ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

Dedicated to Aggie

 What is an ending if not a beginning to something else.  Think of a good book you have read.  You reach the last page, the last paragraph, the last word and you want more.  The mind wanders to where the story could go, where your imagination takes it. . . The end of the year only leads to the beginning of another, the same as sunset turns to darkness and then a new day dawns, a beginning from an ending.  

And so it begins.

It has been years since I have written something in my blog "Pieces of Her Story".  I got stuck on some thought or idea and couldn't get the words out and next thing I know it's 2016 and here I am creating a new beginning while honouring the ending of a most wonderful being life.   Miss Aggie was 99 years young and passed away on Good Friday.  She was just as beautiful as the day I met her.

Aggie was a gift to so many of us, to her family and friends, to this earth, to all the things she cared about and fought for.  She was talented artistically and musically.  Not a day would go by that she wasn't painting, drawing, playing the piano or sharing some story with whoever would listen.  She had many stories to share and I was always a willing listener.   She called Erin and I "the girls" and I loved that.  On the day I took this picture (July 2015) she couldn't remember our names but she knew we were "the girls".  

I don't know exactly what year I met her but I loved her right away.  It was her enthusiasm for life.  I remember a summer party at Rene and John's home where she entertained us all with her piano playing and I got to be her music sheet turner.  I was happy to sit there as long as she wanted to play.  I loved when I would be walking to the backyard and would hear the sounds of her music wafting out the window.  If you entered the house when she was painting she'd tell you all about what she was working on, her inspiration and what colours she was going to use.  She loved art and painted almost every day.  She liked to see other peoples art as well.  One evening I got to take Aggie to an art show opening of painter Sav Boro's work.  She loved his art, particularly a piece with an elephant.   Another time she came to a workshop I was co-leading where everyone got to make a mini journal, write some stories and do some art journalling.  She talked a lot that afternoon about many of her experiences in life and I couldn't stop her even if I had wanted to because everyone was listening so intently to every word she said.  She was a natural story teller.  

When the pianos were placed outdoors here on Salt Spring she was right there playing away on the street and loving it.   When she went out anywhere there was always someone who was excited to see her, give and get a hug and find out how and what she was doing.  She loved to go out, a lot, and regularly asked John and/or Rene to take her somewhere, to some event or play or cafe both here on the island or Vancouver Island.   In her 80's she attended the Erotic Art Show that was part of Pride Week and, when on island she always went to the Pride parade.   She wasn't shy either about telling you her opinion about something and you diffently didn't want to get her started on politics.  She could be pretty fiesty when she started.

I will miss Aggie very much but will smile at all of the memories I hold in my heart of our time together.   Sending you love and blessings for your next journey.

I Have a Daughter

You may not know this but I have a daughter.  Her name is Yvette.   She is a piece of my story that holds pain and shame, love and sadness but more importantly a place of hope.  

Yesterday someone said that how I speak about my daughter has changed over the years.   She said that  years ago when my son Tristan would talk about his sister that she could see me tense up;  that grit your teeth kind of thing was what I think she was describing.  It was true and sometimes still is when the subject of Yvette comes up, when people ask "how many children do you have" which leads to other questions like:  "where does your daughter live" or "what does she do".    I can only give one line answers because I really don't know what she does or where she really lives other than Toronto (if that is still true).   I can tell them that she doesn't have children because that was a decision she made long ago.   I respect that decision and would never say why because that would betray her confidentiality.   I can say she works in an office because that was what she was doing the last time we communicated or tried to communicate.

For a long time I never spoke about my daughter with people, not revealing I had two children unless I felt total trust in the person I was sharing this detail with.   I know that I didn't talk about her out of shame: shame that I would be judged because I didn't have a relationship with her;  what kind of mother was I that her own daughter wouldn't speak with her.  That belief still crops up at times, the fear of judgement.   I don't or haven't told the whole story to many people about what happened partly because I don't want people to judge either of us and partly because it seems so crazy that for 12 years we have not had a relationship because of a decision I made, because of a promise she couldn't keep.

I love her and always will.  I hold a place in my heart that is just for her.   I hold out hope that one day we will sit together and share a meal and catch up.   I sometimes picture myself taking her to town and introducing her to everyone  I know; of showing her around this island, of inviting people to come for a celebration dinner to meet her.   In the meantime I have my memories.

When she was little, around 6 or 7 she fell in love with long dresses.  She wore dresses most of the time;  you would very seldom find her in pants.  The long dresses were for the weekend, dress up time. Sometimes I would have to put her hair in rags so she had extra curls in her long hair.    I remember mornings brushing her hair and hearing the ouches because of tangles and threatening to cut her hair because I was tired of the fight to get it brushed.  One day she replied to that threat with:   "You can't cut my hair because no one will know me, they know me as Yvette with the long hair".  It was beautiful and sad to hear those words, to hear her identity related to her hair not to who she was.

One of her best friends at this time was Shelley.  At least every other weekend she would spend the night at our place.   The two of them, after spending the day together at school and after school, would talk and giggle long into the night.  I use to call them jabber jaw and motor mouth.  They were inseparable.

I remember the time she was devastated when she realized she had left her Mrs. Beasley doll at school.  It was gone and she was inconsolable.   When she went to school on Monday there was Mrs. Beasley with some repairs done by the janitors wife.  He had found the doll, taken it home and had his wife sew up the tear from what they thought was probably a dog.  Yvette was so happy to have her Mrs. Beasley back.

In 1989 she and I did a road trip across Canada.  I was meeting John in Vancouver to start our journey to the Queen Charlotte Islands where we were going to kayak South Moresby.  Yvette would fly back to Toronto.  Everywhere Yvette and I stopped on our journey people would ask about the kayaks:  where were we going to paddle, for how long, how much could we carry in them, what about food and water.   At one point she blurted out "if one more person asks about those kayaks I'm going to scream".   We took pictures of ourselves at every provincial greeting.  We hiked and swam; sometimes we camped and on a couple of occasions we stayed at a b&b.  One night we stayed in a hotel with an indoor swimming pool.  It felt so luxurious.   It was an incredible journey together, to see this country, to spend time just the two of us.  On our first night in Vancouver we went out to dinner.  Yvette had ordered ginger ale but to my surprise was given a rye and ginger ale.  I didn't discover this until the bill came.  The waiter thought she had ordered the drink and had assumed she was old enough.  She felt great about getting away with this mistake while the waiter was so apologetic.

Yvette was with me when Tristan was born.  She was seventeen at the time.   She was there throughout the whole day and into the evening.  She would rub my back, give me ice chips and tell me I was doing good.  She would walk with me and ask if I needed anything.  She saw his head as he made his way down the birth canal.  She was there to hold him just after he entered this world.   She loved him and he loved her so much.  She was his big sister and still is but he misses her.  I know there is a hurt place in his heart, a place where there is that void.   It hurts me that I can't fix that for him.  

My dad loved Yvette.  He would chase her around the house and she would giggle and run as fast as her little legs could carry her.   My dad use to have this saying "oh bite my bum".  One time she did.  We were at the cottage and she heard him say this.  While he was standing in the kitchen she snuck up behind him and bit his bum.   We were all in hysterics.  This relationship continued long into her teen years; him teasing her, tickling her, her sneaking extra candies from the candy dish and him knowing what she was doing; it was their game.

I remember some of her boyfriends, taking her shopping for clothes, driving her to town with her friends and picking them up later in the night.  I remember fights we had, the kind that happens between a parent and child.   I remember her asking to go to her tower for her birthday dinner; the tower she spoke about was the CN tower.  She wanted to eat in the revolving restaurant and so she did.   I remember dancing and laughing together, skating on the pond at our house, watching her grow.   I remember her learning to drive and leaving the driveway the first time in my car, praying she would be fine, waiting for the sound of the car coming back in the driveway later that night and finally being able to sleep.

I remember sad times too, those times that I couldn't change what was happening in our lives without a cost to one or both of us, decisions that had to be made.   I remember hating her father for how he treated her after she moved back with him.   I remember the fight that caused this separation between us and hold that pain in my heart everyday.  

I have seen her once in these last 12 years.   I have tried to rebuild this relationship.   I stay open to the possibility that one day she will let go and let me into her life.   Until that happens I will keep her in my heart and perhaps let go of not telling you I have a daughter.

I recently put this picture on the fridge as a reminder.

Thank you Charlene for helping me to open this door. 

What about you; is there a secret that you hold out of shame, a choice you made that has impacted your life in ways you never thought possible, things you don't tell those you love because of the fear of judgement?   How would it feel to share those things, the secrets, the emotions that you hold somewhere in your body?  

FINDING HOME                                                                   

                                              

                                     

Friday night was one of those night where sleep would not come.  After reading for a while I turned off the light and found myself trying to find that comfort spot, that place where I could let me body go and drift off into dream land.  That didn't happen.  An hour and a half later I dragged my body and my pillow down to the couch where the tossing and turning continued throughout the night.  I was wide awake at 6:30 and by ten to seven decided to get up and have a shower.  The hot water felt so good as it ran down by body.  I love the feel of that heat and hearing myself making guttural sounds of pleasure as it soothes my body and my soul.    

I got dressed and took Lukka (she's our dog) down to the beach for a walk.  She really isn't allowed there after June 15th but we occasionally sneak down there in the early morning.  I found myself standing at the edge of the sand, feeling the warmth of the sun on my body and such joy in my heart.   As an eagle flew overhead  I held up my hand and said "Good Morning Brother".    I never worry about whether someone is looking at me or listening to me talk to the eagles or any of the other creatures that grace my world.   I felt such gratitude at that moment, speaking to the creator about how grateful I am to call this island home, to be able to stand at the edge of the ocean or in the forest surrounded by cedars and fir or to feel the skin of the Arbutus after she has shed her outer layers.    I am grateful to feel home.  I have left this island numerous times for long periods, you know more than a weekend; longer than a week or two.   Every time I am returning home I feel such an overwhelming sense of joy: there's my home, my island and as much as I may have loved where I was, I am so elated to be coming home.  

I found this place in 1995 when I did a road trip across Canada with some friends.  I had been living in Toronto at the time and was excited that we were going to the coast.  I had been out west several times before and always felt so at peace when I was here, especially near the water.  When we were planning our trip we had been looking through my hosteling book and found a place on an island off the coast from Vancouver where you could sleep in a teepee.  We all decided right there and then that we were going to this place called Salt Spring just so we could sleep in a teepee and stay on an island.   

We arrived here late at night and couldn't really see much of anything.  Over the next five days we saw all the touristy sights, picked blackberries, made blackberry pancakes for breakfast complete with blackberry sauce and joined the others at the hostel late at night around the campfire.   With each day I felt more and more like I was home.  I felt like I could be me,  feel comfortable in my own skin, that I was someone with value.  I found myself more extroverted than I usually was, talking to complete strangers,  taking a group of people down to the ocean to watch the full moon rise not really knowing the path I was leading them on, not really knowing these people.  It didn't seem to matter because I felt different inside about me, about life and it was all good.  

My friends decided to go to Vancouver for the weekend.  Not me; I didn't want to go to the city.  I wanted to stay on this island.  I found lots to do myself, including going to the market, hanging out with other hostellers, even going for a job interview in Nanaimo, a place I immediately knew was not for me.   I met my friends at the ferry terminal in T'sawwassen and told them I was moving to Salt Spring.  They initially laughed at this statement but after a while realized I wasn't joking.  

I did move here, six months later, driving from Toronto in February, a really crazy time to do such a trip.   I had car problems, drove through snowstorms, slept in places where I felt this creepiness seep into my body and cried all the way down the mountain into Hope.  I slept in my car at the ferry terminal and arrived on Salt Spring to face snow.  This couldn't be right.  I had left the snow and  cold behind and thought I was coming to rain and clouds and early spring, not snow.    

I have never regretted this move even though the emotional costs were high.  I was leaving everyone in my life behind, going to a place where I really only knew the people who operated the hostel, and had no idea whether I could find a job or not.  

It has been a little over 12 1/2 years since I moved here and I would still fervently say this is home.  It's not a building or a particular piece of land or place; it's all of this island.  Sure I have favourite places and I love that the beach is just around the corner from where I live but there is so much here that I love.  I love the people who seem to be there for others when things are tough or tragedy has struck or someone just needs a little something to get by.   

I love walking down the streets and saying hello to all those I know and even those I don't know because it's okay to talk to strangers here, in fact it is encouraged to share a little love from our hearts to all.   I love the markets and the wonderful organic food I can buy from people I know, people who live here,  who care about the land and sustainability and buying local.    I have shared this home with my son and shown visitors the wonders of this place.  Now I share it with my beloved and it is so good to know that she shares the same love for this place as I do.   

Sometimes I think about other places to live, far away places, other islands, but for now this is home for me, my beautiful island home and for this I am grateful.  

What about you:  where is home for you,  is it a house, a building or  a place?    How did you find it or did it find you?   

I Love My Body

The other night as the rain fell I lay in bed feeling the dampness in my bones.  My knees ached and as I tried to stretch them out I felt a tightness that ran from my hips to my toes.    My fingers asked to be rubbed and held.    As I lay there trying to find that comfort spot in the bed I found myself kneading the back of my neck, those knots that seem to live there permanently.   Lately nights seem to be full of tossing and turning, feeling the kinks and pains that seem to rack my body lately.  

In my wakefulness I thought about this body of mine and all it has been through in these 62 years.   I remembered doing cartwheels in my forties, one after another after another, laughing at myself and the joy of feeling like a kid.   When I was young I would climb to the top of trees and feel no fear of falling, of loving the view that lay before me; it was like being in another world, feeling closer to the sky.   At one time I decided to learn Karate.   Don't ask me what type because I really don't remember; it was the painful type.   It did feel good though, to feel strong in my body, my core.  I could do 50 push-ups followed by the same number of sit-ups without loosing my breath.   I honestly don't know when I last did a push up or if I even could.   


This body birthed two children, neither birth being easy, if there is such a thing.  I carried around this extra weight rubbing the beautiful buddha belly talking to the child growing inside me.  There were days when I couldn't believe that I could get so round.   The other day someone was talking about mowing their lawn and I remembered carrying my son around on my back pushing the lawn mower over our three quarters of an acre, a piece of land that wasn't flat.  It took hours to mow that lawn or so it felt like at the time.   


Several years ago a friend and I decided to walk around Cowichan Lake, a total of 56 kms., as a fundraiser for an organization we volunteer with.  By the time I crossed that finish line my feet were covered in blisters and I felt ready to pass out.  You should have seen my friend;  she had on a pair of sandals that she had worn for years and a mini-skirt; not what you would expect to see at this kind of event.   I've always been a walker but that was the furthest I have ever made these feet go.   My feet reminded me of that fact for days.  


My body has climbed to the top of a mountain in Austria.  It has paddled all of South Moresby in the Queen Charlotte Islands.   It has endured attempts at jogging or running.   It has been burned by the sun and put up with my sitting on a cold snow filled mound waiting with my camera for a beaver to appear from it's home.  I never saw that beaver.   


Over the years I've gained and lost weight, loving and hating my body with each pound that came on or off.   There are pictures of me that I actually hate to see.  I wonder who that woman is, she can't be me, I don't look like that.  Those are the pictures of me when the weight is on.   I remember last year showing a picture of me when I was thin to a group of people, telling them that even then I thought I was fat.   I sometimes wonder when do I just say okay, this is me and I am beautiful, I love this body of mine.    Some days I feel like I can accept this me, live with the extra weight but most times I dream of being thinner.   I wonder if it is the messages that we receive about what beauty is, of thin being sexy, more acceptable, that influences even me, me who rants about there being a size 0.   


I am truly grateful to my body for all it has given me, for putting up with all I have done to it over the years, for the abuse it has taken at the hands of others, for my pushing it to the point where it just says stop in it's own way, for carrying my two children and a third that never made it, for being there through this love hate relationship.


I'm finishing with this poem that I wrote.  

I Love My Body

she stands naked in front of the mirror

chanting her mantra to herself

afraid to say the words out loud

I love my body, I love my body

she believes it will make a difference

to how she sees herself

that if she can love the hills and valleys

the extra bits that have miraculously appeared

that it will somehow all just disappear

and she will feel the heat of sexual desire

parade around in lacy things

straddle her lover

devour her with kisses

 she stands naked in front of the mirror

chanting her mantra to herself

I love my body, I love my body

as the words float away

 in total disbelief

What about you.  What is your relationship with your body?  What has your body endured?   Do you feel that the messages we are given have affected how your feel about being in your own skin?  

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