Does my dad's spirit live on after death?

A few days ago I had a strangely mystical experience while snacking on my back deck. It was a lovely summer evening and I was going out in an hour to meet friends for drinks, but I thought I should eat a bit before I went out so I pulled a box of crackers from the cupboard and found some cream cheese in the fridge. That seemed like a boring combination on its own so I delved further into the fridge and found an open jar of jam. It was quince marmalade that my dad made. It was the last jar I had. I'd opened it several months ago, and I'd been using it up slowly ever since. It seemed like it would go well with the cream cheese, so I took my snack ingredients out to the back deck and started assembling cheese and crackers and jam.

I should say at this point that months I've been feeling distant from my Dad's memory. My friend B who was close to my dad says sometimes when he's feeling sad or confused he wonders what my Dad would say, and then he feels a warm glow like my Dad's really there, and then he knows what to do. I know B's trying to comfort me when he says that - as if to say my Dad's not really gone - but it actually makes me feel sadder because I never feel my Dad's presence the way B does. I just feel like he's gone.

I thought about that while I sat eating on the deck, and I also thought about a Fringe Festival show I went to a few weeks ago. It was a one-woman show by the wife of a guy in my writing group - it was called "What! You're a Medium?" and in it my friend's wife told us the story of how she'd come to feel connected to the spirit world (it started when she was eight) and how she'd grown up to become a professional medium giving people messages from beyond the grave. She asked people in the audience if they had photos of dead loved ones they wanted to hear from and several people held up their hands. She did about a dozen "readings" saying things like - "This is your mom? She worries that you work too hard," and "This is your wife? She's happy you've found a new girlfriend. She likes her." Everyone who had a reading done looked very moved.

As I sat on the back deck eating my dad's jam I was aware of feeling disconnected from my dad, and it occurred to me that where B and the medium were choosing to connect I was actively choosing not to even try to. When I feel sad and confused I never wonder what my dad would advise. And at the Fringe show I could have given the medium a photo of my dad but I'd decided not to. I'd felt sure that even if she conveyed a "message" from him I wouldn't have believed it and that would have made me feel even more alone.

After I'd thought about that for a while and gone through about a twenty crackers with cheese and spoonfuls of jam on them, I wondered what it would be like if I made a different choice. How would it feel if I actually tried to reach out?

I breathed in, breathed out. I thought of the last time my dad sat on my deck, how he'd closed his eyes and almost fallen asleep. I imagined his spirit out in the universe, watching me now as I ate the last of his jam.

Then, as I was scraping the very last bits from the bottom of the jar I heard a clap of thunder. I looked up to see that where blue sky had been just moments earlier there was now a small thundercloud. Gentle rain began to patter. Then a rainbow appeared. The rain never got hard. The cloud passed quickly. And ten minutes later it was over.

In life my dad was always quiet man, never one to roar and shout. But that thunderclap did remind me of him at the hospital in a moment just before he died. He was unconscious by then and after several hours of strange, increasingly intense breathing he let out a long moan. It went on forever, as if his lungs were emptying out every molecule of oxygen. It was probably some automatic thing his body did, some convulsion as his organs failed, but what it felt like was the moment he stopped fighting death. It felt like the moan was his spirit yelling "Okay, here I come!" He died a few minutes later.

I don't really believe that me scraping out the bottom of a jam jar caused that freakish isolated thunderstorm. Or that the thunder was my dad yelling, "I'm still here. Don't forget me!" Or that the rainbow was his way of reminding me that life is beautiful. Or that the gentle rain was his blessing. 

But for the last few days since it happened, I have felt closer to my dad in spirit than I have in months.

Because the museum was too far to walk - Vacation diaries day 13

As the taxicab careened into the traffic of Belgrade and away from the pier where our ship was docked, I wondered - was I making a mistake?

It’s hard to believe I’ve been back for two weeks now. The internet connection for the last few days of our cruise down the Danube was lousy, so I wasn't able to put up any more posts, but I've been thinking a lot about those days travelling through the Balkans - and that afternoon in Belgrade in particular.

On the tour bus that morning the guide had shown us many beautiful sights, but I’d also taken note of:
- tram cars that looked like they'd been new in 1967
- a tent-city in a riverside park that looked like it was populated by refugees
- the hollowed-out remains of the what used to be the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense (it was bombed by NATO during the war over Kosovo in 1999).

Yugoslav Defense Bldg - photo Tomislav Jagust

As the bus idled at a red light on our way back to the ship, I noticed a small brass plaque beside a dreary office door that read: "Republic of Serbia - Anti-Corruption Agency." What kind of a country needs an agency like that, I wondered, then I realized I had to adjust my frame of mind.

On our way down the Danube, we'd started out in wealthy Germany and Austria, then traveled through the somewhat poorer former Soviet bloc - Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Now we'd arrived in a country that was recovering from a recent war, and couldn't afford to tear down let alone rebuild, a major downtown office building. We'd entered the "developing world" and now I had to get used to the idea that my own wealth far exceeded that of the people around me.

After lunch on the ship my mom said she wanted to go see the Nikola Tesla museum. Our guide had told us that the original inventor of Alternating Current was a Serb, and that many of his inventions were displayed there.

I wanted to make my mom happy, but the museum was too far for her to walk in the 35 degree heat, so half an hour later, as my mom made her way up the gang plank into the sweltering heat, I was thanking the desk clerk profusely. The ship didn't normally exchange currency, but she'd managed to scrounge up a 1000 Dinar bill and sold it to me for 8.50 Euros. And she'd also found a waiter on board who could speak Serbian - and through him she'd ordered us a taxi.

Serbian "Anti Corruption Agency"

The waiter was a handsome young Romanian man with jet black hair and pale skin. He walked with us along the pier to where the cab was waiting. He told the driver where we wanted to go and I watched the driver nod. Then I asked the waiter to find out how much the ride was likely to cost. He said 450 dinar.

I stood on the sidewalk, doing the math. I had enough to pay for the ride, but not enough for admission and another cab to get us home. I just had to hope I could change some more Euros there.

I climbed in and the driver took off into traffic, careening across tram lanes, speeding through intersections, and weaving madly through a three-laned traffic circle.

Some trams looked very old.  Photo: public-transport.net

When I think back to that moment in the cab, I remember giddy panic rising as I realized I might be getting us in over our heads - the museum might not be able to change our Euros, the cab driver might try to cheat us, or we might end up dead in a traffic accident. The feeling reminds me of a moment I had with my dad in the hospital a few days before he died.

He was restless, edging his way over to the side of his bed, gripping the hand-rail, pulling himself up. I asked if he wanted to go to the bathroom. He was having a hard time speaking by then, but he managed to get out the word "no." Then he eased his legs over the side of the bed. I asked if he wanted to walk. He could barely stand on his own by then, but the day before we'd "gone for a walk," which meant making our way around his bed, him gripping the side rail, me holding on to him. He nodded.

We'd only made it a few steps before his legs began to give way. I braced myself but he was too heavy. I called out to my mother, who was sitting in the corner, but she didn't understand when I asked her to bring over the chair. My heart began to pound. I cursed my own pride, thinking I knew how to help a feeble man walk. This was the kind of thing that nurses and orderlies got trained for. I should have rung the bell, asked for help. I shouldn't have tried to help him by myself.

In the end Dad didn’t fall. Mom wheeled over the commode chair just in time and I managed to ease him into it. Later, after my heart had slowed down, my dad muttered something. I leaned in to hear. It took effort for him to get each word out. “I… guess… I’m… not… perfect,” he said, and it dawned on me that he thought our near fall had been his fault. I chuckled. It was an old family joke, his pretending to be perfect – or almost perfect at any rate. I stroked his hand. “Of course you’re not perfect. After 89 years you’re just figuring that out?”

I didn’t have many opportunities to make that kind of mistake with my dad. He was only feeble enough to require my help for the last six weeks of his life. With my mom, I’ll be helping her for years to come, or I hope so anyway. So I imagine similar situations will come up again - her wanting something, me wanting to please her and not recognizing when I'm about to put us both at risk. I imagine I'll need to get better at asking for help, and also at saying no to her when something's not safe.

Thankfully, that afternoon in Belgrade the cab got us to the Tesla museum unscathed. And though they wouldn't take my Euros at the ticket booth, several other people from the cruise were already there. One of them happily gave me a second 1,000 Dinar bill. It was enough to pay for admission and a taxi back to the pier. I breathed a sigh of relief as we boarded the ship again.

Dances with Aki: Vacation diaries Day 12

September 2: There is a very nice gentleman on board this Danube cruise who loves to dance. The musicians who play each night in the Panorama Lounge aren't very good, but that doesn't stop Aki. 

I told him my mom used to like to waltz with my dad and then the next time a tune came up with a waltzable beat he asked her. 

As they glided around the dance floor one of the women watching exclaimed to the friend next to her "look at the smile on her face!". 

Then she looked at me and saw I was filming it all. "Look at the smile on your face too," she said to me. 

Which was when I realized I was grinning. It was lovely to see my mom up on the dance floor, though of course it also made me think of my dad. I've never seen my mom dance with any one else.

Later Aki asked me to dance to a salsa tune and then a pop tune came up after that and a whole bunch of people got up to dance freestyle. My mom watched from her seat and when I sat down she said "I've never seen you dance before." She said I'd looked good, and that my dad would have been proud - which brought tears to my eyes.

It was odd to think my mom had never seen me dance. It's something I enjoy a lot, and yet not something she knew about me.  She's never been to a club with me, or gone to any of my friend's weddings.  

Spending these two weeks together means I am revealing parts of myself that I'd kept hidden without thinking.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. It seems both nice (she's finally getting to know me) and scary (what else will I accidentally reveal about myself?).

My mom gets confused: Vacation diaries Day 7

Today we went for a walk in Durnstein.

August 28: My mom gets confused each time I go to take her photo. When she travelled with my dad she was always the one who had the camera, so there aren't many photos of her on those trips.

Now every time I point the camera and tell her to smile she and gets this look on her face like "why would you want to take a picture of little old me?" Then she smiles obediently, humouring me in my mysterious wish to capture her image.

In this habit of photo taking I'm clearly reinforcing my "not-husband" status in our relationship.

I find looking at these photos afterwards oddly reassuring. Seeing her grins captured in pixels helps convince me she's having a good time.

The perils of Prague: Vacation diaries Day 3

August 24: This accidental selfie tells a lot of the story: I'm looking worried, my mom is looking at the ground, the scenery of Prague is laid out behind us.

There are also lots of pictures where we’re smiling and those are also true to how it's going - so far we've enjoyed many delicious meals, an art nouveau exhibit, a concert of the Royal Czech String Orchestra, the Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge. 

But that accidental selfie is the one that speaks most to how I’ve been feeling for the past three days.

Five years ago for her 85th birthday I took her to Chicago for a long weekend, and I’m painfully aware of how much frailer she is now. She runs out of breath very easily and doesn’t have very good balance, so when we go anywhere we have to walk together very slowly, with her leaning on my arm most of the time.

I know the reality is that she’s doing incredibly well. There aren’t many 90 year olds who could walk around Prague Castle all morning, and still be game to walk over a kilometre downhill to the 15th century Charles Bridge. But I also know she doesn’t recognize her limits. After the castle I suggested several times that we could go back to the hotel, but she kept insisting she was fine to walk some more, and then when we got to the Bridge and she finally admitted would like a taxi we were in the middle of a pedestrian zone, and there was nothing to do but keep going to the other side.

Also worrying is the way she keeps seeing things. In the plane on the way over she said

“Look at the farms down there,” as she looked out the window.

“What do you mean? I can’t see anything that looks like farms.” I replied. We were at 40,000 feet and all I could see beyond the expanse of the wing was thin clouds with the faint indication of green land far below. We were flying over Labrador at the time.

“There are four buildings,” she insisted, “and long straight lines that could only be farm fields.”

“We’re way too high up to see anything like that,” I said.

She kept looking out, and a few minutes later said “Oh, it’s the wing.”

I looked out again, and there were four large rivets on the wing that did look a bit like farm buildings might, but only if we were flying 500 feet up. We’d already discussed the fact that mostly all we could see out the window was the wing, but I guess she’d forgotten that.

There’ve been other perception problems – like tonight when she said a piece of lighting equipment at the concert was a sculpture of a bird, and the time she got lost in the hotel room while trying to make it back to her bed after turning out the light.

Tomorrow we take a bus to the ship where we’ll stay for the next ten days as we sail down the Danube. I can’t wait. It will be a relief to have her tucked away in a stateroom, looking out at the scenery as it passes by. I hope I’ll be able to finally relax then.

"I am not taking your husband's place"

The dining room table today.

Diary of a vacation with my mom: Day 1, August 22 

“I am not taking your husband’s place.” I remember saying those words to my mom last year, and lately they've been ringing in my ears.

It was a few days after my dad died. My brother had gone back to Toronto after the funeral, and I was staying on for a few more days. My mom and I were about to sit down for dinner.

The dining table at my parents’ house is eternally cluttered. On a typical day you might find three days’ worth of newspapers, a tin full of cookies, a silver tea pot, dozens of letters from charities asking for money, an arrangement of flowers long past their best before date, the program for a concert, a jar of homemade red currant jelly, and the paper napkins saved from yesterday’s meal because they aren’t all that dirty yet – and all of that that would just be covering one corner.

From this miasma I had cleared two places for my mom and I to eat, and set out cutlery and glasses. I was pouring the wine when Mom brought in the frozen spinach pizza she’d heated for us.

She looked at the places I’d set out.

“Well you don’t have to sit at the end anymore,” she said, her tone suggesting the spot I’d chosen was obviously undesirable. She pointed to the place across from her. “You can sit over there now.”

I looked where she was pointing and said, “I am not taking your husband’s place.”

The words hung in the air, both of us realizing the deeper meaning my words unintentionally carried.

Then my mom put the pizza down and we didn’t say anything more about it.

I’ve thought about that moment many times. Because the reality is, over the past year I have taken her husband’s place, in more ways than one. When I’m in Ottawa I drive her around as he did, I sit beside her at church, and I pour the wine when we sit down for dinner.

Each time I feel like there’s an awkward a process of adaptation underway as we figure out together how to feel like mother and daughter together, instead of not-husband and not-wife. 

Today our journey into his territory will go one step further. Because today I become my mother’s travel companion.

The tour starts with three days in Prague and then we cruise down the Danube through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. We fly out today, and for the next two weeks we’ll be together constantly, sharing a room.

As I sit in my old bedroom, contemplating the map of where we're heading, and listening to my mother puttering downstairs with her last minute packing, I worry that I’ll be so preoccupied about her health and happiness that I won’t remember to have a good time on this trip.

While we’re on fantastic trip, will I be able to remember I’m not just doing this to take her husband’s place? Can we just be two women, travelling together, seeing the world and enjoying each other’s company? I’m about to find out.

Time has passed once again without my consent

It was a year ago today that my father died. Tonight I was trying to remember if he died at 2PM or 4PM (not sure why that seemed important, but it did). I went to my computer and looked in my "Dad" directory, wondering if I'd saved a note that day that would give me a clue. I found this bit of writing I did at his bedside:

"There's a new crackling sound behind his breath. And is it my imagination or is his chest heaving even more than it was a moment ago? Each time he takes a breath it's like he's run a long distance and is trying to catch his breath. It's hard work - dying. That's what people keep saying.

I welcome the change, in a morbid way. This sitting around with nothing to do except listen to him

He did not die

Here's a piece honouring my dad that I read aloud tonight at the Moosemeat Chapbook launch: 

"I'm still enjoying life," he says as the month of June begins. We've just been walking.  Now he sits beneath a tree.    

       Weeks later comes a celebration for the anniversary of my birth. The neighbours bring champagne. He smiles, takes some sips, then has to go upstairs to rest.

       His weight slips away.  My mother brings his meals on trays. One morning as he weeps he tells me of a nightmare: frozen Boost impersonating ice cream, Ensure in his coffee in place of milk. "It's terrible stuff," he says, still shaken from the visions.

The empty chair

One year ago on a day with crystal blue skies in early June, a day just like today, my father sat on my back deck for what would be the last time. When my brother came by and asked how he was feeling, my dad smiled up at him from the wicker chair where he sat and said "Oh, I'm still enjoying life."

I'd just got back from my four months in Cuba, and my parents had come to Toronto for the weekend to celebrate. My dad had just finished four weeks of radiation treatment for prostate cancer and he was feeling tired, but that was to be expected, since it takes a while for that to leave your system. We all expected him to feel better soon.

We got her over the snowbank, and then...

The sidewalk was impassible with a cart

It was still snowing last Thursday as I walked back from an appointment on Roncesvalles and came across a tiny old woman stuck in the snow.  She'd been doing okay pushing her bundle buggy along until she emerged from the railway underpass on Lansdowne to find the sidewalk hadn't been cleared. To make matters worse the road had been plowed and now much of that snow was now on the sidewalk. When I came across her it seemed she'd been there for a while trying to figure out what to do - a thick coating of snow had built up on the shoulders of her beige coat and the top of her knitted turquoise hat.

Luckily her situation wasn't hopeless. Two cheerful strangers were already at work. A young woman in a red wool jacket was kicking at the snowbank, trying to clear a path for her to get down on the road, and a man in a dark grey parka was offering to lift the buggy for her. "Can I help?" I said as I joined the group and soon other passers by offered to help too. 

Eventually we got her over the snowbank, and then the red coated woman and I stayed with her, making sure no cars hit her as she made her way up to the No Frills in the curb lane (there wasn't much traffic). We introduced ourselves along the way: the old woman's name was Janina, and the young woman's was Jane. "You are so kind," Janina kept saying. 

              

Janina's footprints on the road

Janina was a sweet woman but as we walked along, I found myself thinking badly of  her children. Assuming she had some, why hadn't they made sure she had a full cupboard before the storm? And then oops! I remembered I had an elderly mother too. If it was snowing in Toronto, there was probably even more in Ottawa. I resolved to call my mom as soon as I got home. 

Then I found myself wondering if Janina was alone in the world. Did she have no children? No partner? Was she out on that snowy morning because she had no choice but to get the groceries by herself?

When we finally made it to the door of the No Frills we could see a chair just inside the "out" door.  Jane ran ahead and opened it so Janina would be able to sit and rest. As we prepared to say goodbye, Janina reached into her pocket and fished around. She pulled out two candies, one for each of us.  "For the sore throat," she said, smiling. Then she lowered herself into the chair and heaved a sigh. 

Our destination

"I hope she'll be okay getting home," I said to Jane as we walked away. 

"Oh I think she'll be fine," Jane replied. "Remember she had about eight people offering to help her.  I think the snow makes people nicer." 

"You know I think you're right," I said, and then we went off on our separate ways, both happy to have made Janina's day a bit easier.

Back in university I studied psychology, and I remember learning about the bystander effect: the more people who see a person in trouble, the less likely it is that one of them will help.  They say it's because of "diffusion of responsibility" and it's one of the more disappointing things about human nature. Good modelling can change everything though. If just one bystander takes action the rest are much more likely to.   

To my knowledge there's no mention in the research of a snowstorm effect, but the research does say we're more likely to help people we think are like us.  And in a way, in the middle of a snow storm we do become more alike  - all united against the one common problem of snow.  

Days later most of the snow had melted when I headed out to the Y for my weekly fitness class. As I pulled on my mittens there was something inside one of them - Janina's coughdrop was still there. I thought fondly of her, hoping she made it home okay with her groceries. And then as I walked to the Y I had a flashback to a memory of my mom. 

It was about seven years ago and she and I were at the dining room table. My dad was on a father-son vacation with my brother, exploring World War One battle sites, and since my parents rarely spent time apart I'd gone up for the weekend to keep my mom company. It was after dinner on the second night when she started complaining about how lonely her life was now that she was old (81 at the time) and her good friends were all dead.  I pointed out she still had lots of friends, but she shook her head. "They're not my contemporaries," she said. "I didn't grow up with them." 

I remember making an excuse, saying I had to get something and heading down to the basement. I remember standing in my dad's workshop, clutching the edge of the workbench while I wept.  Why was my mother so determined to feel sorry for herself?  Why couldn't she appreciate how lucky she was?  She had a husband, a son, and a daughter  - a daughter who was sitting right in front of her.  Meanwhile I was forty two, childless and single.  When I reached her age I'd have none of those things. 

As I walked to the Y I thought about moment and shuddered. I was still single, still childless. Would I end up like Janina one day - all alone and dependent on the kindness of strangers to get me through the snow? And then I stopped and shook my head. I'm just like my mom, I realized.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself I too need to appreciate how lucky I am. I'm healthy, and happy and on my way to the gym.  I felt Janina's candy in my mitten again, and smiled the rest of the way.

My dad saved it for 55 years...

One of the strangest things my mom and I ever found among my dad's possessions was something we found in the very first week after he died, and now that it's in the Christmas season I find myself thinking of it again - an Esquire Magazine from December 1959.

My mom seemed to feel in those first few days of grieving that it was very urgent to clear out his office so she could "get things organized". I found this upsetting. I wanted his things to stay just as he'd left them.  But I figured the clearing out frenzy was part of my mom's process, so I didn't try to stop her. I just sat in there with her to make sure she didn't throw anything out that I'd want to keep.    

Then there it was, at the bottom of a pile of stuff on the floor by his desk, under a bundle of tax returns from the 1990s - a dusty volume with a shiny gold cover.  

"Well I don't think we need to keep this" my mom said and tossed it in the recycling bin.  But I couldn't resist digging it out.  It was a enormous - 10 by 13 inches and 382 pages thick - and the cover promised pieces by William Faulker, Thomas Mann, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, and George Bernard Shaw. 

As soon as I started leafing through it I found myself mesmerized, but not by the writing.  It was the Christmas edition, chock full of gift ideas and I couldn't stop staring at the ads.   

The first thing I noticed was how many of the images looked like they'd come from straight out of Mad Men. There was one that looked like Roger Sterling's office, full of men drinking Rye over the course of a business meeting.  And another with a grateful "Girl Friday" that could have been Don Draper's secretary.

Then there was this one - the spitting image of Don Draper himself.

  

The next thing I noticed was the weird way the women were smiling. 

Did women really smile with their mouths open back then? 

Next came an ad from the Cuban Tourist Commission. I recognized the view right away.  It's from the Turquino Room of what was then then Havana Hilton (now the Habana Libre). I noticed only one thing missing - the 24 story Hermanos Ameijeras Hospital which was completed in 1982.  Other than that, not much has changed. 

At first I thought the timing of the ad was funny.  It came out in December of 1959, just before the Cuban revolution was about to triumph in January, so they were inviting people to visit what would soon be a very different place. But then I realized my timing was off.  Fidel Castro took power in January of 1959, not 1960, so when the magazine was printed he'd already been running the country for almost a year.   

The text alludes to the change only peripherally. "Havana has come a long way since Columbus found shelter for his ships in her protected bay...  Now skyscrapers cut through the clouds to herald the new age and a future that promises to far outstrip the past."

I guess at this point Castro's economic strategy still included attracting American tourists? Apparently it took a few years for relations to decline so much the U.S. imposed their travel ban.

  

Given the magazine is from 1959, I wasn't surprised the portrayals of women aren't very feminist. Mostly they're devoted-looking wives or sultry-looking girlfriends, all enraputured by gifts of jewellery, flowers and perfume. 

I was surprised though by the ad below, which proclaims unabashedly that "Men are better than women!" and shows a woman dangling by a rope.  It goes on saying "Indoors, women are useful - even pleasant. But on a mountain they are something of a drag. So don't go hauling them up a cliff just to show off your Drummond Climbing sweaters. No need to. These pullovers look great anywhere." 

What did my father think of this? I like to imagine he disapproved. After all, he married my mother two years later - a chemist who had more education than he did. 

But perhaps these types of portrayals were so prevalent in they didn't even bear noticing, they just blended into the scenery.   

The thing I really don't understand is what the Esquire was doing on the floor of my dad's office. Why did he buy it in the first place? And what possessed him to save it for 55 years?  The father I knew read Macleans and The Economist, not men's fashion magazines. He used to wear suits all the time, even when he was gardening, but he took no notice of his lapel widths and whether they were the latest fashion (there's an article about lapel widths on page 190).  He wore his suits until they were threadbare, much to my mother's chagrin. She always hoped to get him into clothes she considered more "stylish". Over the years she tried buying him jeans and bolo ties and turtlenecks, all to no avail. 

He didn't meet my mother until 1960 though.  Maybe in 1959 he was a different?   

It's also possible he bought it to peruse the gift suggestions. Maybe he wanted to know what the best gift would be for his boss ("Walker's Deluxe 8 year old bourbon comes already wrapped in glittering ribbon and foil, topped with a luxuriant bow" - page 109).  Or what kind of radio to buy for his dad ("The Sony TR 810 is the world's slimmest 8 transistor radio - only one inch thin - and comes complete with battery, earphone, and carrying case, $49.95" - page 290).  Or what kind of coffee maker to buy for his mom ("The Gold electro-plated West Bend Flavo-Matic Percolator brings you the utmost in elegance and makes 6 - 8 cups, $24.95" - page 333). 

Or maybe he was like me - enticed by the promise of fiction by William Faulkner, Thomas Mann and Arthur Miller. And maybe, like me, he kept getting so distracted by the ads he never remembered to read those pieces. Maybe that's why he saved the magazine for so long. Did he keep thinking one day he'd get around to reading it?






UPDATE - December 14
Apparently the open mouthed smile isn't just a thing of the past.  I was waiting at grocery check out yesterday, getting my weekly update on gossip by reading at the covers of the magazines (apparently Angelina Jolie has a new man in her life) when I saw this photo on the cover of Woman's World:

Should my dad still be driving? Plus two other questions about cars.

1) Should my dad still be driving? 

Two years ago, at the age of 87, my dad bought a new car. It was a pale gold Toyota Corolla. I wasn't pleased. Not that it was a bad car. I actually quite liked it. But I'd been hoping he'd take the death of the old Ford Taurus as a sign he should stop driving.

In those days whenever he drove me somewhere I'd start wishing it was me behind the wheel, not him. I looked for slow reaction times, and took notice if he drifted in his lane, and I got especially nervous if he had only one hand on the wheel. But then I wondered if I was being ageist. I myself drove with one hand on the wheel all the time. So if he were a younger man and drove the exact same way would I have worried? I wasn't sure.

It would mean a big change if he had to quit driving. My parents' house was twenty minutes from the closest store on foot, and my mom didn't drive, so they'd have to move or take a lot of cabs. 

I decided as long as I didn't actively fear for my life when he was driving, or the lives of other people, he was probably fine. And I was grateful that each year he had to get tested before his license was renewed, even if it was only a written test.  

Then this year, in the middle of June he handed me the keys when we were on the way to get him an ultrasound. He said he felt tired. So I finally ended up behind the wheel instead of him. After that I drove him all the time, but the only places we ever went were doctors' offices and the hospital. 

2) Mitten, marauder or moustache? 

Edwin the brave kitten investigates (Photo Anita Ayres).

My dad's gone now, but the Corolla is still parked in my parents' garage. The estate lawyer said it didn't make sense to put it in my mom's name because she couldn't drive it. So in September on my monthly visit to Ottawa to make sure my mom's okay I went to the Service Ontario office with a pile of paperwork (the death certificate, the will, proof of insurance, safety check, etc) and walked out with a pink slip that had my name on it.

I've never owned a car before. One thing I hadn't anticipated was how hard it would be to keep track of which car was mine. I see gold Corollas everywhere now.

After my parents bought it, they started noticing gold Corollas too.  It turns out 2012 was a very popular year for Corollas.  It was the year the Corolla overtook the Ford F-150 as the best selling vehicle of all time. 

To keep track of which was theirs, my parents made up an acronym to go with the license plate, so BNMP 453 became Brave Neutered Male Pussycat.  (I like to think the name was a tribute to my Edwin, who at the time was a brave recently-neutered kitten.)

Sadly, transferring the ownership meant getting new plates for the Corolla. Now my mom and I are having trouble coming up with an acronym that's as memorable for BVRM 875. My favourite is Big Velvety Red Moustache, but my mom says moustaches can't be velvety. Others we've tried and rejected include:

- Beth's Vehicle Remember Mother (too literal)
- Big Venomous Reptile Marauder (too evil)
- Beautiful Violet Reflective Mittens (too random)

I've always thought vanity plates were a bit silly.  But maybe one reason people get them is just because they have bad memories? 

3) Is my car haunted? 

For the longest time, whenever I got behind the wheel of my new car, the first thing I'd notice was the dust on the dashboard and the salt scum on the floor mats.  It made me feel like a bad car caretaker. I'd think about how unwell my dad must have been feeling last spring, that he never took it in to get cleaned. A lot of dust is just dead skin, so I'd think about how I was sitting there in a cloud leftover from my dad. I kept wanting to clean the car, but my visits to my mom are always rushed, so I never had time. 

This week I'm in Ottawa again, and I was driving past the Minute Car Wash today when I realized I actually had the time to stop in.  Never having owned a car before, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I had to hand over my key to an unenthusiastic man in a parka. He gave me a ticket, pointed me to a waiting room, and said it would be twenty minutes.  The waiting room did not inspire confidence. There were plastic plants, and a table set up with stale coffee, and a Cold Drinks vending machine that looked like it had been there since 1973. But there was also a big glass window from which I could watch the team of three cleaners go at my dad's car, and they seemed to be doing so with great efficiency. There were vacuums and hoses and spray bottles all being deployed. 

When I got back in, the car smelled of Windex. The salt gunk was gone from the mats, the windows were spotless, and the dashboard was dust free, except for some clinging to the steering wheel base. 

I thought about complaining about those bits of remaining dust, but then I realized I was glad.  There are still a few bits of my dad left to keep me company. Me behind the wheel. Him not. 

I thought my mom would be my nightmare

Given that men's life expectancies are shorter, I always thought my dad was likely to die first. And

I'm not proud to admit it, but I dreaded the time that would come after. I imagined my mom becoming my worst nightmare: an unreasonable, self-pitying, burden that I would feel inescapably responsible for.

Mom and Dad on his 80th birthday

Mostly, this was because there were so many things about my mom that drove me crazy, like the way she never asked me any questions when we talked on the phone. Whenever I called, it would be my dad who would answer, and he and I would often chat about life for quite some time. I'd ask for his advice about a home repair, or he'd tell me about what was going on at the foodbank where he chaired the board, and after that if there was any specific business to take care of, like the arrival time of my train for an upcoming visit, it would be my dad I'd make the arrangements with. 

When mom got on the phone, and she and I would talk for a while too, but with her it always felt like she was reciting a list of things they'd done recently, like plays they'd seen, or concerts they'd been to. It never felt like a conversation. 

My dad passed away on July 18, and although it's been very, very sad there is one small miracle that's come out of it: how much I enjoy my mom now. I go to visit her in Ottawa for a week every month, and stay with her at the house to make sure she's okay. I look forward to those visits. I enjoy her company when I'm there.  And when I come back home to Toronto I miss her.

It's as if my dad came between us in ways I wasn't aware of. There were things about my mom that I'm quite sure drove my dad crazy too, her shyness, her messiness, her anxiety about jaywalking. He rarely complained, but I sensed his impatience. And I think out of loyalty to him I felt contempt for those things in her too. Now that he's gone, I feel as if I've been released. I can forgive her flaws. It all feels much less fraught and complicated.

It's also that my mom seems changed. Now when we talk on the phone I feel like she's more interested in my life. She asks more questions. Part of it is we have business to take care of now, we need to make decisions together, and so the give and take of sharing opinions makes it feel like a conversation. But I wonder if there's more to it than that.

Over the years I've come to realize that being in relationship changes people. I have one old friend

Mom at their 50th Anniversary Party

(lets call him G) who is very nice, and we normally get along great, but for one year when G was dating a particular man, he started taking advantage of me in ways he never had before. Eventually they broke up, and I was relieved when G reverted back to his normal self. Now G is with a different man and he's changed again, but this time for the better: he's calmer, happier, more self-aware.

Next week on November 25 it will be the first wedding anniversary for my mom since my dad's death. They would have been married 53 years. 

They were together my whole life, so ever since I was born the only mother I've known is the person she was when she was with my dad. Is she changing because she's no longer with him now?

This new mom isn't "unreasonable" and "self-pitying" like I'd feared. She's actually sweet and funny, and she loves being taken care of. She's like a cat, you can almost see her purr when Martha from across the street offers to driver her to her doctors appointments. Or when Wayne the neighbour mows her lawn. She's so appreciative it makes it a pleasure to take care of her.

I find myself feeling guilty sometimes about all the nice things the neighbours are doing. Never mind the impracticalities, even though I live 500km away I still feel like it's my duty as a daughter to take care of my mom. I feel like I owe the kindly neighbours a debt.

When I mentioned this to G he pointed out my mother is still a person. It's actually her that owes the debt not me. Tears welled up in my eyes. I knew he was right and I wished I could believe him, really believe him, deep down inside. I realized that the "inescapable burden" part of the nightmare scenario was also something I'd constructed in my own mind.

As this new relationship with my mom unfolds, I suppose it will change me too. I hope for the better.

What Einstein taught me about birthdays, grieving, and relativity theory

Photo: Mark Groves

Ever since my dad got sick, I've been thinking a lot about the inevitability of time. Months have passed since he died and I feel the pain much less than I did. And that's good, because there's no point in wallowing. But it also makes me sad, because every day takes me further from when he was alive.

Back in July, after he was admitted to hospital and the doctor told us he had days to live, I found myself living in a fog of astonishment, a fog where time was not marked by hours and days but by the inexorable decline of his condition.

At first it was just weakness he suffered from, then confusion, then he had trouble drinking from a straw. Next he found it difficult to walk, then difficult to stand, then difficult to even hold a spoon. His arms were weak, but more than that each day it seemed as if his hand was folding in on itself, becoming more claw-like. 

It only took ten days to go from the doctor's prognosis to my dad's last breath. The whole time I kept wishing time would slow down, so I could treasure the moments that were left.

I remember the last full sentence he said out loud:  it was "I guess I'm not perfect," after a scary moment when he almost fell.

I remember the last meal he ate: it was Breyers vanilla ice-cream. The day after his hand stopped working, he let me feed him. Spoonful after spoonful it went down. I refilled his bowl twice.

I remember the last word he spoke: It was "Yes", after I came back after dinner one night asked if I should put some music on.

Mom and Dad on their 50th Anniversary, 2011

I remember his last laugh:  It was just a grunt really, later that same night, after I put on the Baroque Harp music that was his favourite. I lay down next to his mostly immobile body, not sure if he could hear me, or if he was even awake. I wasn't sure what to do, so I started telling him some of my favourite memories. I talked about the time when I was eight and he visited me at summer camp and I was so glad to see him I wouldn't let go of his leg for fifteen minutes. I talked about the time when I was twenty and I forgot my birth control pills at their house, and when he mailed them to me he enclosed a beautiful letter. And then I talked about the time when I was in highschool and he took my mom out on a chilly November night to the Chateau Grill for their anniversary, and I was sitting cozily at home watching The Dukes of Hazzard until the phone rang, and it was him, saying he forgot his wallet, and could I bring it out to them. It was the forgotten wallet that made him laugh.

They were far too fleeting, all those "lasts."  And now I'm confronted by firsts. December will  be the first Christmas without him. And before that November will bring the first wedding anniversary my mom will have to celebrate alone. And six days ago on October 24th, it was his birthday; he would have turned 90.

I had strange dreams all last week leading up to it. In one I walked into a room and there was my dad, sitting at a table, talking to a couple of people. "But you can't be here," I said. "You're dead."  Since he was a figment of my imagination I expected him to disappear, but he didn't. He just kept talking to the two people, until eventually I woke up. Later, I was full of regret. Even if he was a figment, why did I try to make him disappear? I should have gone to him, hugged him, told him happy birthday at least.

  

It was Wednesday when I had that dream. Then Thursday came. And then Friday, his birthday. I felt like anything I did to mark it would feel unsatisfying. Because he's gone, and nothing can change that, not lighting a candle, or saying a toast, or writing a Facebook post. I went through my day as if it were ordinary, and at the end of it, as I went to bed, I picked up a book that's been at my bedside for months.

 

When I signed The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory out from the library, I wanted to occupy my brain with something that would make day to day life recede into insignificance. It's worked for the most part. Climate change and ISIS and even my dad's death are hard to keep in mind when I'm trying to get my head around why the fundamental building blocks of matter are supposed to be tiny wiggling rubber bands. Apparently one of the first things you need to understand is Einstein's theory of relativity, so on Friday night I read about that.

I used to think I had a handle on relativity: time slows down when you approach the speed of light. That's why in Planet of the Apes, when Charlton Heston comes back from his 18 month voyage he discovers an earth where two thousand years has passed. But beyond the potential for clever plot devices, I'd never thought about the implications. It turns out time slows down exponentially the faster you go, and ultimately when you reach the speed of light, time does not pass at all.What that means for photons, which travel constantly at the speed of light, is that time does not advance. The eight minutes it took for the sunlight in this picture to travel from the Sun to my Starbucks cup, from the photons' point of view, did not happen. Photons do not age, or get wrinkles, or celebrate birthdays.

On Friday night as I put down the book, I found this idea comforting. Perhaps the passage of time wasn't as inevitable as I thought.