Whatever He Says

 Yesterday our granddaughter Tori came to pick up a cheque that had arrived in our mailbox and stayed for a visit with her mom, Brenda and me. In the course of the conversation, we talked about customer satisfaction. However, I can’t recall how we got onto that topic, only that it reminded me of my satisfying conclusion of a slipper purchase almost a month earlier.  We were all sitting on the floor at the time to be less threatening to her shy dog, Kevin, so I pointed to my feet stretched out in front of me—and my new slippers with their moccasin-like uppers, cozily trimmed and lined with faux-fur. Tori appraised them approvingly, “They’re nice,” she said.  “I love them,” I said, “but the first pair I bought after spending forever choosing them and thinking they were perfect began to pinch after several hours of wearing them around the house. Thinking I’d get used to them, I kept them on despite the discomfort and even dropped something on them in the kitchen, which ...

I had spent Wednesday upstairs, emptying, cleaning and organizing cupboards, while from the kitchen below the distant whine of an electric screwdriver drifted up--new cupboard doors were being attached to our still sturdy, old cupboard frames. The bathroom cupboards were next to be renewed once the kitchen was finished. Without thinking, I emptied the contents of a clear plastic jewelry organizer onto the bathroom counter-top, so that I could wash and dry it--and instantly the chains of four necklaces formed a pile that became tangled around each other and two red coral earrings. More haste, less speed, I thought, with a sigh. I  tried letting the chains loosely fall apart in my fingers, as much as they would without tugging. Mum had taught me how to do this when I was a child, and I remembered how n o matter how tight the knot in a thread, or how hopelessly knotted a chain was , somehow,  she was always able to undo it; just one of her special talents! I  managed to...

It reproach ed me silently as it has for almost two decades. I tried to read it when my father first gave it to me, saying, "Here's a book you should read. I think you'll like it." But I was always so busy, always trying to read several books at once, and not having much time to read anyway. It sat beside my bed or on the coffee table long enough that I lost the thread of the story, which spanned four hundred years. Tidying up one day I put it back on the shelf, and there it stayed. My father never forgot and would mention it from time to time. "Did you ever read that book?" he would ask, and I would inwardly squirm, make excuses and intend to do so...soon.  I knew that it would mean a lot to him if I read it--traveled the land within its pages--go where he had gone before:  Chesapeake. Recently I scanned my bookshelves, pulling off books for a writing exercise. The assignment was to look at first lines, as many as possible within a few hours, and...

There are times imprinted in memory because of the seasons in our lives in which they occurred, although memory can also be a fragile faculty. At the monthly meeting of the writers group that meets in our home, November's topic was Memories/Remembrance. Everyone came at the topic uniquely. We met on November 11, Remembrance Day, and one person, instead of writing, brought memorabilia of generations of her family at war and spoke of her hopes and fears now that a son-in-law has enlisted. We passed around her fascinating items and photos.  I shared the story of my father's two months overseas during the war, right at the end, and I brought out one of my own treasures, a rifle oiler from World War 1, a gift from my nephew John in 2011. You can link to my post about the rifle oiler, with photos of it,  here. Magda shared a story about her family's history, starting in Holland during World War 11 and then continuing into their first decade or so in Ontario after emigrating...

Just like stones in a farmers field things in my house work their way to the ground every now and then. An old CD that I hadn't played for while surfaced recently. At the time that I bought it I played it over and over again, but it has been seven years, so when I popped it into the CD player in my car, it came back as fresh and beautiful as when I first heard it.  It was Rob who asked me if I had heard the song  Nine Million Bicycles  by Katie Melua. I hadn't, but I bought the CD, Piece by Piece, after he described her voice, just to hear it. Playing the CD, I was struck again by how tied in certain memories are to music. I listen to that CD and I am in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The music takes me back to 2006. I have taken time out from a visit to Mum and Rob in Alvechurch, to spend a week in Holland with Dutch cousins whom I have not seen for forty years. After flying to Amsterdam from Birmingham, I am waiting for my cousin Deborah who is flying in f...

By Belinda Mum belonged to the  generation of women, which after keeping the country running while the men were away at war, continued to work outside the home when they came back. When I think back now, I don't know how she managed, without even a washing machine, let alone a dryer! One way was by having an after-work routine that she did not deviate from:  Every evening the grate in the kitchen, which held the coal fire that heated the house, had to be cleaned out. The grate would be shaken vigorously with a poker and the ashes that fell through the iron bars would be swept out with a brush into a dustpan and a new fire built. The red flagstone kitchen floor, dusty with all of the ash floating around, would be swept and mopped daily. Monday was washing night. On cold winter evenings while the washing boiled in a dolly tub, the kitchen windows and doors were open wide to the elements to let out the steam. I would shiver in our breezy house, hoping that it would all be...

By Belinda The next day in Mum's story of 2003/04... Rob and I had visited Mum at the hospital the day before--my first time with her since her stroke. This had been so different from all of our previous reunions. She expressed resignation and acceptance and I saw sadness in her eyes and on her face.  Before going to see her again we went shopping for a new pillow, duvet, and sheets for Mum's bed, and then we headed for the hospital. We found her asleep again, as she had been the day before when we arrived, but this time she was sitting up in a chair, and she woke as soon as I touched her arm. Her eyes were sunken and tired, and she said that she hadn't slept at all that night. Even so, I was struck by how beautiful her dear face was; those beautiful eyes; looking more like her own mothers' with every passing year; and her lovely complexion, and her abundant silver gray hair, simply combed back.  I grieved for what she and we had lost, but was so grateful fo...

By Belinda I arrived in England for a four week stay, late on a cold January evening in 2004. After a 25 hour long journey, due to closed airports in England, when I finally got to Mum's empty house in Alvechurch, I slept deeply and woke up the next morning feeling well rested and refreshed. Rob had to go to work, and I spent the day quietly, waiting impatiently for him to come home so that we could go to the hospital together. It felt like I had waited so long through the months since October and her stroke, and  I just couldn't wait any longer to see her. Night falls early in the winter in England and  we arrived at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch in the dark. A sense of deja vu flowed over me. A year ago to the month, I had made many visits to this very hospital as Dad lay dying of pneumonia. The beeping of life support machinery; the very hallways I had walked at that time; and the smell of the place, all were part of my memories of "then." I had alrea...

By Belinda And so it came to pass that a year that contained more than its fair share of losses ended, and new year began: 2004.  On the 28th day of January, I boarded a plane for England, hardly able to believe that at last I would be seeing Mum. I couldn't get a direct flight to Birmingham so I flew via  Charles De Gaulle Airport  in Paris. When the flight landed in France however, we were told that there were no flights leaving for England; a snowfall had caused chaos on the roads and the airports were closed. Passengers were given meal coupons for an airport lounge. There was nothing to do but wait. If I have a book to read and journal to write in I will be content for hours and so the eleven hours until England pulled itself together and cleared away the snow felt like a kind of comfortable limbo. I wasn't in a hurry, I realized, now that I was on my way. Maybe I was a little scared. I had said goodbye to Mum when she boarded the plane for England in Octobe...

By Belinda Late on the night of Mum's sudden return to the hospital, Rob called me with good news. He had arrived half expecting her to be still waiting to be seen, just as I had worried, but instead he found her settled into bed, wearing a warm, pink and yellow nightie, with a cream blanket tucked up around her. She was comfortable, and said that she felt "at home," and was laughing and happy. Such a relief. Mum spent a week in the hospital and then was brought home again on December 10th to the house on Snake Lane. Rob found this time that she was not quite herself, and seemed depressed. Feeling so very far away, our lives went on, caught up with the gathering intensity of Christmas activities. The evening of December 10th, Paul and I went to the community carol service at our church. I burst into tears i n the middle of, Oh Holy Night . The thought of Mum and Rob struggling along in Alvechurch and of Mum in the cold empty house, and sad; was just too much of a ...

By Belinda  Just as our household was stirring awake on a cold winter morning, t he phone rang downstairs . It was 7.00 a.m. on Tuesday the 2nd of December, 2003, 8 days after Mum had come back home from hospital. I heard Rob's voice on the other end of the phone line; he usually called at night to give updates on Mum--I knew this couldn't be good news. He told me that Mum was on her way to hospital in an ambulance. As he recounted the circumstances, they broke my heart.   The house that Mum and Dad had shared in Snake Lane for their last years together after moving from Bear Hill, was old and very basic. I would guess that it had been built at least 80 years earlier.  When I visited them in the month of October for the years they were there, I would sleep under layers of blankets because it was so cold. If it was -3 outside, it was not much warmer inside, and I remember once, writing on a postcard to family back in Canada that I felt as though I was sleeping ou...

By Belinda Almost four weeks post-stroke, when  my nephew Tim visited  Mum in the hospital, she greeted him by saying, "Hello darling."  Tim said to his dad, Rob, afterwards, that it was the first thing that Omie had really said to him  since she had been ill. Two simple words suddenly meant so much. They were reported across continents, recorded in my journal, and had the import of the words of the most famous celebrity.  I could think of no better choice for the blessing of Mum's first "darling" than Tim. Mum meant so much to Rob's two sons, Tim and John. She was loved by everyone, but to them she had been a constant source of stability, love and security over some difficult years. Exactly four weeks after her stroke, Mum went for a short "home visit" to the empty house on Snake Lane. An occupational therapist went along to make an assessment of the accommodations necessary for her return. She was able to turn on the gas stove, but had...

By Belinda We all know on some level in our heads that life as we know it can change in an instant, but we act as though we ourselves, and those we love are invincible--and we choose to believe it.  We don't really believe that our parents will ever grow old, or become vulnerable--or dependent. They were the ones who were so big and strong in our eyes as children and they were supposed to look after us. I remember the shock when I first noticed my parents aging and realized that they whom I had needed, needed me.  And now, as relentlessly as the increasingly chill winds of oncoming winter gradually stripped bare the trees of their golden leafed glory, what only happened to other people was happening to us. One October evening in 2003, just after Mum's stroke, I was playing Beatles music in my kitchen while cooking a stir fry, and the music reminded me vividly of our last years together as a family in the 1960's. I found myself mourning the loss of both of my paren...

By Belinda Mum had flown home on  October 13,  Thanksgiving Monday, 2003. One week later I was just about to leave for a work special staff event, ( a "Time of Refreshing,") when the phone rang. My brother Rob's deep voice traveled through thousands of miles of telephone wire  with news I tried hard to comprehend.  He told me that he was with Mum, waiting for an ambulance. She had had a stroke! While I had been going about my early morning preparations for the day, far away, on the other side of the ocean, she had collapsed outside the Alvechurch village  post office. She had gone there to pick up her pension and mail a letter to me; the last letter she would ever write.  She had developed a troubling hot spot on her leg after arriving back in England on Tuesday morning and the doctor who had seen her on Friday had urged her to avoid moving more than necessary until Monday,  when a district nurse who knew her well, would come in and check it....

By Belinda Note: I almost forgot to add that this post was submitted as Whatever He Says's entry in Dave Hingsburger's  6th Annual Disability Blog Carnival! My continuing story about Mum is not forgotten, but the 32nd annual Holocaust Education starts next week (it runs from November 1-8,) and this year I intend to participate in it by attending as many local events as I can manage. I reviewed the brochure, Culture of Memory,  published by the  Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre  in Toronto and chose carefully from an overwhelming number of options. Yesterday I had the honour of attending the grand opening ceremony of  The Maxwell and Ruth Leroy Holocaust Remembrance Garden , at the Reena Community Residence in the City of Vaughan. Paul had the greater honour of having participated for two years on the committee designing the garden and of being the keynote speaker. Sometime in the next week I will share a story, or maybe more than one,...

By Belinda When we got to the hotel where we all went for refreshments after the church service, Dave wanted to know what I thought of the church.  I had so much to process that I stalled for time! Two months later I'm not sure I'm any more coherent than I was then, but I want to pour out some of my impressions and thoughts here. It just seems important to do so at last. First of all, I was struck by the intense sense of community that I felt immediately. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, since I would think that community is most precious of all to those who have experienced such rejection outside of it.  But for all that, it wasn't an accidental community. I read the bulletin and I had already checked out the website. MCC  is a huge organization. I just rechecked the website and they have an impressive new one. The website says that there are over 800 congregants. I can't even imagine the work that it takes to care for the spiritual and practical needs...