FOR MY FATHER ON FATHERS DAY                          


I think of my father often, sometimes feeling his presence, sometimes talking to him, telling him I love him.   Sometimes I feel this need to say sorry, sorry about how our life together was so up and down,  about being angry with him for so long, for not talking to him sooner about things he needed to hear from me, about things I needed to know about him, from him, about my family, about why I didn't see him for so long.    My father passed away several years ago.  I can't call him up and say Happy Fathers Day nor can I make him one of my handmade cards.  So today I thought I would honour my dad with a blog post about him, after all he is a big piece of my story.

My dad was born in Toronto in 1919.  He came from a large family.  His father's side of that family were Canadian several generations back while his mother was from Liverpool.   He was the oldest of seven children.  He delivered groceries on a bicycle as a kid in all kinds of weather sometimes hauling a wagon up some steep hill.    The family moved a lot mainly due to financial reasons.  As he said:  "it was cheaper to move than pay rent".   I'm sure his childhood had a big influence on his work hard, account for every penny, don't buy unless you can pay for it, preferably in cash, attitude.   It was how he saved for a house that would provide a place for my nan and grandpa to live out most of their elderly years.

I was amazed at my dad.  I know he never had the opportunity to go to high school, I'm not even sure he finished grade school,  but he was smart.  He knew so much, probably from reading, listening to the news.  He could build anything he put his mind too.  He taught himself just about everything he knew how to do.   Sometimes he would ask me a question to see if I knew the answer and when I did he'd tell me I was a pretty smart kid.  Those words made my heart sing.  My dad could tell you where every penny he earned went, something I didn't learn from him.   I would have loved to learn how to do wood working from him.  I never asked him though thinking that he would think that wasn't a girl thing to do or maybe he would just say "I don't think so" and then I'd be disappointed or angry with him but would never say so.

My dad worked in a factory pretty much his entire working life.   It was where he met my mother and my step-mother.   He started off sweeping floors.   He was never ashamed of his work nor should he have been.  He worked on a machine very much like a guillotine with a 50 inch blade cutting reams of paper to specific sizes.  Through his hard work and knowledge of the business,  he eventually was promoted to Head of Purchasing and Shipping.  He had to take early retirement when the factory was going to be relocated.   At the age of 62 he saw no reason to start over in another city.

My father served in the 2nd World War with the Queens Own Rifles.  He didn't speak a great deal about the war but when he did it was honest.  I remember him saying "it's not like in the movies".  He said there were times when nothing would happen and other days when you prayed you'd make it through the day.   He spoke about how it felt to stand up and look at someone else, someone who was suppose to be the enemy and they were just another young kid like you and you were suppose to kill them.  He was hit by shrapnel one day.  He said he was digging a hole to sleep in for cover when he heard a buzzing noise.  He ducked down and heard this explosion;  there was a huge hole in the trench behind him.     He said that if he hadn't ducked down he would have had his head taken off.  When he got back to Canada he found out he had tuberculosis and was hospitalized for 1 1/2 years and then had to stay home for another year.  After that he had to go for regular check-ups for many years.

My dad became an avid photographer when my brother was still little.   I have a box filled with photographs he had taken of family and friends.  He also took pictures during the war.  The images are incredible to me, partially because my dad took them, but more so because they are really good.  Photography stayed his passion for many years until models trains took over.  At one point,  a little more than half of the rec room turned into a large wooden table filled with tracks.  He dreamt about building towns and having a backdrop painted for it, making a mountain where the train would travel through a tunnel, but that never happened.

My parents separated when I was fifteen months old.  I don't really know what happened between my dad and mom.  I've heard different stories from each of them and from other family members.   I know that my mother and father loved each other to the day each of them died.  That may seem strange but I think it's kind of sad really when I think about it.   I remember when my mom was recovering from lung cancer I was rubbing her scar with some lotion.  I said she needed some hot young guy to rub it on.  She told me the only man she wanted to rub lotion on her was my dad.   She was in her early seventies at this point and they had been separated for at least forty years.  When my mom was dying I asked my dad if he would come and see her;  she had asked me to call him.   She told me she wanted to say sorry to him.   He said he couldn't, he wanted to remember her the way she was before, that it would hurt him to see her suffering.

I always thought my dad was kind of handsome.  He cared about how he dressed and looked.  I use to love to hear him gargling in the bathroom.  Sometimes I would stand outside the door and mimic the noise.   He always helped around the house, with grocery shopping, doing dishes, and cooking breakfast on the weekends.   He loved to have fun and could be playful with the kids.   I remember Mary telling me a story about how one time when they were grocery shopping he threw a kid like tantrum in front of this little boy who wasn't very happy.  They were in the cereal aisle when he spotted the boy.  He told Mary he wanted some box of cereal because of the toy and Mary said no.  He demanded the cereal and Mary kept saying no.  He said if he didn't get it he would stomp his feet.  Mary told him 'too bad' and so there was my dad in the grocery store stomping his feet and pretending to cry.  The little boy started to laugh and made his mom look at my dad.   I could picture my dad doing this.    He had a good heart.

During the last years of his life he lost most of his vision due to macular degenerative disease.   My step-mother was in a nursing home by this time.  He lived on his own, cooking and cleaning for himself, doing his own shopping, and travelled on the bus everyday to visit my step-mother.  He found this lack of vision frustrating at times.  He had a special machine that enlarged everything to help him read the mail or his daily newspaper.   Eventually he knew he couldn't live on his own any longer and moved into the nursing home with my step-mother.   We had talked about how he could come and live here on the coast with me after Mary died but that never happened; she outlived him despite the doctors prognosis for her.

The Christmas after he moved into the nursing home, my son and I went to visit him during the holidays.  I hated him being there.  I hated that nursing home.  I know hate is a big word but it is the only word I can use to describe how I felt.  I remember on the last day of our visit I cried when we left.  I told my son I felt like I was saying good-bye to my dad, that I would never see him again.  He died two months later on the night of February 14th, the same day he had married my mom.

My father and I had this on again, off again kind of relationship.  I loved him so very much but at times felt that I was a big disappointment to him.  He never said those words but sometimes I could just tell by his reactions, by that silence.   There was so much I wanted to tell him, so much I wanted to say but it felt hard, like would he understand, would he hear me, would he know how much I loved him and wanted him to be proud of me.   My dad and I were separated first when I was fifteen months old when my mother and I went to live in Scotland and then again when I was around 6.  We didn't see each other for almost 10 years after that.   Through all our struggles, separations, disagreements, I never stopped loving him.   At some point in my adult life I took him down off that pedestal, realizing he was just an ordinary man with faults just like the rest of us.   I know in my heart that he loved me.  

So today dad I send you my love and gratitude.  Happy Fathers Day. 

 And what about you; what are your memories, your favourite moments with your dad, your feelings about your dad, your relationship with him.   

Just call me Sister Sam

JUST CALL ME SISTER SAM

I know many of you that know me will find it surprising to learn that at one point in my life I decided I wanted to become a nun.  It never happened but at the time I thought it was my 'calling'.  Here's my story.

In eighth grade I decided I wanted to become a nun, not your regular kind of nun, but a missionary nun.  I was attending Holy Rosary Catholic school when this revelation occurred.   We were living in Milton, Ontario and for whatever reason that I didn't understand, my mom and Tex decided that I should become catholic.  This decision had actually been made when we were still living in Scarborough but now it was official.  Maybe they made this decision because he was catholic, although I had never seen him attend church even when we visited his family in Cleveland.  They were devote catholics and so different from him in every possible way.

We had moved to Milton towards the second half of grade 6 and I immediately started the process of becoming catholic.   I was baptized, then received first communion and eventually was confirmed.  I was the biggest kid receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion.  The majority of the kids were in grade 2 while I was in grade 7.  Somewhere there is a picture of me in a white dress, white shoes, white socks, standing with my mom and one of my teachers outside the church.  He was the only male teacher in our school and all the girls, including me, had a crush on him he was so good looking.  One time he went to battle with Mother Superior about the need for the girls to be able to wear shorts or pants for phys. ed.  He lost.  Anyways I looked absolutely silly in that dress with the crinoline underneath it and the ankle socks.  When I finished all of the ceremonies my full name was Lynda Anne Theresa Zelasko.  The last name was Tex's, not mine.  It was one of those questions that remained unanswered for me:  why did I have to take his name, he wasn't married to my mom nor had he ever adopted me.

Church became a big part of my life.  It was my escape from home, from Tex;  it was my sanctuary.  I went to church just about every morning before school and on Sundays.    On Friday afternoons I cleaned the church; putting bibles and choir books back in the holders on the back of the pews, vacuumed the carpet, and refilled the candles.  I remember one Friday I was in the church cleaning when all the kids, teachers and the other nuns arrived.   John F. Kennedy had been shot and everyone had come to pray for him.  It was amazing to me at that age how so many Canadians were affected by his death.

I loved Mary, Jesus' mother.  She was always there looking down on me with her heart on her chest and her arms open as if she was saying "come here my child".   I  consider myself a spiritual person but to this day I still love Mary.   I could talk to her about anything and I did.  I told her about the things that were happening at home, about my mother,  about how sad and lonely I felt and even about my crush on Doriano Poloni.  She always seemed to listen.

A number of the teachers at the school were nuns.  One of my favourites was Sister Bernadette.  She was so beautiful.  In the winter I would sit with her class at lunch time while the kids ate.  I would do printing on the board for her.  In my naivety I remember thinking that if she wasn't a nun she could have any man she wanted.  She had found her man though; it was God.  She married him like all nuns do.   I never understood that aspect of being a nun;  how do you marry someone who isn't real, like in flesh and blood real, you know someone who hugs you or holds your hand.

Sister Bernadette would talk to me about being a nun.  She told me that her room was very plain.  She also told me about how the nuns go on retreat together.  They had a place somewhere in Ontario where they would go for their 'vacation'.  The only other people there were other nuns.  I wondered if they wore their habits or if they could wear regular clothes, if they had any.  I wondered what they would talk about.  I knew they must have swimsuits because Sister Bernadette told me they were near a lake and had a private place where they could go swimming.  I bet they never went skinny dipping!

Then there was Sister Antoinette, otherwise known as Mother Superior.  You could tell she was in charge by the way she walked.  As a student you did not want to make her cross.  She carried a wooden ruler with her when she was in class and she would slam it hard on the desk if the students weren't paying attention or were talking in class.  She even used it on kids who were disobedient which was a sin that you would have to confess to the priest and then later say penance.

I believe it was spring when my revelation about becoming a nun occurred.  Mother Superior announced that the grade eight class was going to have some visitors who were going to do a presentation.  We were all quite excited as we never had visitors at our school other than a Bishop who came one time but I don't remember why.  So in walked these nuns, about 5 or 6 of them and they were all dressed in white.  They looked angelic to me.  I was truly in awe.  They talked about the fact that they were missionary nuns who were going to Guatemala to do God's work in one of the small communities.  They would help teach the children, bring the word of God to the people and help with medical care.  I sat and listened to every word they said, watched the slides and decided right then and there I wanted to become a nun, a missionary nun, and travel to other parts of the world to help people.

The next day I asked to speak with Sister Antoinette.  We met in her office.  I told her that I wanted to become a nun.  I thought she would be so proud of me, that she would get me started right away on becoming a novice;  perhaps I would be able to live with her and the other nuns in the convent.  Was I wrong.  She looked at me, smiled and said:  "It is a very big decision to make to become a nun.  It is a commitment you make for life.  You need to think about this".  That was the end of our conversation.  It was also the end of my revelation.

The notion of becoming a nun came and went very quickly.  I don't think I was really meant to become a nun, to live my life celibate, to love someone who would never really love me back in the way I needed.  I already had that not being loved stuff at home.  I will always remember the nuns at Holy Rosary School.  I felt safe with them, felt like I was somebody, somebody who mattered.

Recently I  shared this story with my son.  He was shocked that I had ever thought about becoming a nun.  He laughed even.  Then in his wisdom he said that Mother Superior must have known that I had to have him so I couldn't become a nun.    I don't believe that is even possible, that she knew that, but I am so glad that my life came to this wonderful place of having this incredible son of mine.

What about you?  Did you ever have a "revelation" that when you think back about it now you chuckle to yourself or wonder what would it have been like?

TELLING OUR STORIES

TELLING OUR STORIES


I have believed for a long time that it is so important to tell our stories.  There seems to be so much that is unsaid in families, in relationships, the kind of stuff that comes from deep inside, the stories we think no one would want to hear, our childhood dreams, our adult dreams.  We bury them in some box or write them down in journals that no one will see or we simply keep them close to our heart.   We don't speak about the crazy things we have done or the things that we may carry shame about.  We sometimes gloss over what we really wanted for ourselves, for our life; the places we wanted to go and the things we wanted to try never really telling the whole story.    Some of us have pieces of paper that we have kept for some important reason:  a memory, a special date, a love note, a ticket stub to an important event or concert or childhood recital.   Under our bed or in closets we have boxes of photographs that no one knows anything about but us.  Someone in our family will inherit these; some of the faces in the photographs may look familiar but they won't be totally sure who the people are or the story that image contains or why we kept that particular piece of paper.  

I have been in this place myself.   My dad and I spent three months together before he moved into a seniors residence.  In that time I was able to get him to talk a bit about our family, about my brother whom I never really knew.  (That in itself is a whole story.)  I made notes whenever possible.  It was funny because he couldn't understand why I wanted to know all this stuff and I couldn't understand why he didn't understand the importance of my knowing the stories.   We were one of those families that didn't talk or share alot.  Stories seldom came up except when there was a family gathering which didn't happen too often.  I learned a great deal about my dad.  He had wanted to travel but never did.  He had other siblings that I never knew about.  He delivered groceries on a bicycle when he was a kid through all kinds of weather.  He never finished school but I believed he was smart even without an education.   He told me stories about his days in the service and about being hit by shrapnel.

While I was with him I found some photographs in a box, a bunch of negatives, and an old album that my dad had planned on throwing away.   Due to macular degenerative disease my dad couldn't see the photographs to tell me who these people were and where the images were taken, the story itself.   I tried  describing them but that became frustrating for him.  I found other "things" that I kept like a service watch that he had from the war.  It belonged to one of his buddies.  This man loaned  my dad his watch one day when my dad had some R&R time so he wouldn't be late coming back.  When my dad returned to his  he found out his friend had been killed.  My dad had held on to that watch for all these years.  At some point he changed the strap.  Now I have that watch.

I know the importance of stories and sharing firsthand.  In my last blog, Imaginary Friends, I spoke about some of my childhood years.   I decided to share my blog with one of my cousins whom I have recently reconnected with.  She read the story and wanted to know more about my life.  We had been separated for many years; another story obviously.   That request became a mutual one and since then we have been communicating almost daily, sharing family memories, stories neither of us knew about, talking about our childhoods and finding through this cathartic process love for each other.  We also realized that we each had our own stories about how things were in our family, stories that we each had heard or were told differently, stories based on our own perceptions and the bits and pieces that we put together on our own.

Someday my son will be in the position of receiving my boxes of memories, photographs, ticket stubs and that watch that was through the second world war and now sits in a bag with some of his grandfathers things.   He already knows how important he is to me and how much I love him but I want him to know more than that.   I want him to know the stories, to know about his mothers life, about her secrets, her dreams and aspirations.  I want him to know about his family, my family.  So I write and scrapbook and talk to him and share memories whether they are wonderful, funny, or painful, sometimes even the ones that use to carry shame.  

Over the course of the last year I have been working with a mentor and through the process I have realized what I want to do at this point in my life.  I want to be a storyteller but not one who tells the myths and legends, the stories about history/herstory.  I want to work with individuals to help them  write their stories, to put together the memories and the images, the treasures and mementos, to help them dig deep enough to speak the pieces they may never have spoken about before, the stories they may have thought no one would want to hear.   And so it begins with me to find that you out there that is ready to begin the process of telling your story.

I end this post with a quote and some bits and pieces.

 "There's a world of wisdom in our personal stories.  Your life

is a legacy, a gift that only you can give.  Why waste 

something so precious."

Dolly Berthelot