Updates from up North

Hello all after a long hiatus…..

A new and unwanted journey has arrived in our lives. It seems that paths that we might choose aren’t necessarily the paths that are chosen for us…at least not that we know of. When an undesired fork in the road appears we are forced to navigate it with as much grace and dignity as we can muster. And muster we do!

This time it is not I who must be prodded and poked and dissected. It is my beloved, Chuck, who is at the centre and receiving end of this all. What appeared to be a regular inguinal hernia has proven to be far more. The diagnostic journey from hernia to cancer tumour has been relatively short, rapid in fact. In a health system in Ontario Canada notorious for long waits to get in to specialty care, and even longer waits for surgery, this journey has been at warp speed.

Exactly 1 week ago today, a suspicious looking ultrasound showing a large tumour mass has been dealt with first by the most caring brilliant primary care physician for whom we are so grateful to for being in her care …to an immedaite visit with the urology surgeon who sat with us for 30 minutes going over everything and answering all of our questions. Tomorrow the tumour will be excised- a procedure that should take no longer than 45 minutes. A same-day surgery that allows Chuck to come back home to his own bed, and to a soup currently being made by a generous caring friend, a care package that includes a freshly baked lemon-poppyseed cake, and to supportive, caring family who have given us so much loving support already and whose care and giving goes above and beyond all else.

Something I heard on a webinar on caregiving that I attended through UCSD’s Sanford Institute on Empathy and Compassion hit ‘home’. Ram Dass, the American spiritual teacher and author said about our life’s journey, with all its bumps in the road…” we are all just walking each other home.”

I will attempt to provide updates on this blog….

University of Toronto, Autumn 2020

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Care and giving

Giving, loving care, arrives in many different forms, shapes, sizes and surprises:

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An LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) paper bag with a note on the bag: ‘fancy package’ and a unique, personally-selected bottle of a Japanese whiskey

Phone calls, cards and emails, texts, WhatsApp messages from Sweden, England, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Canada, USA…words of support, love, healing, laughter

Family of all ages sending love and healing, at all hours of the night and into the early morning…our 14 year old niece who asks her mom if it’s appropriate to wish him ‘good luck’ before surgery, and then sends an “I love you” message in the early hours of the morning after surgery

Home baked lemon poppyseed cake as one of many items in of a care package from my sister who is also a concierge doctor and gives us concierge care and love

Chewy baked florentines molded together in a caramel chocolate and nurtures the taste buds and heart

Droe-wors (Chuck’s favourite snack) along with other goodies from another of my sisters. A sister who took the morning off work to be on-call for me the day of surgery so that I wouldn’t be alone. A sister who thinks of anything and everything that I or Chuck might need.

A pot of the most delicious nourishing soup made by a dear friend’s husband who himself has recently had challenging health issues. The soup was delivered by our friend in a shiny all-clad pot, still warm from the stove, on the evening of Chuck’s surgery. Nurturing that goes above and beyond…

…..and the list goes on

No matter the type of package it arrives in, the size, the shape, or the content, the support and care and concern nourishes us both, feeds our souls and definitely helps with healing.

The death of a parent

The death of a parent is difficult, to say the least. The death of a second parent is even more difficult; compounding the loss of the first parent, and now unable to share memories and thoughts and life with the other remaining parent, a void, larger than the first loss, sits central and visceral in my body. I am edgy, restless, don’t know what to do with myself. Unable to sit still, I have cleaned each room in the large house, for the second time. I first cleaned the rooms as dad was dying and I, thousands of miles away, had nothing to do with myself, not able to be with family or dad, except on FaceTime. And thankful for technology, it filled much of my days, and still does. The week of traditional shiva has been one of aloneness in a weird covid19 world. But it has also been one of tremendous connection and togetherness where we have had daily zooms, 2 hours at a time. The silver-lining of Covid has been that we are all isolated and so all needing the time to connect with each other- from South Africa, to Sweden, to Israel, Australia, Canada and the USA, we have managed to find a time that is early morning for some, late evening or night for others. And yet, we all attend. I love this time recounting stories and memories of dad with each other and offering up so many fun tales and memories to his grandchildren and hopefully they will share with their children. Dad has not died. He has continued to live on, through our memories and our talking about him…and so we will continue to do so now and in the future. And Mom lives on too, through dad’s stories and our memories both of Mom and Dad their lives so intertwined. They live on in us.

I have made a point to one day put together all the many many tapes and video footage that I have recorded of Dad and Mom over the years. As a tribute and a loving living memory of a terrific story teller himself, of a man who loved to adventure, who loved life and all the people he called and included as family in his life. I hope that I can fulfill this, in his honour.

when dad is dying

What do I do as dad lies dying 2,500 miles away from where I am…his 91 year old mind as sharp and alert as any 20 year old, but his body just not able to keep up with his mind. And me having just returned to California after spending almost 6 months in Toronto, still in my 2weeks of quarantine after traveling at the peak of the 2nd or 3rd wave of the pandemic.

For the past 9 months, since the dreaded coronavirus first touched these shores, we, as a family, have kept dad safe from this terrifying infection. We have also kept dad company through months and months of isolation and ‘lockdown’ as the retirement home where he lives has had first one wave of an outbreak, and now, the second, more rapidly spreading, outbreak. With the first outbreak in March, as the retirement home restricted visitors, and then even family members from visiting, serving food to each resident in their apartments on paper plates and drinks in disposable plastic or paper cups, my family worked tirelessly for 8, then 10 then 12 hours a day to keep dad company, assist him with his meals, and keep his spirits up and life energy souring as only he knew.

March rolled into April and then May. Spring in Toronto is the most beautiful of months where suddenly growth appears from a once ice-covered ground, little shoots of green sprout their tender foils reaching upward to the light and the sun. With Spring comes blooms of color and quantity, daffodils as bright as the sun itself emerge first, then the irises as the warmer longer days of summer emerge and the lilacs and lavenders of myrtle mingle their purple hues into dappled darkening plums and violets. Hydrangeas start to appear and summer comes all abloom with rapidity, knowing full well the shortness of it’s life, it flowers furiously for all it’s worth.

July, and finally we could travel to Canada from California- allowed to enter the country as ‘essential caregivers’ for dad. We complied reams of material stipulating where we would quarantine for 2 weeks on arrival in Toronto, who would meet us at the airport (Davida and family), provide food (Davida and family) and necessary provisions (Davida and family) while we isolated strictly according to Canadian public health regulations in a 900 sq foot condominium. That all proved to be easier than we thought. Chuck and I, both, enjoyed the time quarantining together knowing that this 2 weeks would leave us free to then be with dad, see him, even though we were restricted with visits to outdoors and only 2 at a time, and indoor ‘caregiving’ restrictions too. We had to get covid tested every 2 weeks to be able to be cleared to enter dad’s apartment at the retirement home. It was a minor irritation to have a large swab stuck high up in our nostrils for 20 seconds, nothing really, and easily done as Chuck and I spent weeks alternating and working out schedules with each other and my 2 sisters and 2 brothers, to make this time as bearable for dad as possible. And we did. All of us! My 4 siblings in Canada, myself and my wonderful husband.

Prior to this 2 of my university-going nieces, Erin and Geena, offered up their time to be caregivers for dad..to assist him with his meals as his Parkinson’s caused some problems with his dexterity, they took him for walks up and down the hallway of the 6th floor where he lived now alone after Mom passed away 4 years earlier, they washed and wiped and changed him as needed. 20 year old young women did this without flinching, for their beloved grandfather, their Zaida. Geena for a month and Erin for 6 weeks, they gave tirelessly and without reservation. A gift that dad relished, both beautiful young women; dad always had an eye for beauty.

I started writing this blog on Sunday January 3rd. Then put it away as dad’s end came ever closer……

Dad passed away on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021.

mom

I look at my hands, long thin fingers, hands that have held the hands of those I love so dearly; fingers entwined.  I wear mom’s rig on my second finger on my right hand.  It’s a gold ring, badly bent out of shape. Too many pots and cleaning, is my reasoning.  She worked so hard, my mom.  Every Friday night she prepared a sabbath meal for 12, no, more than we could count, extras,and more…and always enough food. No one ever went hungry.  I remember the pots and the pans that Mom spent hours scrubbing clean way after everyone went to bed.  She never left a single dish in the sink, making sure that everything was cleaned and packed away for the morning.

I wrote this paragraph a couple of years ago, and never finished it to publish on my blog.  Today, January 3rd 2021, I have decided to come back to my blog and write…after a long time of being away, today I start again to write, ramble and recount so much of life, love, family, and death…..read on….for the thoughts that are swathed in warmth and love and loss.

Thought for the month…food for thought.

A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt.

He said, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart.
One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.”

The grandson asked him, “Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”

The grandfather answered: “The one I feed.”

~ Native American Story ~

Farmhouse in Scottish Highlands

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now at the farmhouse living like the lord and lady of the manor

I wrote this post but never ‘posted’ it, when we were in Scotland at the Killiehuntly Farmhouse. Pictures to follow……

We arrived early today at the Killiehuntly Farmhouse for a three night sojourn at the farmhouse as the ‘lord and lady’ of the manor house. We are ‘guests’, finally, being catered to and cared for with the finest of Scottish hospitality. There are 4 bedrooms in the farmhouse, each rented out for a night at a time, with only the one bedroom, ours,- en-suite. This makes us officially the Lord and Lady of the manor house, though in all respects it’s actually a farmhouse and not a manor house at all, and even though some may call me a “Princepessa” I feel that Lady is far more suited to my person. Meals are all served at a long table family-style adjoining the open plan kitchen. We are served wine pairings with each course and before dinner all the guests assemble together in the lounge area, where a wood fire is ablaze, yes, it’s still pretty cold here, and the honor system drinks and cocktails are accompanied by snacks of olives, chips, cheeses and delightful conversation. Tonight I will have a negroni as a cocktail – looks so tasty with it’s very fruity red and orange tinge. We are the only Americans here, the other guests are from England, The Netherlands, and Australia. We try not to talk politics, but it’s inevitable that we end up discussing the foibles of Trump and the Brexit issues, alongside what we all do or have done for a living. We have an orthopedic surgeon, a lawyer, an optometrist, a cook and cook book author, an investment banker and Chuck and myself seated around the table. The conversation goes in all directions, much like the food, which is delicious, fresh and abundant. The wines are too. It’s a good thing we don’t have to drive home, as we stumble up the old farmhouse steps and fall onto the plush linens of the four poster bed. I like this life, the farmhouse family-style life in the Scottish Highlands. I do think I could get used to this. Life on the farm for those of us who are privileged enough to be served, is what I call call ideal, luxury, and countryside rolled into one. Ahhhh….and to sleep, counting sheep…..

Sunrise over the Kyle of Tongue