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. 

So that's why my basement is damp!

When first I bought my house, something I thought I'd do right away (right after replacing the kitchen counter) was go to the archives and look up my house's history.  I didn't know exactly what I could learn there, but I was hoping at least to find out when it was built and who first owned it.   The kitchen counter took fourteen years to get to, but I'm proud to say it only took eleven years for the trip to the Archives to happen.  

Back in 2011 when I got to the Archives at Davenport and Spadina, I was surprised the first thing I had to do was sign up for a membership card, and even more surprised when I had to put everything I'd brought with me into a locker.  All I was allowed to bring into the room was a pencil and paper - no phone, no camera, no pen to take notes.   I guess those are precautions the archivists take so nothing in their care gets damaged or taken.

City of Toronto Archives "Stagnant Pond" 1913

Goad Fire Atlas 1903 - Plate 24

Goad Fire Atlas 1913 - Plate 24

Goad Fire Map 1924 - plate 24

Once those formalities were taken care of the archivist was very friendly and helpful.  She suggested we look for photos first.  Aside from being beautiful and old and belonging to me, my house is pretty unremarkable so it seemed unlikely someone would have saved a picture of it at the archives.  "You never know," she said, so we looked up my neighbourhood as I expected we didn't find my house, but we did find this picture taken by a crew of City surveyors in 1913.  "Stagnant pond" it's labelled, and it's of a place near my house where there are no traces of a pond anymore.  

"Wow, that explains why there's so much moisture in my basement!" I said.  "The cement floor is always damp, like there's water seeping up from underneath."  I decided I'd been wise never to finish my basement.  

Next the archivist showed me how to look at the old Fire Plans for the city, which are available online.  She said they were made to show where buildings were that might burn down, and whether they were made of wood (shown in yellow) or brick (shown in orange or red).  The 1903 Fire Plan shows only a smattering of buildings in my area, and the pond looks like it was a marshy gully that extended southeast to join up with the old Garrison Creek, now also underground.
 

After that there must have been an explosion of construction, because the 1913 Fire map shows practically the whole neighbourhood built up, including my house.  The pond/gulley is still there, but I assume the photo the surveyors took was to help plan how to bury it in culverts, because by the time the next Fire Map was done in 1924, all traces of the pond/gully are gone. There are buildings and roads on top of most of it.

So, from the Fire Maps I knew the construction of my house happened somewhere between 1903 and 1913.  To narrow it down further was much more painstaking.  I had to look through successive annual Assessment Rolls and City Directories on microfilm. Eventually I determined that the first year someone lived in my house was 1907.  The Directory told me his name and profession, and even his religion!  

There's still more I can learn, the archivist told me.  If go back through the files for each street for each year, I might be able to find the building permit, which would tell me how much it cost to build and who the architect was.  I still plan to do that.  Hopefully it won't take another eleven years. 

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.