Sound of Music…and snow

Beatrix and I attended the local theatre group’s (The Klaglahachie* Fine Arts Society) presentation of The Sound of Music last evening. It was a great three-hour performance. Lots of local young people, a couple of College drama students, a teacher of two – two complete families (mother, father and up to four kids) participated! The evening brought back many memories from the lives of my children, as they were all born soon after the movie came out. I can remember my eldest daughter, as a child, begging for her mother to sing with her the “doe-a-deer” song.

Reflecting on the evening, I had pangs of regret that I couldn’t be involved in such an event, as I have been in the past. The last time I tried, I was so exhausted that I was ill by the end. It hit me: I am well past the possibility of such an enterprise. Even if I had wanted to try, my physician (”Don’t get too excited about things…”) would have forbidden it. As I wandered among the cast after the performance, I picked up the adrenalin high that engulfed everyone. I was awake until 2 AM!

As part of the recovery process from the stroke, I am continually called upon to let go of aspects of my old life, my life as a younger and more fully functioning human being. At times it’s quite painful. Other times, like last night, it makes me wistful, and I happily wander among the youthful cast, sweaty and smiling, bubbling with enthusiasm and joy. It lists the spirit, even if the heart is sad that “those days are gone forever.”

A more sobering reminder, and far less present, awaited me this morning. Some time in the late afternoon yesterday, the local snowplough crew came down our street and left a flattened windrow about a foot deep across our driveway. We couldn’t see it last night, and very nearly got stuck on the way home. I went out to look at it by morning light today. A foot deep of icy snow, filled with salt and grit, and largely frozen in place. With a snowstorm predicted for Sunday evening, I felt like this had to be moved, or we would definitely be stuck on Monday.

So I started chopping at it with our ice blade. I had though it might be possible to use the snow blower to move it, but that was a vain hope. This stuff was rock hard. So I chopped and shoveled for fifteen or twenty minutes before I remembered that the physicians had told me “No more snow shoveling.” I stopped, and realized that the few minutes I had worked left me feeling exhausted. I turned the job over to Beatrix, who “manfully” cleared things as best she could – quite acceptably.

I have felt tired all day, and have pondered the reality of yet another loss. I can no longer take care of my own winter chores without mechanical help. I feel helpless and…old. So tonight I will go to bed earlier, and when it snows on Monday, I’ll fire up the big snow machine and let it chuck the stuff off the drive.

One lesson at a time…sow learner. Reluctant learner…but still alive.

* Klaglahachie is a non-word, which has been described as “probably Scottish…more likely Mongolian” by its inventor!

Remembrance and Father…

Over the last few weeks – since before Remembrance Day, actually – I have been thinking a lot about my father. When he was alive, we were not close. In part, that was due to the years he spent in the Canadian Army in Britain and Europe during World War II. He was gone for six years, without a break. He left just a day or two before I started school, and he returned just as I became a moody adolescent. He had no idea how to deal with adolescence, and I had no idea how to relate to a Dad, since I’d had none for so long. The teen years were a strain on both of us.

During the years on my first marriage, my father and I had little to do with each other. I knew he cared about us, but he had a difficult time demonstrating that. He was much better at relating to the Grandchildren. He was warm and cuddly with them. Each of them developed a unique relationship with Grandpa.

Later in my life, during my second marriage he was much closer to me. He responded very warmly to Beatrix. They could talk by the hour. And he shared things with her. I think she reminded him of his four sisters.

I have two pictures of father in military dress, taken during the war. One was taken when he was on leave in Scotland, visiting his Uncle Archie. He is relaxed, laughing, enjoying the moment. The other picture was taken after he’d been in Europe and seen action in Holland. The picture is plain; his skin colour is darker than earlier. There is no smile on his mustached face. His eyes are penetrating. It’s an altogether sober and serious photo. No laughter there.

I have three special mementos of my Dad, who died in August of 1984. They are a skipping rope, a silver coloured dagger such as Commandos were issued in WW II, and a metal whistle, such as referees use in British Football matches. Each of them carries special meaning for me, and I have created a story around each of them, partly factual, partly fictional.

The skipping rope hung in our basement on Roanoke Street in Transcona. My Dad used that rope regularly as part of his efforts to remain fit into his old age. I don’t know when he stopped using it, but I do remember that, as a teenagers, I could my father rhythmically skipping in the basement for up to 20 minutes to a half hour, regularly. I have no idea when he stopped, but he was still doing it well into his fifties.

The whistle reminds me of my Dad as a soccer player. I heard stories of long training runs along the sand beach at Prestwick. I’ve stood on that beach. The sand in not hard, it slides under your feet. I couldn’t image a ten-mile run in that place. But it happened every Saturday when my Dad was a teenager, to keep the team’s legs in shape.

I saw my Dad use that whistle when I was in junior high school. He was asked to referee inter-high school matches in Transcona. He was the only referee. He ran up and down the field with the play, easily keeping pace with the 16 and 17 year old players. He was likely about 50 at the time. I remember being impressed that he could do that, and keep good control of the game.

The dagger he brought home from the war. At some point, although he was in the Service Corps – transport of men and supplies to the front – at some point he was involved in training men in hand-to-hand combat, such as Commandos would need. The dagger was the knife with which they would kill. It had no sharp edges; it was not a cutting knife. It was for stabbing, as in sneak up behind a sentry and put him down silently; once to the chest, or the kidneys.

In his own way, my father was a teacher. Never formally t rained, he could instruct well. He taught Jennifer to drive, for example. Did he teach Keith, of Caley? I can’t remember. He was an athlete. In his youth, he was a passionate athlete. Being forbidden to play football on Sunday was one of the reasons he got fed up with religion and left the church. (It wasn’t the only reason!) Watching hi m run as a referee, I was impressed that he was in such good shape. During the depression, the Transcona School hired my Father to “teach a class” of 25-30 year olds who returned to school because there was no work! What he did was mostly physical training, sports, something to wear them out. He managed that very well…with his third grade formal education! He could manage them (the whistle) and he could stay ahead of them physically (the skipping rope).

Each Remembrance Day I go through the same process. I remember those objects. I touch them; I replay the war stories (very few) that my Dad told. I go to the community Service, which is always very meaningful for me, no matter how badly it is done, or how horrible the homily is. I watch those young people laying wreaths, and some of the old Korean War Vets, creakily kneeling to do the same, and remember that my Dad volunteered for World War II at the age of 38, when no conscription would ever have touched him. He volunteered his life, and by implication, mine as well, and my Mother’s.

Every year tears run down my cheeks, and I remember my Father with great fondness and respect. I don’t really expect anyone else to be understand this. It just is. And…I wish I’d known him better in life. In death he has been a mentor to me, and I have felt close to him on many occasions. It is past time that I put that fact on paper.

Remembrance Day…and walking

Funny week…winter has begun, with snow and cold. My body is taking its time getting used to this. I’ve walked most mornings. It was a little scary a couple of mornings, because of the ice underfoot. I was afraid of falling. The other thing that surprised me…and alarmed me, if the truth were known – was that on the last leg of my walk, which is mildly uphill, I began to feel tightness in my chest. One morning I even got to the edge of pain, which eased when I slowed down. I began to wonder if the time for heart valve surgery is closer than I thought.

I had no trouble with walking in Ottawa. It was warmer, and the climate as moist. Here, it’s been dry and cold. My anxieties eased this morning, however. I walked a double length, and found that not only did I limber up on the second leg, but also I had no chest tightness at all on the whole walk. I’ll have to monitor this closely for Dr. Swartz…and myself, I guess.

I haven’t been back to the pool since arriving home. I still have scabs on my tattoo, and one can’t go in the pool with an open wound. In the next couple of days, the scabs will go, and I’ll be back in the water.

All this, plus my recurring trouble with remembering things, puts me squarely in the line of “recovery.” Still a long way to go, especially if I throw in the heart stuff as well. I’m using recycled material for Sunday worship all this month, realizing that I haven’t the energy to research and write a sermon and service each week for a month. Looks like my career as a Sunday Supply Preacher is drawing to a close. I think back a year or two, and remember how I could focus and work on this sort of thing all morning without a break. Times have changed…or I have changed, more like.

Remembrance Day was emotional for me as usual. This year, I had a special concern: the government’s change of policy regarding veteran’s pensions. One has to be in the military for 10 years to qualify for a full pension. The Dep’t of Veteran’s Affairs has taken to bringing in all the 9-year plus vets, and assessing them for being “fit for deployment.” If a vet proves to be unfit for deployment, he or she is promptly discharged, leaving them without a full and indexed pension. The group that is most affected by this policy is those who have been wounded of injured in the service and in war. They have missing limbs, blindness, PTSD, all sorts of wounds. And therefore they are unfit for deployment, and discharged. So there you are, semi-crippled, perhaps unable to do sustained work, and now, with no pension. These folk are abandoned by the government that urged them to volunteer, praises their work, lays wreaths to “honour” them, and then cuts them off at the last minutes – sometimes just months prior to their tenth anniversary in the armed services!

The doctors tell me not to get excited about anything, but this situation excites me. It enrages  me! The only thing I could think of to do is write letters to the editor. So the local paper, the Red Deer paper, the Edmonton Journal and the Ottawa Citizen all got my letter today. It seems like very little to do. I won’t write to my MP again. He is a toady and an ass, and will just send me a photocopied sheet of the policy and someone’s speech in then House justifying it.

So I concentrate on genealogy, in which I have interested again. Starting to put together a family tree, and looking around for information. Maybe I’ll finally get to the Mormon archives in Edmonton this winter after all!

Vacation…ended

It’s been awhile. I’ve been away in Ottawa, visiting my eldest daughter and her four boys. It was a great visit; I even got all four boys together in a restaurant one evening. They caught up with one another, as well as with me. Dinners with my grandson Raphael were special. I got to know him a bit better as an adult, and that was a special treat.

I’ve been thinking about the “recovery” theme today. A couple of events to mention. One day, in Ottawa, I was resting after lunch, half asleep, when my mobile rang. It was my former colleague from Lacombe. He was planning an All saints Day service, during which he would mention all the people who had dies and been buried from the church in 2012. He was calling to ask me about two of the funerals I conducted. Remember that I answered him out of a half-asleep state. He asked me about details of the life of one of the men I buried. I could remember the name correctly, but details? Not a chance. The second funeral I conducted two days after my stroke (still in denial) and, though I could remember the family that was it. I think he was quite frustrated with me. Not only did he get little information, but the call was expensive as well, since I was thousands of kilometers away!

This incident reminded me that I have a broken brain, a damaged memory, and an incomplete structure within which to process information. I couldn’t recall much of what he asked for. I felt embarrassed and depressed that I was an inadequate colleague.  He sounded as frustrated as I felt.

By contrast, there was the evening when I took Jennifer, Diego and Rapha out for dinner. Such wonderfully supportive and open conversation! Toward the end of our evening, we were sitting together in a gelato shop (hmmmmm), finishing our treat, when we got talking about 1. Freemasonry (the boys are both interested in that subject, and 2. The stroke; where it occurred, which part of my brain was involved, and how I experienced it. Diego was particularly keen, since he is currently studying the brain in his pre-EMS course. It was a wonderful time, during which I could open myself to the boys and see them respond to my openness.

I also had a very frank talk with Jennifer about my separation from her Mom. I never imagined she would be such an open and caring listener to me. It was a special moment for me.

The worst part of the trip was the flight home. I was tired; the plane was packed, and it was hot, and I felt cramped in the seat. It also took forever. I began contemplating the cost of a first class seat on Air Canada for next time…in my dreams!