Colour and Sunshine

(Written February 27th)

Another sunny day!!  I was able to take Dad outside again....yes I put sunscreen on him!  It was a bit of a chilly wind but we found the sun beautifully warming and very bright.

Today is my sister's birthday.  I ask Dad if he knows that...he said yes but I'm never sure if he's covering up the fact that he might not remember clearly.  I'm never sure if I should ask him if he remembers something...I don't want him to feel bad if he has actually forgotten.  Dad reminisces again of walking the shores of the Zürich-see....at least I think that's what it is.  I have a deep regret in me that I never toured Zurich or Switzerland with Dad so he could explain all of his hang outs and favourite spots.  I know that at some point Andrew will take a trip there and want to go skiing on Zermatt....again...I think.  Dad has instilled this desire in my son and if I don't get a chance to take Andrew myself, I hope that he will have the travel bug and some great friends and go and explore Switzerland and Europe on his own.

When we came inside to warm up in the little glassed in seating area, I hear these two young people (I say young because they are younger than I am.....likely in their 20's) and they are talking with the young man's grandfather.  I chuckle at the conversation that goes something like this...

"Are there still loons on the lake Gramps?"  (I wonder if he means in general or like RIGHT NOW, which would then make it a pretty stupid question.  Of course there are no loons...they migrate dummy)

"Ya" the grandfather answers.  There's a substantial pause...

"What's a loon" the girlfriend asks.  Seriously????  It's on our fucking dollar coin!  Are you Canadian?  I hear she lives in BC and apparently they don't have loons out in BC....but...IT'S ON OUR DAMN "LOONEY". (Sorry about the potty mouth, it slips out every now and then)

"It's like a duck" the boyfriend says.  WHAT???  Now I'm just trying to hide my face and the incredulous look that I most likely have smeared all over it!

I won't go into the rest of the conversation, it was just weird.....and sad.  I find myself being a little too judgy.  That's my new word - judgy.  I hate judgmental people so I am very critical of myself when I find I am being THAT person.  It's hard sometimes to hold back the judginess....so I admonish myself and try to find excuses as to why these humans that I am judging are behaving the way that they do.  I am not sure if I fear being judged by others.  I believe that if your actions are with good intent, than ye shall not fear judgment!  Whoa...that sounded a little too religious for me.  Where does judgement come from?  A lack of knowledge or education?  A lack of experience?  Worldliness? I don't know.  I've stopped worrying about it for today.

I got Dad settled into his room again in a nice warm beam of sunshine (like a cat) so he could rest before Mom came over the dinner time.  With the beautiful sunshine, it was a wonderful drive home, very rich in colour and picturesque scenery.  I think about stopping the car a couple of times to take a photo but I always fear that the picture I take won't really do the scene justice.  So I carry on, telling myself that there will be many opportunities to see such things again and that my memory is as good as any camera...we'll see.  In my minds eye I snap photo after photo of scenes with long blue shadows cast on the very clean and unblemished surface of snow created by very stark, dead and grayed trees of pine or cedar.  It's wonderful!

My day ends driving to and from Barrie to take Andrew to his volleyball practice.  It's a good one and he is practiced well.

It was a good day.

Should I ever win the lottery

(Written February 26th)

Of course, one would have to play the lottery in order to win the lottery.  But if I did play, and if I did win big, what would I do with the winnings.  What would you do?

If the jackpot was substantial enough, I'm at a point in my career that I would quit my job.  There are enough young teachers out there that are eager and willing to fill my shoes.  As I am often reminded, everyone is replaceable.  I would pay off all of my debts.  I would give a large portion to my other family members to do with as they wish.  I would invest and I would travel.  Winning the lottery would be an easy way to solve some financial issues.

Ultimately, if I had unlimited funds, I would grant my father a dying wish.  There are 2 really, one he has voiced and the other he has spoken of at length as a wish he could have done at some point in his life.

Yesterday, Dad voiced his wish to get on a private charter plane and travel to Zurich, hire a driver and tour all of his hangout places, fly back to Canada and come right back here to his hospital bed.....not so difficult really?  What kinds of funds would that require?  I dream.....how hard would that be to pull off?  Mom told him he would need to take 2 nurses with him....which he would be ok with.   Dad also said that it would be very nice for mother to join him.  So how, without having unlimited resources and being a multi-millionaire with connections, do people actually make a request like this happen....? Quite simply, you don't.  So my only wish is that I can fill Dad's last precious moments with richness in other ways since I don't think I can make the Zurich visit happen.

Dad's second lifelong wish has always been to visit Russia.  Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Hermitage Museum.  I've heard about these places for as long as I can remember.  I fear that if I was to ever visit any of these places, that they wouldn't live up to the images Dad had painted for me in my mind (kind of like trying marroni - a chestnut paste which Dad always thought was quite devine) Perhaps these places hold a special mystique for Dad of places far far away. Places he thought were difficult to visit.

Well, I didn't play the lottery, I'm not a millionaire so I guess I too will dream.....

Everyday is not just another day

The day comes to a close and in my head I'm thinking, "Whew, I can finally relax".  It's 10:30pm for god sake!  What the hell!  It's a Friday night and I'm in bed.  How did it come to this?  I'll tell you how it came to this...it's called PARENTHOOD.

I decided to take a day at home today and not visit my Dad.  I had many things to do that needed to be done on a weekday and had to be done soon.  Part of my responsibility was coming home and taking care of my kids during my week 'on'.  Time to shower them with unconditional love, advice and food! (I've been told it's important to feed my kids).  And for a day off, it was quite the whirlwind!

In general, my day went like this: get up because dog has to pee....take dog out, bring dog in, feed dog so she doesn't make those droopy puppy dog eyes at me, make lunches, wake younger kid (who is 11 and special needs - I'll likely chat about him a lot), wake older kid (I'll likely talk about him a lot too), go back and make breakfast, get younger kid dressed and moved to kitchen so he can have his liquid breakfast, go back and wake older child, take both children to school (usually it's only the younger one as the older one can walk but it's raining today and I'm off so I can treat the older one to a ride), come home, do business on computer, go to town to do business there, go to another town to do more business there, come back to first town to do business at a couple of other places including shopping, go home do one last piece of business on the computer, go and pick up younger kid from after school program, go out to Forest home (my ex's house) to pick up the older kid (he had to go there to get his shoes for a dance tonight - it's a 20 min drive each way), come home again, cook dinner, feed kids, help older kid get ready for school dance, drive kid to dance, feed younger kid more food, put younger kid to bed, entertain older kids' friend that is staying over (older boys have volleyball tournament tomorrow), pick up older kid from school dance......and here we are.

If you ask any other parent with involved children, or multiple children, I'm sure they will all have a similar if not more involved day and yes, I have left out all of the things we all do daily like eat, let the dog out and catch up on  news and social media.  So why am I going on about all of these mundane things?  Within all that is normal and routine, there are wonderful moments that I have to stop and absorb and it is these fleeting moments that make each day special....we as humans need to harness the 'special' that happens EVERY DAY in our lives.

My first special moment was hearing Zac (my youngest) laugh as he woke up this morning.  I love when he laughs, it makes me laugh.  I went to the library and got an audiobook (for all of the long drives I am taking - I need a break from radio play music).  As I started to listen to it, it featured a cello solo....it was beautiful and rich.  I get an update on Dad from Mom who says that it was an uneventful day.  This is great news in the world of Dad!!  It means nothing was wrong today.  I watched Andrew (my oldest) get dressed in his suit for his semi-formal dance....hair, shirt, tie and he let me help him put his jacket on.  He looked so handsome!  And finally, before I went to bed, I checked on Zac sleeping...so relaxed, so content, feeling safe, feeling cozy under his big duvet.  I love watching him sleep. I puff up when I see him all vulnerable like that, as a protective parent should, I guess.  All of these happenings helped enrich my day, helped me appreciate all that I have.

Which brings me full circle to my Dad again.  As I am shifting a sleeping Zac under his duvet, I can't help feel bad for Dad who has expressed deep sadness in the fact that he will miss out on so many things if he dies.  It's a wisp of a thought, fleeting out of my head as quickly as it arrived.  But it was still there.  I suppose what I am experiencing is similar in nature to Oprah's practice of writing down each day what you are grateful for.  No doubt there are some days when finding the 'special' seems impossible, but I think we need to try and find the special, if not in something that we did, than in something that happened to someone else for there is special everywhere.  One day after a beautiful drive on my way to see Dad, I posted this, "The world is full of incredible simple beauty...if we just take the time to really look."  I am really looking, not searching, but looking.....seeing....noticing....

Day 2 of many....

Dad got his teeth back, I won a Tim Horton's coffee!  Everything is good in the world!!

However, I am finding out that Dad is full of shit!  Hasn't stopped pooping all morning.  Which really cuts into our rally time in his wheely chair.  He must have kick started his colon again yesterday with the quantity of food he ate.  Amazing how a man can eat so much spaghetti without teeth! So, we're waiting for a break in the action so we can tour the halls.  

To take dad's mind off of things I set up his table and got out his sketchpad and charcoal.  He had an image in his mind.  How wonderful it was to see the concentration on his face, the small strokes of the charcoal, think lines,  edges, thin strokes and the gentlest of smudges from his aged hands.  An underlying commentary of, "that's supposed to be a birch tree"  still sketching...."I'm envisioning a field, smokey grey with mist and fog"...."I used to be able to draw trees...".  Nothing was said with anger or frustration.  Just matter of fact, never wavering or glancing away from his paper. 

My father is a pretty good artist.  When I was about 7, we were camping in Wildwood Park near Honey Harbour on Georgian Bay.  Dad would bring his big art box full of oil paints and tools.  I loved the smell of that box.  It's brass locks and hinges, all of the wood inside covered with flecks of oil paint from tubes of paint that might not have been closed properly.  The small Heinz babyfood jar full of dirtied varsol.   Stubby brushes, a pencil and the ever important painters spatula and his palette full of smears and blobs and wonderful colours.  I yearned to use that stuff, to manipulate the paint as dad had done so many times.  

So on one sunny summer vacation day, I asked dad to teach me how to paint.  He said ok.  I was so excited!  He set me up with a pencil and a coarse piece of paper and said, "Ok, draw a circle." Around I went with my pencil....voila!  "No, do it again and again without leaving the page" I looked at him questioningly but didn't say anything...so a drew circles.....again and again.  After 10min or so I thought I was an expert and I was ready for paint!....Nope, all I got was another piece of paper.  Needless to say, I never got to paint.  I got bored and decided to go fishing instead (some may argue that fishing would be just as boring...I might agree!). To this day I have not used dad's oil paints but I can still draw a damn fine circle!

It seems to be a bed day for Dad. He's resting, somewhat uneasily. Full of hand twitches and snoring puffs.  He desperately wants to go outside but we can't until his bowels give him a break.   These are the times I feel sorry for Dad and the elderly in general.  Loss of control, loss of dignity, loss of awareness, loss of movement...feeling like a prisoner not only in the room with its close 4 walls but captive and stuck in a body unwilling to work properly, lost in years gone by.  And yet, here I am, very much in the present making memories that I am sure to remember when I am 86 years old...

It's a beginning...

I could take my musings to a very deep level....but maybe not today.  Life is funny with its twists and turns...some light and radiant, some dark and gloomy.  All make for an interesting journey.   The joy in the journey comes from within and how each individual reacts to their daily happenings.

So, here I sit, in the Haliburton Hospital,  listening to my father gently snore as he rests after looking at some impressionistic artwork.  It's not a hard task.  Some might say it would be boring to this 7 or 8 hours a day.  But it's not.  I just imagine how Dad's 24hr day would be boring and then complaining about my day becomes a moot issue.

Dad had a good night last night. Said he slept well, he's says mostly due to the meds they gave him.  We've taken a walk to our favourite little nook to enjoy the view outside.  We're waiting for the sun to shine...says he needs to roll up his pant legs to get some some sun on his legs.  I'll try not to burn him like I did this past Saturday....but what glorious sunshine there was!  And who was I to deny him his rest in the sun.  My Mom has made sure that there is ample sunscreen available for him now.

The denturist came by last night...took his top teeth away for 24hrs.  Food services woman said she'd make a note for his food to be soft for the next 3 meals....so they served him toast for breakfast!  Dad said, "They served toast for breakfast.... It looked good...but I couldn't eat it!"  Damn!  That's rough for a man that isn't eating much anyway.  We'll head back shortly to see what crunchy stuff they'll serve him up for lunch.

This morning Dad said he is homesick.  I asked for where, hoping not to invoke too much sadness in him.  He commented that he was missing Zürich,  where he lived and grew up.  He still has sisters there, be them all but estranged from him.  Not sure if he wants me to make contact with them. 

Time passes....

Dad ate lunch very well today and was able to use his right arm to feed himself.  Cream of celery soup....with 2 packets of pepper.  They gave him an extra soup to make up for the tease of toast they sent him for breakfast. 

What a luxury!  There's hot water today!  I was able to soak Dad's nicely browned face with a hot towel to get him ready for a shave.  Must remind myself to buy some new razors...and not to pull and lift off the skin at the same time!  I've been quite spectacular at giving dad a shave...haven't knicked his jugular yet!  

We are currently sitting outside hoping for sun.  Dad is restless, and awake which is more than I can say about yesterday.  After running around in the morning getting things packed and driving over from Bracebridge,  I was able to spend the better part of the day hanging out with Dad.  At around 7pm I called it a day and left him in the hands of my sister.  Shortly after I left, while talking to mom on my sisters' phone my mom asked, "Did you have a nice visit with Corry?"  "Yeah, she was only here for a little bit..." Dad replied.  So much for me thinking he was more aware.  Maybe today will be different.  But I guess when one sleeps that much, time has a way of playing funny tricks on you.  Day becomes night, night becomes day, each nap is a day complete.  A hospital is like a city, it never truly sleeps....