MARCH 11 2020: A SONNET

Shall I recall the final normal day? It dawned a Wednesday morning bright and clear. The day began with friends and bridge to play Some winning, loosing, chatting and good cheer. We stopped at Kingsway Garden Mall for lunch, The food court proffered Julius and fries. I bought a purse, the cheapest of the bunch I’d get another if I’d been unwise. Two friends and I crooned trios by the bed To comfort one whose death was close at hand, And then I packed a bag for days ahead To be with sisters on a visit planned. Free day to go and do whate’er we chose. I say! When will we next have one of those?

REFLECTING ON THE FOOD SUPPLY

REFLECTING ON THE FOOD SUPPLY IN COWBOY POETRY He was sittin at the table chewin on a fine T-bone. There was steak sauce on his moustache. He was eatin all alone. He was ponderin the feedlots with their twenty thousand head; Of the workers touchin shoulders and the virus that they spread. He was thinkin bout the butcher shop his daddy used to run, Sides a-hangin in the cooler when the weekly kill was done. You had paper wrapping everything the labels writ by hand And you knew exactly who you fed and what they would demand. There was oxtail in the supper plans and soup bones on the bubble. The kidney, heart and liver sold without a moment’s trouble. It was shortribs for Elvira Jones and chuck for Elsie Gable. Verna Parker took a tender roast to serve on Sunday table. You could drive out to a farmer’s place and there conduct a meetin With the farmer who provided and the steer you’d soon be eatin. There are some who say they’re satisfied with tofu nuts and soy But it takes a juicy steak to feed a grateful good old boy.

FINDING HOPE HAIKU IN THE TIME OF COVID

Reading with children Facetime is the next best thing When snuggling is out. Walking with Kathy To be outside where life is So spectacular. People delighted By an unexpected call I happened to make. Call from a cousin Who lives in Ontario Remembering me. Grateful for wellness And grocery delivery A home that I love. Making up stories Wednesdays are the send-out days Getting letters back. Balcony pansies Pandemic insensitive Blooming like crazy Media searching For good news to give us hope And give them hope too. Choosing not to clean Because I know there will be Time for it later. Choosing to clean now Because I know I will be Glad I did later. Thinking of places I’m glad not to be in now And those I still love. Sweet whiff of supper Slow cooking tantalizing While I watch Frasier Counting on science Admiring the leadership Of our officials Dreaming a future When this time will be the past That made us all wiser.

AUDACIOUS HOPERS HOPE FOR THINGS

Audacious hopers hope for things No practical person would dream of hoping for, Things we are certain can never happen Given the current circumstances. Audacious hopers drive us crazy Because they simply will not listen To our predictions about the future. Audacious hopers are in denial! There’s nothing quite so irritating As trying to protect audacious hopers From the disappointment we’re afraid they will face. Audacious hopers test our courage! BUT: Audacious hopers change the world And when they do we call them heroes. We buy magazines with articles about them And hire them to make motivational speeches. When audacious hopers tell their stories About the people they met on the journey, I’d rather be named as the one who supported Than mentioned as the barrier who had to be thwarted.

ON CHOOSING TO BE HOPEFUL

Some days I am hopeful, Others not so much. It’s the same world on any specific day Regardless of how hopeful I am, Only the possibilities for days ahead are different. Being hopeful is not wishing. Wishing is for Disneyland And birthday candles And the days when I buy a lottery ticket Just because I have money. Being hopeful is not goal setting. Goal setting is for sales teams And athletes And fund-raisers at the United Way. Hopeful is a way of feeling When I see the world, With certain possibilities, Of how good things could happen But not quite enough of the picture To lay out a detailed plan. On days when I am not hopeful There are still possibilities, Only I don’t see them So I think they are not there. And that is why, On any given day No matter what is happening It is better to be hopeful If I have a choice Which sometimes I do. And sometimes I don’t Which means I have to wait Until I do.

THE BEST BURGER

The best burger I ever had was last Saturday. It sang to my heart Backed up by a chorus of fries Accompanied by a chocolate shake. The best burger I ever had was on Saturday. It tingled my tongue, Warmed through by the sun shining on the car window And the company of my friend Kathy. The best burger I ever had was on Saturday It dripped shamelessly down my chin, Spotted my t-shirt And called for a napkin. The best burger I ever had was a regular Mama cheese Unremarkable to those who have one every day And a delicacy rare as truffles After five weeks of staying at home.

GRIEVING IN THE TIME OF COVID 19

The grief monster got me again this morning, caught me unaware and gave me the old one-two punch in the gut. “Get out!” I shouted. But I didn’t hear the words I’d said. The noise sounded more like a wolf howl to me, a wolf howl, or a moan of abject pain. Perhaps I should have expected it, the sudden appearance of this sleeping giant. A pessimist might have observed some warnings that a storm might be brewing underground. There had been, for example, a considerable reduction of crying over the past couple of months. But I am not a pessimist. This drying up might have been caused by the passage of time, time spent in the warm Mexican sand, the gradual thawing of chilly relationships, the sprouting of new healthy relationships, the shedding of some failed experiments, the formation of new habits, the revival of my storytelling hobby, new volunteer opportunities, better eating, long daily walks outdoors, daily internet contact with people I love. Even in a time of pandemic, any of these might have boosted my mental health. Or it might simply have been that the focus required to thrive during a COVID 19 pandemic can distract you from just about everything you are used to. So perhaps I can be forgiven for failing to expect the monster. It was just after 7:30 AM when the monster struck. I was sitting on the edge of my bed celebrating the sunshine snaking along the wall from the closet door to the place beside the mirror. I was thinking that my neighbour and I might get a hamburger and fries from a drive-through window today, the first restaurant food we’ve had in five weeks of obeying the call to “Stay Home!” The people on the radio were telling me about a star-studded concert that would be playing on all the TV networks all over the world. Among the other stars, John Legend would be singing. “Let’s go out on this song,” said the radio people. “John Legend: All Of Me.: What’s that they said? Let’s go out? I went out all right. In one brief second I went all the way back to the winter of 2014. It was Saturday morning, every Saturday morning. We were at the west End Seniors Association, David and I, attending dance classes sponsored by the Parkinson Association. We were seated, doing the warm-up exercises. The nurse, Sharleen Heavener was leading us. John Legend was singing All of Me. Beside David I was stretching. I was singing to the gentle rhythm. I was pretending that everything would be all right. John sang: The world is beating you down, I'm around through every mood. You're my downfall, you're my muse My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues I can't stop singing, it's ringing, in my head for you [Pre-Chorus:] My head's under water But I'm breathing fine You're crazy and I'm out of my mind [Chorus:] 'Cause all of me Loves all of you Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections Give your all to me I'll give my all to you You're my end and my beginning Even when I lose I'm winning David could still walk back then. He could still drive. We could still learn new dance steps together. But his voice had slowed, and his signature had changed so much that people started checking to confirm its authenticity. Somehow he had forgotten how to shift his weight gracefully from one foot to the other. It was plain to both of us that everything would definitely not be all right. Still, we concentrated on burying the future by making everything all right at that moment, the moment before she asked us to stand, the final seconds of sitting down. So what if the task of burying the future required an avalanche of pretending? We were up for it. We were listening to popular songs. It might be the end of the world as we knew it, but we were learning to dance.

LET THERE BE PANSIES!

A couple of days ago I turned the channel to Detroit Public TV. I planned to watch the late night news for five or ten minutes. It’s something I’ve started doing recently—watching a bit of American television each day to broaden my perspective on how things are with other people. Imagine the humour of it! Usually I am complaining that too much of our local news is American, with a splash of Canadian thrown in there. But now we don’t hear so much about the States. There’s little room for it by the time they finish giving us the latest COVID 19 numbers, predicting future financial disaster and presenting the arguments for and against the wearing of masks in public. But I digress. Near the top of the Detroit news was the following revelation “Local greenhouses say they will be dumping their pansies now that the governor has declared them to be a non-essential service.” What was this? Dumping pansies? My heart stopped beating for a moment. There it was! My reckoning with the truth had arrived. In the comfort of abundance, the idea of scarcity holds the power to unhinge us. Fear is the enemy of hope. Sure I was afraid, but I figured I’d done pretty well over the past month at absorbing our new reality in a hopeful manner. When the first toilet paper buying panic began, I checked my cupboard, found enough there, and promised myself that I’d find a reasonable facsimile of the old Eaton’s catalogue somewhere if I couldn’t get anymore by the time it was needed. When my friend bought the only can of corn on a grocery store shelf, I assured myself that if no more corn appeared in desperate times there would surely be canned peas to buy. I wouldn’t particularly want them, but still they would be there. Nobody in their right mind buys canned peas. When someone dear to me bemoaned the shortage of frozen broccoli I smirked generously and offered to freeze for her some fresh broccoli from my well-stocked refrigerator. But now this. The governor of Michigan was declaring pansies to be non-essential. How could it be? Spring is coming late to Alberta this year, later than to Detroit. It’s already April 12 and we’ve hardly had a day when snow didn’t fall. The average daily temperature hovers about twelve Celsius degrees below normal. Migratory birds check the weather forecast and book an extra week or two in the trees of warmer locations. It’s been too cold to put plants outside. When we finally break through, be it late this week or late in the next, there will be pansies to buy. Or will there? “Pansies,” I shouted at the TV while reaching for the remote control to switch to the Movie Channel. “You can’t dump healthy pansies! If you don’t need them, send them to me. I need them.” That night I dreamed of the pansies on my balcony, cheerily blooming in fragrant profusion. But when I awoke, the air was moist with the hint of snow. First thing in the morning I called the local home improvement store. “Garden centre,” I said to the electronic voice that wanted to know what department I needed. To my surprise, a living, breathing human picked up the phone, a young woman by the sound of her. “Is your garden centre open?” I asked breathlessly. “No,” she said with the hint of a smirk. “There’s too much ice and snow out there right now.” This might have placated me, but it didn’t. I was looking to the future. “Do you think it will open?” I squeaked. Now she was in full-on deal-with-the-crazies-out-there mode. “I am pretty sure the snow will eventually melt,” she said soothingly. It is snowing a little today. So far I haven’t called any garden centres in Detroit. Nor have I sought any more news from that suffering city. Deep in my heart, I continue to hope for pansies.

GROCERIES

A pair of friendly strangers showed up at my door with a grocery order this morning. My groceries were already unpacked by 8:00 AM. Everything I had ordered was there. They brought an Easter lily, a beautiful hydrangea, Easter eggs, a huge pineapple, tiny mandarins, and grapes almost as big as the oranges. Did I forget to mention the rutabaga, onions, milk, cheese, yoghurt and a few other ordinary things? What a way to start the day! All I had to do was click some links on the computer and provide my credit card information. Nobody was more delighted than I when grocery stores started offering on-line shopping with delivery. It all happened just at the time when David was finding it increasingly difficult to buy food for us. We could have asked family and friends to help, but we didn’t have to. For the first time in my life I was able to take on the responsibility of ensuring that our cupboards would contain the things we wanted. It was a welcome consolation against the sadness of witnessing the relentless disabling progression of David’s illness. It may seem to us that ordering groceries for delivery is a recent innovation. But I can tell you that my mother was doing it years ago. We lived on a farm 9 miles from the village of Lougheed. Sometimes she would drive into town to shop. Other times she would notice that Dad was on his way to pick up a belt for the swather or a shovel for the cultivator. “Stop in at the grocery store,” she would command. “Phone it in,” he would reply. Mom was in no hurry. She’d pick a few peas, maybe roll out a piecrust. All the while she’d be making a mental list of the things she needed. By and by Mom would check the phone sheet (you didn’t need a whole book to list the numbers on the Lougheed exchange). She would dial the number of the store. “Hello,” she’d say. “Who’s this?” I never knew why it mattered, but it did. “Donald will be coming in to pick up an order,” she’d say. “Oh, he’s already been in? Is he still there? Well, he’ll be back soon. Do you have a pen there?” “Okay now. I need beans. Are there any on sale? Well why is the bigger can cheaper than two small cans. I don’t really need a big can. But oh well. And some lettuce. Your lettuce isn’t going brown, is it? I don’t want the ones with the brown leaves. Get me the freshest one you have. And what have you got for fruit? How ripe are those bananas?” Then a pause. “Oh really? You don’t say! Why I just saw her at the ACW tea last week. Was it the cancer? She didn’t look too well.” “Oh that’s good. Patricia was always her favourite so it’s good that she could make it home in time. Do you have any tomatoes? You want me to take Hot cross buns? You’ve still got those? Are you sure they’re still good?” Another pause. “Really? I thought there was a lot of money there. Where does it all go?” “Oh yes, I forgot that I put on Easter dinner and bought all the supplies for the ACW tea. No wonder you are out of money for my groceries. Tell Donald when he comes back that you need him to put more money in the account.” “Eh? What’s that? You told him? He said he didn’t have a cheque. Could you just give him the groceries anyway and send the bill. I’ll top up the account the next time I’m in town.” (This, in fact, was true. Mom and Dad always paid their bills.) Still, it was important that this oversight not be blamed on her. “I don’t know why he carries a couple of cheques in his wallet instead of taking a cheque book,” she would say in the voice of exasperation. I have friends who had never ordered groceries for delivery until we started staying home to keep ourselves safe from COVID 19. They marvel at how easily I make an order. “Oh,” I tell them modestly, “I’ve had a lot of experience with this."

WEDNESDAYS

It’s Wednesday. I like Wednesdays, always have. In school days and work days, Wednesday was the point of departure. A week that started out well was going better by Wednesday. In a week that started poorly, the arrival of Wednesday heralded the promise of hope for the weekend. Even in retirement, Wednesday has held a bit of magic. I think of Wednesday March 11 as the most recent normal day of my life. It contained a bit of everything: the happy routine of bridge club, the pleasure of lunch with a friend, the satisfaction of successfully shopping for a new purse, the excitement of packing for a couple of nights stay at my sister’s house, and the wonder of gently singing a dying woman into a deep and peaceful sleep. Today is Wednesday. It is almost 10:00 and I am still in my housecoat. Later today my son will drive by, roll down his car window and hand me an envelope while giving a cheery greeting and telling me he loves me. Who knew He’d start shouting those words in public? I will take a walk with my neighbour. Several weeks ago we decided to form a bubble around ourselves and protect each other from the possible dangers of spreading a virus through close physical contact with others. I will call one neighbour I haven’t spoken to in a month of isolation. I will talk to a relative who has tested positive for COVID 19. I will answer whoever phones me—possibly being rude if the call is a junk call. Being rude can be fun. I will join a storytellers’ meeting on Zoom. I will cook myself a balanced supper and eat it slowly while watching back-to-back episodes of Frasier. I will record a story on the iPhone and send it to friends, because I have decided that every Wednesday will be Story Wednesday until life gets back to normal. There are many things I will not do. I will not play bridge with my buddies, or dine at a restaurant, or enter a store, or pass through the door of a long-term care centre, or plan a trip. Even with all the things you cannot do, it is surprising how much you can get done on a Wednesday!

NORMAL THINGS ARE STILL HAPPENING

There comes a day, a few days after the March equinox, when the sun directs a morning beam into my bedroom. It happens just after 7:30 and lasts a minute or so, just after the northerly sun rises enough to peak out from between some buildings on the next block, Just before it angles up to hide itself behind The Athabascan next door. The conditions for observing this phenomenon have to be exactly right. You might miss it the first day or even the second. You’d never see it if you weren’t in the bedroom. You wouldn’t see it on a cloudy morning. I saw it on April 2, 2020. I wasn’t looking for it. I was just talking to myself about getting out of bed and there it was! A ray of hope projected itself across the room from the angled window by the bathroom sink to land on the wall by the mirror over the dresser. “Normal things are still happening,” I said to myself. “This is only one of them.” I know a woman who gave birth to a healthy child in the maternity ward of a local hospital. Pigeons are circling our building, looking for friendly balconies. Neighbours are still spreading rumours. Friends are still making me laugh. Neglected friends are still delighted when I remember to call them. Pandemic buzz is consuming us all. Everybody seems to be talking about the new normal. I am taking some comfort from noticing evidence for the old normal. Perhaps I shall be a little more conscious of watching the morning sun as it alters its trajectory, lingering a bit longer every day until the summer solstice signals a reverse of fortune. It’s part of the old normal that will secure me. Here, in my new normal, I’ll have the time to notice it.

IN THIS TOGETHER

My iPhone cares about me. I had long suspected something of the sort, but the proof came yesterday when she congratulated me for increasing my exercise dramatically over the past week. It is small wonder that she was impressed. I hadn’t asked her to keep records, but she had noticed that I was now averaging 12,500 steps per day. In past weeks, the average was much, much lower. Of course, she hadn’t been giving me full credit for things I was doing. She didn’t count it when I pedalled the exercise bike, and she sat under the chair when I participated in exercise classes. But now she’s in my pocket every afternoon for the daily walk. The daily walk, consuming most of each afternoon, has been made possible by my neighbour Kathy. We had been in the habit of taking shorter walks when we had the time. We were both busy in those days. Now we are not busy. We’ve got the time. We decided to declare ourselves a couple from the perspective of social distancing. We behave as we would if we shared an apartment. We keep each other safe by maintaining social distance from everyone else when we are out, and staying home except when we are walking. In many ways, this is the best of all seasons for long walks. Here in Edmonton we live a short distance from river valley trails and quiet neighbourhoods graced by aging trees. It is part spring and part winter. The daily walk takes through snow, ice, mud, water and patches of hopeful dryness. Birds and squirrels are everywhere. The sun warms the back of our winter parkas and forces us to remove our hats and mittens. Most of the people we meet stay far away and smile conspiratorially. People, machines and nature are doing their best to keep each other going. We are all in this together.

FLOWERS WILL BLOOM IN SEPTEMBER

Today is the first full day of spring. Is anybody in the whole world more pleased than I to see it? I am hoping to grow flowers on my balcony. I am hoping grocery stores will bring in bedding plants that can be purchased along with groceries. If they can’t I’ll forgive them. They might have more important things to stock. I would start seeds if I had them. Unfortunately I don’t have any seeds, but I do have acidanthra bulbs. They are waiting for me in a pot on the shelf in the closet of the guest bedroom. I put them there last October. “See you in the spring,” I said to them. “I’ll be planting you as soon as the soil thaws in my balcony pots.” Acidanthra plants are a bit like gladioli. They sprout uninteresting green shoots that bore you for most of the summer. Then, on some August day, you’ll notice a thickening, later a stock, later still the final pay-off. I bought and planted a bag of acidanthra bulbs last spring. I hadn’t had any for a few years. They were just as I remembered—boring! Then, in September they opened their flowers. They were just as I remembered--tall, white, delicate and marvellously fragrant. Lured by intoxicating temptation, I made several balcony visits every day just to smell them. And that is what I want to do this September—wander out on the balcony to smell the flowers. In the meantime, I’ll wait with those boring plants. I’ll be waiting for a virus to run its course, for the coffee shops to open again, for exercise classes to start, for social gatherings on my calendar. I’ll be waiting to see so many people I won’t be seeing on a regular basis. Flowers will bloom in September!

TIME TO HOPE

The dishes in my dishwasher are clean. I plan to get them out and put them away—later. In the meantime, I am writing to stave off the boredom that comes from having too much time at home and too little to do. Emptying the dishwasher is not the only thing I plan to do later. It is just one of the small things. Tuesday was a great day for putting things off. On Tuesday I didn’t take the garbage out or deliver the recycling to the bin. I didn’t update my financial records or strip the bed. You might think I am procrastinating, but really, I am generating self-hope. It will be better to think about a long period of self-isolation if I know there will be enough things to do in the future. It’s far too painful to contemplate a future with too little to do. I’ve known people who practice behaviors that I think of as reverse hope. Reverse hope helps us dread the future by making ourselves miserable in the present. Many years ago a friend of mine started sleeping on an uncomfortable bed. She had a comfortable bed, but she would be giving it up in three weeks and she thought she’d better start getting used to the new one before she was forced to sleep in it. Later I met a woman who refused to get out of bed because she wanted to avoid a fall that might break a hip. “I don’t want to break a hip and be bed-ridden,” she said. In good times, hope allows us to look forward to the future. In the not-so-good times, hope allows us to think about the future and be okay in the present. At present I am looking forward to a future in which I will avoid doing certain things by keeping busy doing things I want to do. Come to think of it, I can do that right now. I may empty the dishwasher today, but I am definitely not going to tidy my underwear drawer. If I am to have all this unsolicited available time at home, I plan to avoid wasting it on things I would naturally want to avoid, like cleaning out my closets and kitchen cupboards. I’d rather write. It’s a hope thing.

FLAKY

There are things out there you’ve never imagined, possibilities you haven’t even considered. Good things are waiting for you. Take, for example, croissants. Call them flaky! Call them fattening! Call them anything you like. But call them over in your darkest hour. You’ll be glad you did. There are a surprising number of ways to get croissants. You can stay in a fancy hotel and have room service bring them up. You can stay in a cheap hotel and snatch them off the breakfast buffet in the moment before the morning rush. You can ask the baker to bring one out from behind the counter; you can buy them by the half-dozen in a clamshell at the grocery store. You might even be able to bake them from scratch, though I’ve never knowingly met anybody who has. Each of these has its own advantages. Then, there’s the other way to get croissants, my favourite way. You can go to a grocery store and ask the person behind the bakery counter to sell you the frozen, unbaked croissants they keep in the back. It’s one of those things you don’t know you can do until you try it. It’s not a strategy preferred by the shy retiring types, given that you generally have to ask twice. Nobody is expecting such a request. Once they have ensured that they heard you properly, some clerks will agree to this without batting an eyelash. Others, less professional in their approach, will hesitate, click their tongues thoughtfully, and call the manager. Either way, you’ll go home with the treasure you came for. Trust me! I know this from experience, and here is another thing I know. No croissant has ever tasted better than the hot-from-the-oven miracles I devoured in my bed at 5:00 AM on March 16 2020. I had purchased the frozen babies just before Christmas, thinking I would serve them Christmas morning. But then, other treats got in the way and my icy possibilities gradually sank into obscurity beneath the blueberries, chicken breasts and forgotten bread crusts I was saving to make stuffing. There they lay: silent; patient; hoping I would remember them some day; waiting to be needed. The some-day of remembrance and need arrived on Sunday March 15. What I actually needed on Sunday March 15 was something to give me hope. Covid-19 was cancelling my plans. Looking regretfully to the next few days I could see that there would be no choir practice, no writers club, no exercise classes, no bridge club, no lunches with friends. There would be no happy hour in our condo social room, no care-partner training at the Alzheimer Society, no planning for upcoming grief groups at Pilgrim’s Hospice. Once the ball of regret got rolling, I even started regretting the cancellation of the condo meeting that had promised to be stressful and controversial. That was the last straw. Something had to be done. I looked around for something to do. I listened for the voice of wisdom. That is when I heard them calling. “Bake us Wendy! Bake us!” Frozen unbaked croissants are perfect examples of potential. They start out small and grow faster than most things. You can take frozen croissant babies out of the freezer any time, but bedtime is the best time. You put them on a cookie sheet. They thaw and rise overnight. Then, in the morning, you bake them. I had not intended to bake at 4:30 AM. But these are strange times. I wasn’t sleeping well, and by 4:00 a faint whiff of yeastiness was floating on the cold night air. In the warmth of my bed I heard the distant call. It was a chiding call, the call of a dare. “Just try to wait until 7:00!” “I can wait,” I replied with confidence, and I did wait. I practised self-discipline for 25 long minutes. Then I baked. Few things are flakier than hot croissants in the first moments after you take them out of the oven. Few people are flakier than those of us who, rather than eating in a cold night kitchen, will choose to take hot croissants to bed. But there’s no place more comfortable than bed at 5:00 AM, and nothing more tantalizing than a hot flaky croissant. Today is March 17. Runaway croissant flakes are hiding in my bed. I push them with my feet, catch them in my toes and swish them down toward the bottom. Normally I would have washed the sheets yesterday. Someday I will do the laundry. But for now, with so few interesting things to do, and no promise of a quick return to normal life, I think I will simply enjoy coming across them by accident and remembering the delicious taste of those freshly baked piping hot croissants.

GRANNY AT THE ZOO

“Granny, I need an adult to play red panda with me,” says Ben, age seven. It is late afternoon on a hot sunny vacation day. We are three generations, sharing a two-storey hotel room. Kids and Granny sleep on the lower floor. Parents sleep directly above. Ben’s parents, pleased to see Granny taking over, are headed for the shower. “Okay Ben, I say with more confidence than I feel. “What do I have to do?” “It’s easy,” says Ben. “I am a red panda in a zoo. You are giving tours.” Our hotel room is ideally arranged for this endeavor. The zoo is a top bunk that doubles as Ben’s bed. The staircase runs up alongside the bunks. Near the top of the stairs there’s a hole in the wall that affords climbers a good view of the bunk. Ben heads for his habitat. I head for the stairs, examining my credentials as I go. . I am suspecting that my knowledge and experience have not adequately prepared me for this job. On the plus side, I was once seven years old and I have presented myself to others as an animal. I was fairly convincing as a pig perhaps, or a dog, possibly a chicken and occasionally a turkey. My expertise came organically. These were the inhabitants in the farm yards of my youth and my knowledge of them was acquired without the enhancement of formal study. I knew where they slept and what they ate. I could have given an impromptu tour of a farm yard to impress any grandchild. As for the red panda, I’ve never been near one. How much do I know about the species? Absolutely nothing. In a desperate bid to buy myself some time, I kneel on the stairs and assemble a crowd of imaginary children, accompanied by imaginary parents. “Notice the panda’s red coat,” I declare, hoping that the red panda has been named descriptively. Later I will ask myself why I didn’t decline this job opportunity at the outset. But I know the answer. The parents needed a shower. With unwarranted optimism I summon my creative powers. Suddenly I remember that I am a tour guide with duties that extend beyond animal description. The safety of the animals and the visitors is my utmost concern. “Please keep your children well back from the fence,” I admonish the parents who have come to the zoo, pointing an accusing finger at one imaginary mother who has allowed a toddler to cross the line. “And don’t even consider feeding Red Panda,” I scold. “That peanut in your hand could choke this precious creature.” To reinforce the point, I pause in my speech and glare at the assembled crowd. “Tell them more,” says Ben. “Tell them about me.” Later I will ask myself why I didn’t volunteer to be the red panda and invite Ben to be the tour guide. Now, grasping at straws, I turn to the imaginary children, a question in my voice. “Can you tell me,” I say, “what is the difference between the red panda and other pandas?” I am hoping there is more than one kind of panda. Perhaps pandas are like bears. Maybe there are brown pandas and black pandas. The imaginary children have been silenced by my previous scolding. They wait for me to answer, and I wonder another thing. How long does it take for the average Canadian parent to have a shower? I keep that question to myself. Suddenly I remember that Ben and I are not alone. I seize the opportunity to extend my reach. “Are there any children not on this tour who can tell me about the different kinds of pandas?” As I say this, I am appealing directly to Ben’s five-year-old brother Evan. He has observed my performance in uncharacteristic silence, but now he comes to my rescue. “There are red pandas and giant pandas,” he tells me and the imaginary audience. “The giant pandas are bears. The red pandas are cats.” “Well done,” I enthuse. “What else can you tell us about the red panda?” “Granny,” says Ben, “Evan is not a human. He is a cloud leopard in the cage next to mine. I want you to tell them what I eat.” I want to tell them this also, and I would tell them, if I knew. Another inspiration hits me. “Hello red panda,’ I say cloyingly, keeping my hands well back from the cage. “You are certainly a hungry fellow. Tell these tourists what you are eating right now.” “Bamboo,” says my red panda. “They have planted it especially for me. Now tell them where I live.” Hmmm. Where does the red panda live? I’m pretty sure I won’t get away with asking Ben to tell the audience where he lives. So I check my mental library. I’ve never been to Africa Asia or Australia so they might be there. I’ve never heard mention of red pandas in south America, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any in Edmonton. I decide to take a chance. “We find red pandas in Asia,” I say, “In China.” “Mostly in Nepal,” says the cloud leopard in the cage next to Ben. I think of Nepal, everything I know about Nepal. Isn’t that where Everest is? “Look for red pandas in the mountains,” I say, “on the upper slopes.” This seems to satisfy Ben. “Now tell them about me,” says Evan the cloud leopard. Unfortunately, I know as much about the cloud leopard as I knew about the red panda. Still I forge ahead. While I give the speech about the dangers of feeding the cloud leopard, and scold the imaginary parents for letting their children come too close to the cage, I reflect on how times have changed. When I was Seven I came home from school and turned on the television. There I learned about history and nature. The Flintstones taught me about life in the Stone Age and the Beverly Hillbillies educated me about life in Tennessee. Bugs Bunny taught me everything I needed to know about rabbits. Much of the time was spent watching commercials and preparing my Christmas list. In contrast, Ben and Evan know nothing about commercials because their parents don’t pay for cable television. Mommy downloads nature videos and podcasts. When Christmas comes near she says, “Granny, why don’t you get them a subscription to Kids Geographic?” This selective exposure has led to a limited education. They have taught me that the red-crested cardinal is a tanager not a cardinal, and the pine marten is a mammal while the purple martin is a bird. So far they’ve shown little interest in learning about Fred and Wilma Flintstone. And here is a problem. The parents are enjoying their shower. What is a granny to do? Suddenly I have a great idea. It is time to swallow my pride. “Evan,” I say, “Before I conduct the tour, I need a little education. Would you please tell me a few things about the cloud leopard?”

MOVIES

David and I spent 47 years together. During that time we saw very few movies. We were not much harmed by this lack, but it did stunt our capacity to participate in conversations about movies and to enjoy watching the Academy Awards. We might have watched more movies had it not been for the combination of two factors: David was a loud whisperer and a quiet sleeper. Had he been a quiet whisperer and a loud sleeper the situation might have been entirely different. But then, if I had been a sighted person rather than a blind person, none of it would have mattered. Movie theatres were fewer, larger and more crowded back in 1972 when our dating life began. We would wait in line for tickets and wedge into seats among strangers sitting beside, in front and behind. Things would be fine in this cozy environment until David would notice something happening on the screen and determine that I needed to know it. Then he would whisper a description—sort of whisper--more like a mutter really. “They’re walking across a street. Really tall buildings on both sides.” It suited me fine, but our fellow watchers didn’t like it much. If you listened carefully, you could hear them grumbling. “Quieter,” I’d whisper. It was my best advice, but he didn’t like it much. “I can’t be quieter,” he’d mutter. “Try harder,” I’d whisper—well, maybe it was more of a yelling whisper. Nobody liked it much. Not David. Not the people around us. Still we soldiered along for a while, searching every theatre for the least inhabited space where David could mutter descriptions. If there was one point, one single event that changed our behavior, it was likely the evening when we bumbled obliviously into a German movie with English sub-titles. Five minutes later we were back in the lobby, beging for a refund. “Other customers don’t like it when I read the subtitles to Wendy,” David sanctimoniously explained to the reluctant teen-ager behind the cash register. With no manager on site, he cut his losses and refunded our ticket price. It seemed that many people might be better off if David and I watched TV movies at home. Fortunately, he was a good-natured guy. If he regretted exchanging the big screen for our 13-inch black and white he did not complain. We would find a comfortable position, quite often lying on the couch together. The movie would start. He would describe the action in a normal voice. All would be well. As the movie progressed I would find it easier to follow, being familiar with the characters and what they might do. There was not so much need for help from David. But every silver lining has its cloud. While I was following the plot, he was falling asleep, only I wouldn’t know it, his being a quiet sleeper and all. “Bang bang!” a gun would shoot. “Who got shot?” I’d demand to know. “Shot? I don’t know,” David would reply sleepily. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” This is how a tiny spark of lovers’ quarrel blows into a raging blaze. “If you loved me you’d stay awake,” I’d shout. Neither of us liked it much. We were happily married, perhaps because we learned to reduce the possibility of those bang bang moments. They seldom occurred if we limited our movie watching to movies we’d already seen. Take, for example, The Sound of Music, or It’s A Wonderful Life. Now that David is gone, I find to my great surprise that I am watching a lot of movies, as many as one a day, sometimes two in a row, occasionally three. The stars have aligned to make it possible. Shaw channel 49 shows nothing but movies, I have plenty of spare time, and things have changed more than you might imagine. There’s no longer much need to whisper to blind people in theatres. Many movies now come with description for the visually impaired. You can ask the ticket clerk for a little machine with earphones to hear the extra information. At home you can push a few buttons and if they have recorded description you can hear it on your TV along with the movie sounds. There are many movies which have not yet been described. These are annoying, but now there are options that don’t require the participation of a spouse. If you need to know who shot who when a gun bangs, you can always get the anser in a full plot outline from Wikipedia. You don’t build up much movie history watching one or two new movies per year. The films I watch these days, so old to others, are new to me. You might recognize some of the names: To Kill a Mockingbird, Steel Magnolias, The bells of St. Mary’s, In The Heat Of The Night, Casablanca, Funny Girl, the Judy Garland version of A star Is Born. With great relish I drop their names in conversations with friends, mentioning plot details with such vivid intensity that I might have heard them only yesterday. Those who haven’t seen these movies in four decades are left with the impression that I am a remarkable movie enthusiast with a fabulous memory. Of course, when you discuss movies with friends, the topic inevitably turns to modern movies, to recent and future academy awards. In this realm I am no wiser than I used to be. But reputation is everything. Having already established myself in their eyes as a movie expert, I find it convenient to sit back with great interest and ask for their opinions.

DELIGHTS

“The more you study delight, the more delight there is to study.” –Ross Gay I am always on the look-out for new books, so my ears perked up when a radio program mentioned The Book of delights by ross Gay. In fact, the whole program was about delights, from the book and other places too. I’d been reading a lot about grief lately—appreciating it and yet wanting to move on. It struck me that this might just be the book I needed. “You should search for that book,” I said to myself, knowing I probably wouldn’t find it. It was the middle of the night when I heard that program. The chances of my remembering to look for it by morning were very slim. I turned off the radio, turned my pillow to the cool side and let it go. But I did remember to search for it! Right after breakfast there was one unscheduled half hour to spare before I needed to leave the house for our weekly bridge game. Ignoring the inner call to check my bank statement and reconcile my finances, I went straight to the website of the Edmonton Public Library. To my surprise I found an on-line audio version of the Book of Delights. Usually, when a book is recommended on the radio, fifty people go to the Internet and put it on hold before I get there. But this particular link said: Available. So I clicked Download. What’s more, I was able to figure out how to download it on my iPhone on the fourth or fifth try. I’d already heard the preface and half the first chapter before it was time to leave. Face it! I was a bit delighted. Now the game of bridge is known for the grief it causes when the social benefits become less important than the joy of winning. Fortunately for me, our bridge club is not afflicted by this misalignment of priorities. There’s plenty of time for visiting, and an occasional additional advantage. You win more games if you can interest your opponents so thoroughly in your topic that they are distracted from the task of bidding to win. “I’m reading The Book of delights by Ross Gay,” I announced in the spirit of helpfulness for the readers at our table. There was wonder in my voice. My opponent Mary-Lou looked up from her cards. “Oh,” she said, “I hope it’s not stupid like that book about awesome.” “What do you mean by stupid?” I answered in surprise. Believe me, I was genuinely interested. I have heard interviews with the author, Neil Pasricha, and visited the 1000 Awesome Things website, but I didn’t read the book. “Just stupid,” she repeated, “Unimportant if you like. For example, turning your pillow over to the cold side. When I read I am looking for something more substancial than that.” Silence fell. I was prepared to engage her in a debate about the inherent value of positive emotions such as awe and delight. But her partner was waiting for her to bid. “Oh,” she cried, “is it my turn to bid? One club!” “One club?” cried her partner in dismay. They didn’t win that game. But then, as my partner and I observed, winning isn’t so important in a social group. It was an awesome morning. Delightful, really!

MOURNING AT A WRITERS CLUB

“They tell you to keep busy or even to move out of your house. But in my experience, remembering the past makes hoping for the future possible.” --Alan D. Wolfelt “When you are sorrowful look again into your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” – Kahlil Gibran The Central Lions Seniors Association has a Tuesday morning writers club. We members write at home and read our writing together. My companions in this endeavour are an eclectic lot. They write about all sorts of interesting things: a mistress of Louis XV; the rise and fall of polio; attending a Rose Bowl game in Pasadena; the extraordinary dietary preferences of cats. With a few exceptions I usually write about one thing: my experience of reconciling with grief. I’d like to write about other things. Maybe someday I will. Those who write about grief and bereavement tell us our society is intolerant of grief, impatient for us mourners to move on. With this in mind I tend to approach the Tuesday musings with a cautious suspicion. This is the first time I’ve gathered with the same writers, week after week, month after month. I notice, in their passing comments, that the members worry about boring each other. I worry about that too. Can the day be far off when a weary listener will jump up screaming: “All right already! Get over it!” Alan Wolfelt is a renowned authority on grief. He differentiates between grieving and mourning. He says grieving is what you feel on the inside. Mourning is the outward expression of the grief. Mourning is the thing you do in order to reconcile with grief. Spoiler alert! He says the grieving may never stop and the mourning can go on for a long time. Sometimes I ask myself why, when I was looking for activity to fill my time, I chose to join a writers club rather than a grief support group. The people in a support group would have been sympathetic. They would have expected expressions of mourning. The leaders would have encouraged me to share my pain. So why choose a writers’ club? The answer is: I didn’t compare the two. I joined a writers club because I like to write for fun. I figured I wouldn’t need a support group if I was having enough fun. I didn’t have any topics in mind. I expected to make a few people laugh a little. How was I to know that my journey through grief would show up in almost everything I wrote, exposing my pain to a captive audience of unsuspecting strangers? Alan Wolfelt writes that mourners have six needs: acknowledge the reality of the death; embrace the pain of the loss; remember the person who died; develop a new self-identity; search for meaning; receive ongoing support from others. From my perspective, some of these needs take care of themselves. Others are more dependent on action from me. Some people have trouble acknowledging the reality of death. I’m having no difficulty with this. We spent several hours with David’s body after he stopped breathing. I’ve got the paperwork to prove it and his clothes are long gone. As for the pain, it does not wait for my embrace. It holds me in a hammer lock. After 47 years of closeness in David’s company, it’s quite an adjustment to accommodate the fact that other people don’t need to remember him as often as I do. I am working on that. Things get even more complicated when it comes to developing a new self-identity and finding meaning. That’s going to take a while. As for seeking ongoing support from others, that support can come in many forms. It might come in the company of close friends, or in a group united by a common thread. Grief support groups unite around the process of mourning. Is there any reason to take it elsewhere? Grief, I have found, is more persistent and more flexible than you might think. It is welcome in a support group, but it doesn’t need one so much if you can find other places to take it. It will tag along wherever you choose to go. Writers clubs unite around the process of writing. With little choice but to listen, the members of our writers club have graciously made room for my pain. It holds its own alongside the fascinating variety of topics others bring. Mourning is not a stable condition. The commitment to present writing to a group on a regular basis has helped me shape it in ways that offer some encouragement to me and possibly some entertainment value to us all. Grief doesn’t have to show up at a writers club naked and shivering. You can dress it up in stories. In recent weeks I have written about choirs, marshmallow parties and even Groundhog Day. Each story holds some quirky progress, the documentation of something getting better. Writing is a solitary activity. You explore topics of your own interest. You make your own meaning in your own words. A writers club gives you the added benefit of group support when you share that meaning in your own voice. It disappoints me some to discover that I have no choice about whether to grieve. I expected to be moving on by now. But I do have some choices about how to mourn. Mourning is not so bad if you can make it playful. Playfulness is welcome among writers. Perhaps that is the best defense against the possibility that some fellow writer will stand up and shout: “Enough already! Get over it!”

HALFWAY THROUGH

“Hope is the ‘Yes!’ to life.” –Ronna Jevne I’m halfway through the 22 hours of training you have to take if you want to be registered as a volunteer at Pilgrim’s Hospice. They provide services to people who are dying. So far we’ve covered the organization chart, policies and procedures, confidentiality, communication skills, family dynamics, and psychological issues. “Aren’t you bored?” my friends are asking. “We know how you hate policies and procedures. With your training and experience you could teach communication or family dynamics or psychological issues. Don’t you have better things to do with your time?” “Actually,” I reply with a half grin, “I love it.” They are surprised. I am twice as surprised. “What are you learning?” they want to know. I’d tell them, but the truth is, it’s too early to say. How do you really know what it is that you are learning until you have learned it? I’ve been wandering for a year now in the wasteland of widowhood and retirement. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out which way to go. In retirement I would have spent more time with my husband. In widowhood I would have returned to work. But what are you meant to do when you’ve been married for a long time and now you’re not? What are you to do when you’ve been working for a long time and now you’re not? Pondering the problem, I thought of setting a goal. But I’ve never been much of a goal-setter. As a compromise, I settled for a guiding principle I would try to follow: Just say “Yes!” My friend Jennifer invited me to join her at a singing event. I said “Yes!” We chose seats for no particular reason and later discovered that the singers in the row ahead were from Canmore. They told us that they sang together in a Threshold Choir. “What on earth is a Threshold Choir?” we asked. “We sing at the bedsides of people who are dying,” they replied. “It’s an international organization with a lot of local choirs. We love it. If you are interested, you should look on the Internet for the contact information for the Edmonton choir.” Each Threshold choir has a name. In Edmonton we have the Voices of Compassion Threshold Choir. The representative I contacted was both friendly and guarded. She told me the choir meets weekly to practice as a large group. They send people to the bedside in groups of three. There were questions she wanted me to answer. “Would you be comfortable at the bedside of a dying person?” “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been there a few times.” “Can you sing your own part in a trio without any music in front of you?” “Yes,” I said. “I have done that.” “Are you willing to take the volunteer training program at Pilgrim’s Hospice?” Hmmm! I might have said “Yes!” to that. I don’t exactly remember. If I did, I wasn’t being entirely honest. My real plan was to join the choir, then convince them that I didn’t need the training. The process of joining took longer than I expected. It is a small choir, formed only two years ago. They have learned a few things along the way. They have learned to be cautious about taking in new members. I had made the call in May, but it was already late in October when they invited me to a practice, and I was busier by then. I probably would have said “No,” had I not been so much in the habit of saying “Yes!” Now it’s January. After one whole year of wandering in the wasteland of retirement and widowhood I look back in wonder at how time could drag so much and pass so quickly. I had imagined learning to feel at home here. I don’t feel at home. I want to, because it looks like I’ll be here for a while, maybe even forever, learning how to survive, learning how to thrive. To survive means putting up with things you don’t love, like being alone much of the time, and not having a structure that pulls you out of bed on the days when you don’t feel like getting up. To thrive involves learning to recognize love when you feel it—learning the difference between doing things you don’t love and making sacrifices when you love something. It’s a distinction that’s hard for a grieving person to make. You spend a lot of time in an emotional fog. You become accustomed to feeling miserable while doing things you used to love I do love singing in a Threshold Choir. I love the music, challenging yet simple enough to allow all members to sing at a bedside in three-part harmony without the aid of a book. I love the way I feel after practice—warm and relaxed, the way you might feel after a long warm bath. I loved our Christmas party, when we drank a little wine and gave ourselves fully to the delight of singing rock songs at the top of our lungs until we were hoarse. I love the closeness of it—the way everyone cheers when I arrive at practice later than usual. These people, strangers to me such a short time ago, are cheering because I am there. I love it so much that I never did ask if I could skip the 22 hours of volunteer training at Pilgrim’s Hospice. I was pretty sure they’d say no because it wouldn’t much matter how smart or experienced I am. I would still have to go through the process. In 2020 you can’t just march into an institution and ask if they have any dying patients you can sing to. Somebody has to recognize an appropriate situation and invite you in. There are no hoops to jump if you are invited by a family member. But institutions won’t invite you or recommend you to families unless you have been cleared for entry by a criminal check and met their requirements for volunteer training. So I registered for the training, fully intending to sacrifice 22 hours to the boredom of sitting through presentations of familiar content. The joke’s on me. The content is just what I expected it to be and I am not bored. Here in the unfamiliar wasteland of retirement and widowhood, with more time than I need and emotions I’ve never before experienced, I never know what to expect.

MARSHMALLOWS

In the months following David’s death our son Lawrence would come over to watch TV in my livingroom. There I would occasionally come upon him, sitting in the chairs his father used to occupy, reaching down the sides to retrieve long lost treasures trapped in the upholstery between the arms and the cushions. “What are you finding?” I’d ask. I would be thinking of spare change and other things that escape from pockets. “Marshmallows,” he’d reply. And sure enough, he’d come up with a dusty dried-up miniature cylinder that must have been there for a while. “To the garbage,” I’d say. “In a minute,” he’d reply. “There are only minis here. I guess when Dad was eating the bigger ones they never fell down that far.” I’ve always been drawn to the sensuality of marshmallows. It’s not just the sweetness that compels me. I love their shape, their ends, flat enough to stand for themselves, and their round, rollable bodies. A marshmallow is a silent treat. Ten of them could roll off the counter and you’d still be able to hear a pin drop as they hit the floor. They are pliable yet resilient. They know what shape they are supposed to be, and somehow they manage to hold themselves and be pillow-soft at the same time. They are simultaneously smooth and rough. Heat them a bit and they’ll stick your fingers together, strong as Crazy Glue. Run warm water over your fingers and the marshmallow glue will disappear completely. From the perspective of physical properties, a marshmallow is a wondrous thing. As I began thinking about writing this piece, I was surprised to find that the only thing I really knew about marshmallows was how to eat them. How were they named? How were they made? Fortunately, Wikipedia was there to save the day. There is a plant, known as the mallow that grows in marshes and damp areas of Europe, Asia and North Africa. The mention of it brings to mind a lush green tree with puffy confections on all the branches. Miniatures would peak out from between the leaves, waiting to grow. But it wasn’t quite that simple. Showing characteristic leadership, the ancient Egyptians ground up the mallow roots, mixed them with other substances, whipped air into the sticky mixture and ate it for medicinal purposes. Much later the French figured out that you could fill a deep tray with corn starch, make holes in it, and pour in the melted marshmallow mixture. When the centre cooled and the starch hardened on the exterior, you could lift out the marshmallows which now had a soft elastic skin. Even later the process was refined to exclude the mallow plant. Modern marshmallows are made by heating corn syrup with sugar and mixing it with dissolved gelatin. The gooey mass is then fed through an extruder. It emerges as a long tube which is subsequently cut into pieces and coated in cornstarch. Lawrence has never cared much for family parties. Any excuse to miss one would do. So I was taken by surprise when he said we ought to have a party on January 10, the first anniversary of David’s death, all the more proof that grief changes people in ways you’d never predict. “We need to have marshmallows,” he said, “And Safeway white cake with thick icing.” It sounded like just the sort of party you’d have for our sweet-loving David—just the sort of party you’d have with him. He’d be there for sure, celebrating with family and inhaling the sugar. I could feel the incongruity of such an event, having David absent yet somehow present at the same time. I wondered whether pieces of his favourite cake would mysteriously vanish when we weren’t looking. Lawrence bought the cake on his own, but he and I did the marshmallow shopping together. It was a task he would not take lightly. I could see that he must have shopped for marshmallows with his dad. He lifted the bags from the shelf and inhaled their sweet aroma. Only the freshest, softest, fluffiest specimens would do. Each marshmallow had to stack independently, never sticking to its neighbours. You could assess this by gently caressing the packages. We came away with two large bags that met all his specifications. Like Lawrence, I am prone to sentimentality these days, drawn to things that can bring David to life—if only in the imagination. Marshmallows had a double meaning in our family. David was our personal marshmallow. If you asked him to account for an act of kindness or generosity, he’d grin and say: “I’m a marshmallow.” That was the only explanation you’d get. It was I who first assigned the label to him. I believe I was angry at the time. “You are a marshmallow,” I bellowed, pointing an accusing finger in his direction. Just what it was that caused the outburst I cannot now recall. No doubt he had raised my hackles by caving in sweetly on some point of order with the children. Did he allow somebody to have dessert when I had specifically warned that there would be no dessert until the dinner plate was cleaned? Did he permit someone to go swimming without having cleaned up the bedroom clutter? Whatever it was that he had done, I wanted him to know that I expected a firmer approach. But in choosing the name I had made a serious miscalculation. Calling him a marshmallow as a shaming device was about as effective as accusing skating ice of being smooth, or blaming diamonds for sparkling. It was a compliment. He loved marshmallows, and if he was one of them, then he had found his tribe. He was proud to be a member. If he could keep them around the house long enough for baking, David used miniature marshmallows to make Rice Krispies squares. He was so good at it that our daughter Ruth asked him to make a Rice Krispies cake for her wedding. In preparation He shopped for four nested wedding cake pans, 2 pounds of butter, 104 cups of cereal and 8 large bags of fragrant, soft, perfect miniature marshmallows. In the hot days of summer we were both happy that Ruth was getting married and sad that she would be moving away. David wanted to choose the perfect time for the making of the cake--to ensure the freshness and also leave spare time in case things didn’t go as well as expected. July evenings in Alberta tend to be warm, lit by a brilliant sun that sets some time around 10:00 and leaves a long soft twilight. They lure you outside for walking and barbecuing and gardening. But now and then you get a series of scorching days, followed by an evening where the sky bruises to black, the rain hammers everything and lightning flashes in all four directions to the undulating beat of continuous thunder. It was on such a night, with the windows wide open to let in the fresh cooling breeze, that we set about the task of constructing the huge cake that would send our daughter off to spend a new life in Ontario. With the tempest raging outside and me acting as baker’s helper, we measured and melted marshmallows into puffy sticky clouds. Then we mixed, marvelling at the way things change. It would never have occurred to us to use Rice Krispies squares as a wedding cake. But the cake we were constructing on this stormy night would boldly grace Ruth’s head table, adorned with a spray of removable flowers. It would be cut generously at the wedding, and served on the spot. The guests would snap it up and go back for seconds. Ruth would proudly say, “My dad made that cake!” And so it came to pass, that on January 10, 2020, with Ruth and her family living in Ontario, Lawrence, Mark and their loved-ones settled at my dining room table to gorge on over-sized slices of thickly-frosted cake and unlimited quantities of marshmallows. With me occupying the chair at the head where David would have sat, we indulged in marshmallow nostalgia. Lawrence and Mark recalled the Christmas morning when Mark’s wife Tracey gave them marshmallow guns—yes, guns that shoot marshmallows. Reverting to joyous childhood, they were pulling the triggers and firing marshmallows at one another. “Those marshmallows go to the garbage,” I said. As they retrieved the spent ammunition from dusty corners David said, “Are you just going to throw them out? Could you not eat them?” Eating Marshmallows was one of David’s favourite pastimes. He ate them in the evenings while watching TV. He also ate them when we camped. We tended to camp simply, in the bush where you find the mosquitos. We didn’t generally have running water, and we never had a good supply of running water hot enough to melt the sticky marshmallowness off our fingers. If we used mosquito repellant the marshmallows would take on the flavour. If we didn’t, then we had to scratch at the bites with sticky fingers. You could cut down on the stickiness by clapping a toasted marshmallow between two cookies and calling it a smore. But a smore was more fattening than a plain roasted marshmallow eaten on its own. I don’t suppose it had occurred to David that marrying a blind woman would relegate him to a life of roasting marshmallows for two. “Blind people don’t roast marshmallows,” I told him the first time he handed me a roasting stick. Just to prove it, I torched the first three I tried. “Blow them out when they catch fire,’ he said. “Blind people don’t see the flames until it’s too late,” I said. Sighing in resignation, David settled into a pattern. He would eat one marshmallow raw, roast one for me, then roast one for himself. Every so often he’d over-roast one that had been intended for himself, and if he could blow the flame out before it blackened, he’d hand it to me. I never minded a little bit of ash. You can know a lot about eating marshmallows, and still have more to learn. Sitting at my table, remembering his dad, Lawrence rolled a marshmallow in icing from the Safeway cake. “Icing on a marshmallow?” we exclaimed. “Did David do that?” “I don’t think so,” said Lawrence. “But it’s good. I think he would have liked it.”

WRITING THE CHRISTMAS LETTER: 2019

“If you use the bad parts to get to the good parts you’ve done something good.” Elton John In the last week before Christmas I agonized over the production of a Christmas letter, the kind you add a personal sentence to, and send out to everybody who writes to you, and everybody you expect to get something from, even some people you don’t get anything from and haven’t for years. Back in November, when I carefully contemplated what to write in such a letter, I had decided not to write at all. That plan held up very well until a week before Christmas when people began writing to me. David and I used to co-produce a Christmas letter back in the days when it could be signed with both our names. I’d make a start some time in November, asking David what he thought we ought to write. He’d mention a few things. I would keep at it, adding and deleting, until I deemed it ready for proof-reading. David would correct the typing and add a thought or two. “That’s fine,” he’d say. “It’s ready to send.” Without David in the physical world, I believed the writing of my 2019 Christmas letter would be a solitary pursuit. But then, things got complicated. It seemed I was dealing with two versions of myself. There was the me who had decided to write a Christmas letter, and a reluctant woman sitting at my computer, refusing to press the keys. “How hard can it be to write a Christmas letter?” I said to the reluctant woman. “All you have to do is tell people what you did this year. Start at the beginning. Here. I’ll show you.” Pushing her aside, I wrote a paragraph. “David died on January 10,” I wrote. “His last few days were difficult because we often couldn’t understand what he wanted to say. But he was determined to be understood. He insisted that I immediately put money for 2019 into his tax free savings account.” He didn’t say, “You will have the money after I die if you put it in while I’m still alive.” But we both knew what he meant. He meant: “Go do it right now.” I showed my paragraph to the reluctant woman. She was outraged. “You can’t start a Christmas letter that way,” she scolded. So I pushed Delete and started over. “We were all saddened by David’s death at the beginning of the year,” I wrote. The reluctant woman stayed my hand. “That’s not entirely true,” she said. The truth is, you weren’t that sad because you thought it was time. You’re a lot sadder now than you were then. One of your favourite memories happened right after he died. Remember how you sat with him, marvelling at how his twisted tortured body had suddenly relaxed, how you lingered with him, holding his hand in absolute peace. That doesn’t sound very sad to me.” “Should I take it out then?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said. “Should I add the part about being peaceful at the end?” The reluctant woman was—well—reluctant. “Maybe you should skip David altogether and do what other people do. Try describing your grandchildren.” I pressed Delete and started over. “All five grandchildren make a project of delighting their Granny. Carys is a gymnast with a fondness for unicorns and Lewis can charm you while climbing on top of a table at lightning speed. Ben has learned to read in two languages, Evan builds something with Lego every morning before he goes to school, and Clara spent most of last week pretending to be a baby lion.” After that, I couldn’t think of another thing to say. So I wandered around the house, pouring cups of coffee, setting them down on various tables and losing track of them before I’d finished. “Come back here and finish this letter,” nagged the woman who had previously been sitting at my computer. “And don’t push the Delete key. This stuff about your grandchildren has potential. It just needs a little fluffing up. Take a break from that topic and tell them about your travels.” Feeling a little bit encouraged I wrote that I’d made four trips to Guelph, one to spirit River, one to Jasper and one to Vancouver. I spiced it up with some stories of cruising in French Polynesia. I was conscientious about naming people who had been there for me during my travels. Then I got up, searched the house, and used the microwave to warm the coffee from some of the abandoned cups. “Be happy,” I said to myself. When I sat down again I deliberately wrote about happy things. I wrote that I was happy to be living in my apartment, happy to be walking in my neighbourhood, to be playing bridge and going to exercise classes and writing for fun with new friends at the Joy of Writing Club. I wrote that I had joined two choirs. I mentioned that I still facilitated hope groups, having not quite completely retired from my work in hope studies. All of this was true, and my confidence grew—until it didn’t. In its place there came a tsunami of grief that sent me running to my bed where I howled in abject misery. “What now?” I cried out to the reluctant woman. “Do I have to quit, after all the work I’ve done?” “I don’t know,” she said. “But don’t push the delete button.” Instead of continuing the letter, I went back to the computer and read an on-line article in Psychology Today. “You can’t outrun grief,” the author boldly declared. The reluctant woman considered this. “You are the living proof of that,” she said to me. “Perhaps you should grieve a while. Maybe you’ll be able to finish the letter tomorrow.” In our forty-five years of marriage David and I read hundreds of Christmas letters. Some were funny. One relative always drew her year in cartoons. Another used the language of a medieval castle. Some were informative—births, marriages and such. Others were boring. Enough said about that. But there was one letter that chilled us so thoroughly to the bone that we had to turn to each other for comfort. It was a devastating life summary, sent by Cousin Lila. It was cloaked in sadness and despair. Her husband and all his siblings had Alzheimer disease. She wrote details about each of them. She ended the litany by wishing all of us a Merry Christmas. “Lila is depressed,” I said to David. He said, “Everything in this letter is probably true, but I wouldn’t send it at Christmas time.” With this in mind, I turned back to the reluctant woman. “I’m not Cousin Lila,” I said, “and I’m not Susie Sunshine either. I want to write a Christmas letter. Who am I?” anyway?” “You’re a grumpy, weepy, unpredictable griever living a basically happy life,” she said. And so it was that I found myself back at the computer the following morning, cleaning up my writing and developing an opening paragraph something I hoped would tell a truth that could reasonably be followed by Merry Christmas wishes. “It will be a different sort of Christmas this year. No doubt each of us will miss David in our own way, though it has been some time since we had a Christmas that wasn’t influenced by the need to accommodate illness. I would say that grief in my case is less a gradual process of healing over time and more a situation where kamikaze attacks occur when you are doing well in the big picture. I’ve been concentrating on learning new things, having fun and paying it forward as a tribute to the small army of people who have been lighting up my life over the past few years.” The reluctant woman and I checked it over with a critical eye. It was a longish letter, a little too perky, a little too busy. But the time had come to add personal greetings and send it anyway. Out went the copies, one by one. After so much dilly-dallying, I had expected to be pleased. Instead, I found myself turning apologetically to the memory of David. “I’m sorry that letter seems so cheerful,” I said to him. “I failed to mention how broken-hearted I am. They should be told that every fiber of my being still wishes you were here. I wanted to tell them how utterly bereft I get when I think that all my future Christmas letters will be written without you. How could I have edited it all out?” But the memory of David was remarkably unperturbed. “We couldn’t have sent such a letter,” was his response. “It’s not in our nature. If we couldn’t have said something good, we wouldn’t have said anything at all. But I do think you could have mentioned the tax-free savings money we put in my name back in January. You’ve had that money in savings for a whole year now. That’s $5,500 plus interest you won’t have to pay taxes on. It is an accomplishment worth celebrating.” “Too late for this Christmas letter,” I said. “That story will have to be written elsewhere.”