what i didn't get to say

It's been over two weeks since my Mother passed. Over one week since her funeral.

There is not one second of my breath that doesn't hurt with the loss of her. There are countless times through the day that I go to pick up the phone and call and then fall into tears because she will not answer. Sometimes, though, I do call. I call just to hear her voice on the phone that is still connected. I want to cradle her voice and make it into a person again.

My brother and sisters are trying to deal in their own way. There is so much we can do for each other and so much that we can't. Face Time is spent crying at each other. Reliving moments, good and bad. Regrets. What ifs. If onlys.

I wanted to speak at the funeral.
The priest said in his experience it proves to be too difficult and I had to agree. I didn't think I could get through it. We could have had someone read it. But instead we gave it to the priest and asked if he could read it in its entirety. He did not. Instead he incorporated some of what I wrote into his own homily. I wanted people to know it was from us, not from a stranger grasping at finding a way to sum up someone he didn't know.

I wanted people to know her as we did.

My mother and I didn't always get along.
When I was growing up we fought hard and loud battles. There were years of estrangement but eventually, as adults, we came together. I will forever be grateful for this. Our closeness grew and we talked a lot. We had visits and took vacations together with our family.  For these things I am thankful. Our memories sustain us now. I have images of her with crossword puzzles, asking us for answers and scratching out what she had already written in ink.Luckily there were many laughs. Her children loved to make fun of her quirkiness and she loved to let us.

I want to share what I wrote for her, the words I never got to say or have heard in public. As I shift through regret, anger, sadness, denial, acceptance, I want to have these words to support me.

In times like these, times of loss, we look to find meaning. We look for lessons and reasons. We want our lives to mean something, to leave a lasting legacy. We wonder if we've made a difference.  

 At the age of 60, our Mother reflected on her life and thought that she hadn't done much. She decided to travel to Afghanistan as a civilian to work supporting our troupes in Kandahar. On her way there she stuck up a conversation with a woman on a plane. This woman turned out to be Christie Blatchford, a columnist for The Globe and Mail who later wrote an article about meeting a woman named Bobbi from Cape Breton and what brought her to the Middle East. 

 I learned something from this article that I had never known. 
Our mother was scared. 

 She told the reporter "When I got married I was scared to death. When I had my kids I was scared to death. When I got divorced I was scared to death" 

 This thought never occurred to me. My Mother never showed her fear. She was fierce and feisty, never held back from speaking her mind. It's funny how what can embarrass you as a child can empower you as an adult. 

 She was afraid, and yet she still moved forward. She was scared but it didn't stop her, it didn't hold her back.  

 This is the lesson we can all take away from how my Mom lived.

It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to scared. But don't let it hold you back. Don't let it keep you from doing things, trying things, saying things. 

 When my Mother received her diagnosis, I know she was afraid. But she accepted it and wasn't going to let it keep her from moving forward. She told the doctor then "I have no regrets. I love my children and I know they love me. And I know they know how much I love them" 

And it is true. 

We were lucky that we knew it. We didn't wait until she was ill to tell her and each other. We knew it because she told us and she showed us. 

There is also a lesson in this. Don't be afraid to tell those you love how you feel. Be afraid that it will be too late if you don't.  

 We are devastated to lose her and will miss her in countless ways, big and small. But we are also joyous. We are joyous in our memories of laughter and funny stories. We are grateful to have had her. She made us a family. She gave us the gift of each other. 

And we will go forward for her and because of her. Even though we are afraid. 

Her strength was greater than her fear and it is her strength that what will carry us, just as it always has. 

mother of a rant

My Mother left this earth today.

Many say she lost her battle with cancer.
This is not the case.
She didn't have a chance to battle cancer. Instead she battled bureaucracy and bullshit.
She fought a faulty system. And she lost.
We all lost.

From the moment she entered the Cape Breton Regional Hospital 5 weeks ago, she didn't stand a chance.
Actually, let me add to that because a trail of negligence began before she even came to the emergency room.

For months she complained of a pain in her back. She took this complaint to her family doctor and was told each time to go home and take Advil or Tylenol. Not once was she sent for an xray. Even when she fainted in the office, even when she coughed up blood, there was no attention given. Unfortunately these facts were kept from us, her children, or we would have insisted on action.

By Christmas time she could barely pick up the water pitcher. After the New Year she went back to the doctor insisting she wasn't feeling well. Finally, he conceded that he would send her for a chest xray and told her to go home and wait for a call for an appointment. Nine days later, the call still hadn't come. At this point we urged her to go to the emergency room to seek treatment.

After many hours in diagnostic imaging, it was discovered that she had a tumour in her left lung that was also filled with fluid, which is what caused the difficulty in her breathing. She also had spots on her spine.

For two days she was kept in the emerg because there was no bed for her upstairs. Finally when one opened up, she was placed in the ward for orthopedic surgery. The nurses and staff were very lovely, and tried their best to attend to her, but they have four or five patients each. Sometimes my mother would ring for assistance or pain medication and would wait an hour to be seen. Sometimes she soiled herself waiting for help to the bathroom. My sisters and brother and I came to Cape Breton to help her (along with other family members) But we also had to fight to get her even minimal care. Everything was a battle.

We asked why she wasn't moved to the floor that dealt with cancer patients. We were told there were no beds. Yet every day beds would open up only to be filled immediately. The nurses worked with us to help get her moved, knowing that she wasn't able to get the care she deserved on their floor, that the patient to nurse ratio was lower on 4B. Administration blocked the way every step of the way.

A very valuable lesson we learned in this, is that you must have an advocate to fight for you in this system. So we fought.
They never had any intention of moving her at all, saying that at least she had a bed. I became a rabid dog, calling the bed assignment people, insisting and threatening in order to have her moved. I am not that person, but it is amazing what you will become to protect and help someone you love.

Finally we had a small victory when they put her in a private room in 4B. We thought we had finally achieved something.
It took almost three weeks.
Three weeks of her not receiving any treatment.

Earlier, at the beginning of her diagnosis, she told us and doctors that she wanted to fight it with whatever means necessary. My mom was a fighter. We knew she would battle bravely. Sadly, she was never given the chance. We were told she could have 3-6 months but we were hopeful that she could put it into remission. With my sisters and brother and me by her bedside she laughed, talked, and told us to be positive. We didn't cry in front of her, holding up her spirits until we could collapse in private.

I felt that from the minute the tumour was discovered, my mother was written off.
When the oncologist came to give her the terminal diagnosis, he slumped in the chair and matter of factly said that he wasn't hopeful. And then in the middle of this he took a phone call as we stood there stunned.

When the radiologist said he could offer her treatment to shrink tumours and help with pain, she told him she was ready to fight. He left saying "you have a lot to discuss with your family" and we were left thinking that radiation was to start immediately. Daily we asked when it was going to start. Daily turned into weeks and still nothing.

My sisters and I had to return to our homes and jobs, my brother was able to remain. Every day we spoke with her via Face Time but she started to become less coherent and difficult to understand. My brother felt it was due to the pain meds. We found out that they were constantly asking her pain level on a scale from 1-10. No one explained to her  that 1 was the lowest amount, so when she was saying 7, thinking 10 was the least amount of pain, they would jack her up again. This was later chalked up to being a "miscommunication".

It was so hard trying to speak with her, not understanding anything she was saying. We asked if the cancer had spread to her brain but were told no.  We asked them to dial back the medication and soon she started to come around again.


Finally one chemo treatment was administered.
She did well. Then she became nauseous, unable to keep anything down and bringing up a very dark substance. When she was still sick after a week, and weaker from being sick, we worried that it was the pain meds instead.

We had a conference call with doctors, asking why radiation hadn't yet been started. The radiologist told us that when he asked her to make a decision she couldn't give one so he was waiting to hear from her. I was in that discussion, I told him, and first of all, she was so medicated she wasn't aware that it was even a question, and secondly, not once was there any follow-up. Once again, we heard the words "miscommunication".


On my last visit to see her, I had her up walking. She was eating a bit, but had lost so much weight. Yet on the last day that I saw her she was a weaker version of her old self, still joking and sarcastic. I left telling her I would be back in a week and a half.

A few days later my brother called to say something was wrong. She had become close to catatonic. She could understand us and squeeze hands in response, but she couldn't speak. He asked again about the pain medications. It turned out that she had been overdosed and was in "opiate toxicity".  The explanation was that they had "miscalculated the dosage".

A drug called Narcan was administered, which is used in overdose cases. It drives the opiate from the system. When this happens, the patient experiences not only withdrawal, but the extreme pain returns immediately. My mom became violent, pulling the IV from her arm. Later we found out that it was never replaced and she was therefore without fluid and nutrition for a couple of days. We wanted the IV restarted. We were told that it was hard to find a vein and it would be uncomfortable and painful for her. But starvation and dehydration was more painful in our opinion, so the needle was inserted.

I wasn't able to be there for her last breath.
My father is to have surgery (also as the result in a missed diagnoses from the same family doctor) in Halifax and so I stay here to be with him
My sisters were with her, and held the phone to hear ear while I told her how much I love her. Around 5.15 am they held her hands as she slipped away.

It is hard to believe that a woman so feisty and full of life is gone.
It haunts me to know that her last weeks were spent in the hands and mercy of "miscommunication".

This whole ordeal has been one fucking miscommunication after the other.

The short time we were told we would have was taken from us.

I am angry. Our hearts are broken. We are shattered.


I thought maybe writing this down will help it make sense.
It doesn't.

It is senseless.

I miss my Mom.

good night sweet prince

just keepin' it real

Ike came to me 15 years ago.
I was on my way out the door to work on a shoot. It was 6 am so I almost didn't see the tiny ball of black fluff on my doorstep.

At first I didn't know what to do. I already had 2 cats. But I took him in and put him in the bathroom until I could get back home at the end of the day.

He loved me right away, but I had no intention of keeping him. I looked for a home but had no takers. In a couple of days I knew I was kidding myself. We were in love and he wasn't going anywhere.


Ike was the strong silent type.
He was a one-woman man.

But as we know, the things we love, we lose.
On December 22 he left me.

He was declining, probably with cancer, and I had to make the hardest decision I had ever made. But it was the last kindness I could show him.

Dr. Julia of the Atlantic Cat Hospital was wonderful. She came to my house so that Ike's last moments could be in his familiar surroundings. His last moments were spent in my arms as I told him how much I loved him.

How fortunate for me to have had this beautiful soul in my life for so long.

Good night Big Man.
I won't forget you.

Thanks for all the love and comfort you brought me.

the power of one

Tonight is crisp and clear. One of those true Autumn nights for sweaters, scarves and gloves; for walking through leaves and the wafting smell of woodsmoke. There is something in the air. More than the vibrancy of Fall. There is a buzz.
It has taken over social media, coffee shops, offices, grocery store line-ups.
It is the topic on the lips of many citizens.

It is election night in Canada.

The road to this night has been long- the longest in Canadian election history. It was a battle. We are tired and bloody. But we didn't sit in apathetic trenches, my friends. Oh no. We fucking fought back.
Somewhere, somehow, some time ago, Canadians had become apathetic to the democratic process. Some said it was the youth vote that was missing. Voter turn-outs have been dried to a mere trickle.
And we had a man in power that left us feeling powerless.
But the cry went out, and we didn't turn our heads back to the Blue Jays game. We stood and we voted.

I have never been so proud to be a Canadian.
I have never been so proud of us


For 10 years we had a Prime Minister who did great damage to our country.
Steven Harper brought out the worst in us. He played on our fears and turned us against ourselves. We became suspicious. We placed blame. But sadly, it didn't take much.

We lived the fairytale that had gone wrong.
As in all fairytales there is a smiling villain. And as all good-hearted villagers, we succumbed to the curse that turned us into mindless sleepwalkers. Of course we knew that things were wrong but the villain just turned his mouth up at the corners and ignored our protests. But as all villains, his downfall was his arrogance and he underestimated us.

And we stood up at the voting booths. And we are being heard.

Steve didn't count on the people he discounted, banding together. Each group he overlooked, deemed no threat, unimportant.. Aboriginals, women, Muslims, artists, students, the poor.. all united with a common goal.
A feeling emerged: Don't get mad, get Stephen.

And we did.

As I sit here watching election results there is a red surge- The Liberal Party is sweeping across the country. It's greater than any of us could imagine. A majority government.

Honestly, I would have preferred to see a minority government with an NDP opposition, but I'll take what we can get. One thing at a time.


There's a huge mess to clean up and I hope that Justin Trudeau can reverse some of the damage, from environmental to economic. But for now we can all just breathe in relief. The oppressive regime is dead. We the people have spoken.

We may be polite, we may be peaceful, but don't ever underestimate us.
Don't ever disregard The Power Of One.

once more with feeling

Best part of the whole weekend

One more ocean swim.

It might be the last one of the season so it is fitting that it is on Thanksgiving.

Thanks Ocean, you've been amazing, as always.

unplugged

I unplugged

This long holiday weekend was spent with no phone or social media or access to news of any kind.
I lived in my little holiday bubble.

At first it seemed so simple, but then I realized I was automatically going to check email. I did this frequently. I made a conscious effort to note how many times I went to check email. Or Twitter. Or Facebook.
Conclusion: A lot.

At first I turned off the computer, but then realized that I could accomplish some writing and cleaning out photo libraries, so I turned off the wifi instead.

Here's what I did in just 24 hours:

Read, wrote, edited and cleared out hundreds of photos, cleaned out the fridge, laundry, cooked, baked, walked, organized, threw out a chair, sorted clothes, started a box for the thrift store, watched a marathon of the old Bewitched series (that's right,  I own the series... don't judge), slept


How I feel:

Amazing, accomplished, rested, calm.



The plan was to turn on and tune in today, but I have to say, I'm actually reluctant to reconnect. I'm dragging it out, the way an addict pushes for one more hour of sobriety, the way a runner pushes herself to just one more mile. Or at least as I imagine, having never been an addict or a runner. While I do not run  (couldn't even run for a donut) I do marathons of social media every day. It's part of my work, and as with most of us, part of my life.


This self-imposed retreat has been good for me.
Although I am solitary by nature, being alone really isn't the same with the reach of those social tentacles.

Maybe I'll just give it another hour...


UPDATE..
Well I did turn on the phone eventually to 17 texts and my email blew up. But qu'elle suprise, nobody died.
It was worth every unplugged minute

giving thanks (thankfully) alone

I'm off people.

Nothing is wrong.
I'm not sad or blue. Or worse.
I am simply recharging.

Life can get so congested and clogged with people; with energy. Good, bad, negative, positive, it doesn't much matter. I find it all draining. And it is difficult to explain that without hurt feelings, misunderstanding and concern that it is something more.

It isn't.

I am an introvert.
Many people find that surprising because my work is so very social, my personality outgoing.
I work hard at it. It isn't fake, but sometimes it is forced.
Other introverts get it. It's not that we are anti social, but socializing drains us. Extroverted personalities seem to thrive on the company of others. Introverts like me, not so much.

I am an emotional sponge, absorbing the energies of those around me. Not in an airy-fairy way. Or maybe it is. I struggle to explain how exhausting I find it to be around others for long periods of time. It doesn't matter the person- someone close to me, someone I've just met. People I love.
It's not you, it's me. Conversation (especially small talk) is consuming. I develop Screaming Head. This is what happens inside while the outside smiles and nods and says "No!".. "Really?" "Interesting".. and whatever acceptable one-liners I can use to deflect. Inside I am screaming "Shut Up. Shut. Up. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. " with no mouth because the mouth is too busy smiling.

This weekend was to be spent in the company of life long friends I consider extended family.
I was looking forward to being in the old farmhouse, to taking drives and photographing but then extra cousins and girlfriends of cousins and sisters of girlfriends of cousins were also coming to share our Thanksgiving weekend.

So I bailed.
The dynamic of my restful weekend changed with this information. At first, I didn't react. But my body did.
Without realizing it, my stomach, which is the center where the truth sits in me, started to ache. I didn't pay much attention but it sat quietly twisting while I couldn't quite put my finger on it. At some point I realized I was anxious. I was sweating. It didn't take long to figure out why.
In the past I would have gone anyway, to avoid disappointing people and disrupting plans. But I would have spent a weekend being miserable on the inside, fighting panic and
Screaming Head would happen.


I've shut off the phone. I didn't shut off the computer, as I do want to catch up on some writing, but I am avoiding all Social Media and news.

It is about Self Care. It is about knowing that next week I return to a busy pace and the energies of many and that in order to do that, I need to do this.


I am Thankful.

I am thankful for solid people in my life who are accommodating even if they don't quite get it, who try not to take it personally and respect my boundaries.

I am thankful for liking my own company, for needing to be alone and listening to my gut.

I am thankful for overcast, windy Autumn Sundays, for CBC Classical stations, for puttering around the house and for the smell of my own little Thanksgiving dinner roasting in the oven. For multicoloured carrots and squash and apples and all the other products of the Harvest.

too bad the internets hasn't figured out scratch n sniff yet..

And I'm thankful for world that still wants me in it, even though I withdraw so often.