came to move. Paul and I were part of the moving crew, and of course, my camera came along for the ride.  Pete closed the door on 9 Purdue Court for the last time. Both he and Sue had walked the empty rooms one last time and said their goodbyes. The house had been scrubbed clean, and now all we had to wait for was a call from the lawyer, to say that the key to the new house could be picked up, but it was 33 degrees and we had all worked up a sweat. The only place to wait was the deliciously cool Dairy Queen! We didn't have long t...

By Belinda I got lost in old photographs this evening. I found these when I was in Alvechurch in March.  I'm so thankful for photographs. I have many albums upstairs in the loft room, but in 2006 I went digital and started saving photos in Picasa albums.  It was so good to look at photos of my Alvechurch visits over the past 6 years. I have the photos on my laptop and even some short video clips. How precious they are, and how wonderful it was to retrace those wonderful moments. Time goes by so quickly. These photos are from the 1950's and 1960's and even those moments seem like only yesterday. In the top one I think I was three. In the second about ten and in the third fifteen--a mere 47 years ago!:)

  By Belinda At last, with Rob gone to bed, and goodbyes said to Susan, Tim and John, I was able to pack methodically, slowly and carefully--the way I probably do most things in life. I'm much more of a turtle than a hare!  I carefully stowed some precious treasures in my case, including a very old barometer that once hung in my great grandparents' barge, and my Oma Schipper's jewelry box made out of inlaid wood, with a quilted royal blue lining with golden threads that had once criss-crossed the blue quilting, but now mostly were broken and loose. In the lid is Oma's name, carved from ivory: "Kaatje." When I'd finished packing, I still had one bag of things that wouldn't fit, and another bag with personal items of my own that I usually keep in Alvechurch ready for my visits. I hated to leave Rob with these bags, as his flat was getting fuller every day with "stuff" we just couldn't part with, but I had no choice. I had spent my l...

By Belinda  Yesterday our house filled with family after the Good Friday service at church. The sun shone brilliantly and a fresh breeze blew through  our hair as six grandchildren ran around the front yard hunting for Easter eggs hidden by Paul. We threatened to make him wear bunny ears to get into the spirit of the hunt, but he didn't cooperate. Inside, the house was filled with the fragrance of a baking ham, and over the leisurely process of cooking of the rest of the meal; eating it, and relaxing with full tummies afterwards, we all had much news to catch up on. Daughter-in-law Sue, and one of our three teenage granddaughters, Elizabeth, have just returned from a missions trip to Barbados with a team from our church. They went with a ministry named  Seeds International  which aims to plant the seeds of faith in the hearts of children. It was a trip full of "firsts:" first trip away together; first trip out of Canada; first missions trip and first separation...

Mum's passport photograph. We think she was about 18, which would mean it was taken in 1944.

By Belinda Saturday, December 17 and the dawn sky was awash with pink. It has been unbelievably mild in Ontario this winter, but a light sprinkling of snow added fresh beauty to the day. It was the perfect day for Brenda and Kevin's wedding. I had an early appointment in Barrie for a manicure, hair wash and blow dry. In a plastic bag on the seat beside me in the car was one red shoe to be matched to my nail polish! Susan had given me a Christmas CD a few days earlier:  Peaceful Christmas  I hadn't listened to it yet as I had been finishing an amazing Christmas audio story,  A Redbird Christmas  by Fannie Flagg, but as I drove up the highway, the sky now a cloudless blue; I popped the CD in. The car filled with the strains of the Carol of the Bells with steel drums, and I listened and peace filled the car. Spring, who was doing my nails, arrived at the same moment I did and we went into a room at the back of the small salon. I took out my shoe and chose ...

By Belinda  My faculties seem to have ground to a halt and I don't think I can string two words together in a coherent sentence, so I thought I would let some photos tell the story for me. It was a time to dance... (more when I have recovered :))  Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 Amplified Bible (AMP) Ecclesiastes 3 TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven: 2A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted,(A) 3A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, 4A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,