High School Reunion ... Should I go?

    A few months back I received an invitation from an old friend from high school.  He and another old friend of ours were organizing a high school reunion.  This would not be the whole high school, just our friends.  I was conflicted.  On one hand I was extremely complimented to be included, and yet the only thing that is the same is the colour of my eyes.

   Back in high school I was at least half the size I am now.  I looked like the picture above.  That was the last image many of them had of me.  Like I say, the only thing that looks the same is the colour of my eyes.  Having said that self derogatory remark, I wouldn't trade being thin and pretty for my life now.  Back then I had horrible self-esteem, and practiced self hatred on a very regular schedule.  I felt that my worth was in my looks.  During my public school years I was picked on a lot, and I honed the skill of invisibility.  If you asked any of my former teachers about me, they would not remember having me in their class.  I always picked a seat to the side near the back, but not at the back.  This practice continued into high school.  Come high school I was no longer picked on, but I still needed that invisibility.  I did not join clubs, or anything that I could fail at or draw attention to myself.  I did nothing that might make me stand out.

    I say all of this and yet my high school friends may be wondering who I'm talking about, that is not the me they saw.  I adapted to my surroundings.  I come from a long line of big mouths, it's what our family does for protection, our legacy if you will.  You know how when you see a bear, you are supposed to make yourself appear bigger than them, to scare them off, well the big mouth thing functions the same way.  If I acted like I was tough, and nothing bothered me, maybe people would believe it.

    Time and love do a funny thing sometimes, they repair wounds.  Although I am roughly twice the size of that girl in the photo, I like me now.  I like who I am now.  I like my life.  I have a husband who adores me, and five beautiful children.  I have good friends.  I have a nice life.  It's as if I traded in my vanity for happiness.  When I stopped practicing the self hatred (I was bulimic among other things) I began to like me.  Turns out I'm funny and kind and over all a pretty good person who happens to be overweight, oh and I still have a big mouth.  In my everyday life I don't really think about being over weight.  Everyone in my life just loves me for who I am, not what I look like.

    So back to the high school reunion invitation.  My first instinct was to say I wouldn't / couldn't go.  That would solve everything, except for the fact that I really liked most of those people.  They were my friends, they were the reason that my high school experience was great.  We shared our quirkiness.  It was nice to have comfort, safety in numbers if you will.  If I didn't go, wouldn't I be punishing myself for getting fat?  Wasn't that what I had worked so hard all of these years to over come, the self hatred? 

I said I would come.  Then they threw a wrench into things.

    One of the people who were invited was an old boyfriend.  Not a casual few month boyfriend.  We dated for over a year.  He was this really nice, funny guy that I outgrew in university.  When I got to university, no one knew me, I could re-invent who I was.  I was outgoing and a party girl at university. I hung out with the university football team.  I was cool.  Cool was something that I was never and would never be again.  I needed to own that experience.  Honestly I still feel badly about the way I broke it off.  He was a nice guy and I hurt him.  I wasn't sure if I could face him again.  Plus, and this is the big plus... if I was him, it would give me great pleasure to see that the person who hurt me got fat.  Man, I was back to the "maybe I shouldn't go" again.  In the end I pulled up my big girl pants and remembered that I have a beautiful life.  I have a husband who adores me, and five beautiful kids (are you sensing a mantra here?).  I could face that old boyfriend, I owed him that much.

    Next obstacle, the person that I hate the most in the world would be there!  Ordinarily I am not one to hold onto past grievances, or for that matter hate anyone.  It takes too much energy and I need that extra energy for my busy life.  The girl who gave me the scar that adorns my face, I forgave her years ago.  She was a really angry girl, and with good reason, I was just in her way.  Years later we even became friends (after she had worked on her anger issues).  I really don't like to hold a grudge, except in this case.

    Back then this individual dated a good friend of mine.  He spoke to her horribly.  Everyone else seemed to be o.k. with it.  The one day, the day that I could take no more,  she was eating french fries.  This girl was 5 foot 3 and if she had quarters in her pockets weighed 100 pounds.  He told her to stop eating because she was already fat enough.  I have never been able to abide a bully, never have and never will, even if it means putting my neck on the line, which on this day it did.  So "I told him that he could not speak to her that way, it was unacceptable, who did he think he was?"  He did not care for this comment and asked if I would like to go out to the hall.  "Are you asking me to go and fight you?" I asked, my face still angry, the insides beginning to get worried.  "YES, that's what I'm saying" he replied.  "If you want to fight a girl, then sure, lets go out to the hall".  By this point I'm pooping my pants on the inside, but being bigger than the bear on the outside.  We walk out into the hall.  As I sit here writing this I'm not sure why no one thought to say anything about this, why they all thought it was alright that this idiot challenged a girl to a fight.  So out I walked to get hit in the face.  So I have my back against the wall, and he has his fist balled up, like he's ready to strike.  In a moment of genius a calm comes over me.  "If you're going to hit me, you should make sure that you hit me really hard, and really make it count because if you take a look down at where my knee is, you will see that you will be coughing those things up for a few years to come".  Ok I may have said it a bit more crudely than that.  He did indeed look down and in the end must have valued his deep voice and ability to father children in the future.  Disgustedly he dramatically threw down his threatening arm "You're not worth it anyway."  I believe, but am not sure, but I think I said something like "yeah I'm not worth it, it takes a really BIG man to hit a girl!"  When he had walked away I calmly walked to the girls bathroom and proceeded to throw up, and then cry.

    That event has stuck with me all those years.  He never hit me, and yet I hate him.  From that day forward I tried to make his life as miserable as I could.  I'm not sure what the logic behind that was, maybe I really did want punched in the face.  I heard that he was wanting to go to York and try out for the football team, so I told my friends who were on the football team about him, hoping they would all beat him up.  I hated him and he was going to the reunion.

    Once again I wondered if I should go.  What would I do?  I then remembered that I had a husband who adored me and was 6 foot 4 (see that mantra again).  If that individual did anything remotely rude or threatening my husband would clean his clock, and that is only if my kids didn't get to him first.  Why was I worrying about this.  I have never really been a helpless damsel in distress, why was I acting like it now?  In the end the chance to see old friends won out over all the reason's why not to go.

To be continued......

The Night Alight

    The night was black, but dotted throughout were globes of hovering beauty.  Beneath the glowing beauty everyone breathed a collective gasp.  It was stunning, magical.  It was something that would never be forgotten and would be synonymous in memory in exchange for the word romance.

Incase you are just late to figuring this out, the above description was what my feeble little mind imagined the night to look like, the reality was much, much more hilarious!

The above video is what I envisioned.

    

    As I shared previously Christopher and I renewed our wedding vows after 20 years of marriage.  It was our time to celebrate the difficult years that we had come through together.  Our's is not a Disney romance, there were some really, really hard times, and we almost didn't make it.  This renewal was a gift to us, a celebration of our unbreakable love.

    I am a bit type A (you know like someone is a bit pregnant),  meaning that I drive everyone around me crazy with my pursuit of perfection.  I have a vision of how I want something and come Hell or high water that is exactly what I will get, even if I drive everyone around me insane.  I will try to achieve my goals with the most minimal blood shed.  My close family and friends know me well, and generally just laugh at me.  The night before our renewal my mother, sister and closest friends came to Trudeau Resort to help us decorate.  I knew exactly what I wanted.  Poor Fiona, poor, poor Fiona hasn't quite figured me out just yet.  We were decorating the tables, and poor Fiona wanted to put in her input.  I was nice, and told her that her idea was lovely.  I think it was my friend Theresa who took her aside and told her "She's just humoring you.  As soon as your back is turned she will do it the way she really wants it.  You really should just smile and walk away."  She knows me well, she knows me well.

    In the planning stages of our renewal I had seen a video with chinese lanterns ( the one at the beginning of the blog).  They were gorgeous. I knew in that moment that I had to have them.  I had in my head the first image which I shared at the beginning of this blog.  This would be beautiful.  I knew that everyone would walk away from our night and tell everyone they knew about the magical evening they had been privileged to.  To be honest the chinese lanterns were one of the more expensive things in our budget.  We also purchased these beautiful floating lotus candles. Oh no one would forget our extravagance and attention to detail... truer words have never been uttered, but not in the way I had planned.

    After we had finished our meal we asked everyone to come outside with us.  I am pretty sure that I had that look on my face that my children get when they are pretty pleased with themselves.  I even made a point of asking Casey and Cheri Trudeau ( www.trudeaupark.com ) if they wanted to bring their boys out to see our surprise.  I quietly walked over and asked our DJ if he wanted to come out and see.  I felt like lady bountiful bestowing a great once in a lifetime gift.  I was a little hurt when the DJ told me he'd seen it before.  Honestly I could barely contain my excitement.  Fiona and Kevin had quietly slipped out after dinner and lit mason jars with tea candles to illuminate the path to the lake, and they had lit the floating lotus flowers and they were floating at the water's edge.

    I should step back in time a little at this point, only a little.  Remember I told you that my Mom and sisters and friends had come the night before to help us decorate?  We decided that we should light one of the lanterns ahead of time so that on the night of we would have no surprises ... silly, stupid, naive, idiots that we were.  That night as the evening darkness slowly descended we gathered out around the lake.  Casey (who by the way is one of our town's volunteer firefighters) came out with us.  We read and followed the instructions provided with the lanterns.  We unfolded the lantern, and lit the small box on fire.  It gracefully danced up into the sky, it's reflection mirrored in the calm water.  It was ethereal.  We let out a collective gasp because of the beauty of it.  We then all hugged and had a warm fuzzy feeling... yes our guests would be wowed, that was for sure.

   Now back to the night of.  If you remember I had a stupid look on my face.  I was full of anticipation.  We had done a test run the night before and it was beautiful, everyone would think I was brilliant for thinking of something so beautiful!  We all walked to the lake, our way lit by the twinkling mason lanterns, twinkling a soft glow.  When we got to the lake the lotus were no where to be seen.  Apparently the wind, which was significant had blown them away.  Poor Fiona was nearly in tears, "Tris I swear we lit them!"  It was one small glitch, yes it would have added to the show, but that was alright.

    We broke into groups of four or five.  The thing that struck me as really beautiful was the fact that everyone broke from their comfort group.  It was members of Christopher's family with our friends, and members of my family all mixed in.  Everyone had this great comfort with each other.  It really was nice.    We all set about trying to light the damned, stupid lanterns.  None of them seemed to want to catch.  At one point I look over and Fiona has her head underneath her her lantern blowing on it, to make it catch.  I then hear Christopher yell, "Fiona Nooooooooooooooo", as the little square finally caught and nearly singed off her first layer of facial skin.

    At one point someone shouted out triumphantly that their lantern had caught, and that they were great, something like that.  It was then followed by a hysterical "OH GOD NO!" as their lantern drifted up, up, up into a tree.  Shortly after that there was another triumphant "We have ours up... Oh shit it's headed for that barn."  There were many shouts of "Yeah look at us, followed by oh no oh no..."  Many floated into the lake to join our lotus lights.  Some found trees, some fell to the earth a singed mess.  I believe that only one actually made it up into the night sky.

    You will be glad to know that nothing actually caught fire, there were no firefighters, other than Casey at our renewal.  It was not the ethereal thing of stunning beauty we had planned.  What it was, was memorable.  Throughout the night were the echos of laughter.  People were laughing so hard that they were leaning against people that until that night had been strangers.  People grabbing their sides with tears of laughter streaming down their cheeks was a common sight that night.

    In the end, it may actually have been better than we had planned.  I cannot think of our renewal without that part of the night coming to mind, and I cannot think of those lanterns without smiling.  There was that warm feeling of love (not to be confused with that warm feeling of third degree burns which many almost experienced).  If something could go wrong, it did go wrong, but it was alright.  I was able to trade my usual perfectionism in for living in the moment, and that moment was funny.

I feel that I should also add that no barns were set on fire, the lantern drifted lazily over, oh and Fiona's eyebrows have since grown back.

Our Wedding Renewal

    I realize as I have been reminiscing about my wedding renewal that it was now almost two years ago, and I never did share anything about it.  Sorry, my bad.  It was magical.  So now that I have neglected to share the details, I will do so now... better late than never right?

    Back twenty- two years ago when we got married we were dirt poor.  We were young, and we were poor (not that anything other than the "young", thing has changed).  I did not realize that not having the money for the things that you wanted didn't mean that you had to make do.  I did not realize that I could have creatively gotten almost exactly what I wanted.  I say all of this, and yet the reality is that if my original wedding had been fairy tale perfect, I would not have felt the need to have a do over twenty years later.

    I  we knew exactly what we wanted for a theme this time.  Our best family vacations always involve the ocean.  The ocean in it's self is like a dream for me.  Even thinking about it makes me feel peaceful.

We knew that this had to be a beach theme renewal.  We began by speaking to  Casey Trudeau at Trudeau Park.  http://www.trudeaupark.com  He made everything so easy.  Honestly that is the place to go for your wedding/ parties!  They were so obliging, and helped us with everything effortlessly.

    Once we had our theme, we I began to collect what we needed.  Instead of flowers for centre pieces I went with hurricane lamps from IKEA.  The lamps were filled with shells from the dollar store, and shells were scattered on the tables.  I made my own bouquets with Costco flowers and pilfered hydrangeas ( I stole them from my Mom's garden).  I couldn't find matching dresses for my girls, so I made them.  I bought tropical looking planters and borrowed two more from my friend Julie to decorate the beach.  It looked exactly the way that I wanted it to look but was on a really tight budget.

    We were able to renew our wedding vows for under four thousand dollars!  Essentially we had a second wedding, the way we should have done it the first time.  We told Casey what we wanted to spend for our meal, and he made some suggestions.  The first time around my mom and I made all of the food for the wedding.  It was stressful preparing all of that food,  having the meal catered was not!  

Honestly dealing with Trudeau's was an amazing experience.

    Our ceremony was beautiful and personalized to who we are.  We had a soloist sing us down the sandy isle.  Her voice was like an angel.  She sang Gowan's "Dedication", a song that is our song.  It was beautiful.  We stood with the lake as our backdrop, with the cool sand under our feet.  We were surrounded by the people that we loved most in the world, our family and close friends.  It sounds goofy to say, but I could honestly feel their love radiating around us.  

    After our ceremony and pictures we walked up to the building for our dinner.  It was so beautiful inside.  The night before my sister and Mom and girlfriends had come and helped us decorate.  I laughed so hard, but honestly with that group of amazing women how could I not have the best time?  I knew that the building looked beautiful, and yet when I saw it for the first time after the ceremony, it took my breath away.

    You know that saying "Dance Like No One is Watching"?  For our dance I did that.  I didn't have to pretend that no one was watching, because I was surrounded by love.  Every person there knows me, they know that I'm a goof, but they love me any way.  I could dance with abandon because everyone there loves me.  There is something to be said for being surrounded in love.

    So that's our renewal in a nutshell.  It was beautiful, if I do say so myself.  It was everything that I dreamed it would be and more.  I find myself longing to go back and do it all again.  There is something to be said for being surrounded in love, it does a soul good!

Now that I've shared the nice part, stay tuned for the  make you pee your pants part....

Long Happy Marriage

    Yesterday I traveled to Scarborough to see my cousin John and his lovely wife Barb renew their wedding vows after 30 years of marriage.  John is actually my second cousin, but he was a surprise late in life baby for my Aunt Mary (my Nana's sister... who I adored) and Uncle Willie.  He is really closer in age to my first cousins and I,  than with my Mom and her brothers, so I have always lumped him in with them.  He also happened to be one of my favourite cousins.  He likes to tell me I was a brat, and he could be right, but I thought he was awesome.  I was so complimented that he and Barb chose to include me in their special day.
    The minister spoke about the difference between a new just married love and the worn in comfy love of long marriage (ok she said it slightly more eloquently than that).  It got me thinking, and it really rang true for me.  Christopher and I will celebrate 22 years of marriage this August.  Not all of those years have been happy, to be honest it was really touch and go for many of those years.
    When we first fell in love, we actually fell in like/ lust.  It then became we were in love with being in love.  When we first moved in together we had fun playing house.  We were both very different people, each unable / unwilling to change or bend.  This was all well and good until the arrival of our first child.  That was the time we had to put on our big kid pants and focus not on our old selfish ways, but to put that beautiful little boy first.  This is where the cracks in our "love" began to show.  We were not changing together.
    Now 22 years later I can tell you a hard won lesson.  A loving, good marriage is not easy, and love alone cannot see it through.  Ours love now is a deeper, almost spiritual love.  We are no longer in lust
 (oh don't get me wrong there is still lust, it's just no longer the pillar of our relationship).  My love for Christopher is very close in depth to the love I feel for my children.  For those of you who know my fierce love for my children, you will appreciate what I mean.  Our love that we have now was not easily attained, we worked hard for it.  We fought dirty for it, and we won.  I now no longer take that love for granted, I cannot let it slide.
     22 years ago we were 22 year old children.  We were both so very different.  We came from very different backgrounds.  We were night and day.  They say that opposites attract, but oil and water are opposites and I think we all know what they do.  In the end we both had to change.  You know sometimes people say that old married couples begin to look the same, I think to some extent that is true.  You change and become more alike.  Our "opposites" are no longer "opposites", but instead complimentary.  We are still different people, with different personalities, but we make it work.  We are like that puzzle where after all the struggle to find the right pieces, we are that perfect connection of sky and water.  We meet in the middle perfectly, but are still so different.  We are different but have the same morals, the same life goals.  I didn't become him, he didn't become me... we met in the middle to become "us".
   A good marriage is a work of art.  It takes hard work and struggle.  In the end it is worth all the fights, the sweat and the tears.  The reward is being married to my best friend.  I'm really proud of us.  The reward is not just a beautiful life together, but we are showing our children what a good, loving marriage looks like.

Losing Gabe's Spirit of Kindness

    I've taken a little while to process this one.  I wanted to share with you how I feel, but I wanted to make sure that I gave myself enough time to make sure I used the right words, and not the words of hurt that I would have used if I'd posted this in February.

    Every year for the last 20 years on February 2 we celebrated Gabriel.  The first ten years were filled with parties and gifts for him.  The last ten have been about remembering him, and what a gift he was.  In 2005 we began the "Gabe Lindsay Spirit of Kindness Award".  I attaching the links, so that those of you have been readers from the beginning don't have to re-read, and those of you who are new can see what I have written about this in the past.

http://themiddleagedwomanwholivedinashoe.blogspot.ca/2013/01/the-gabriel-lindsay-spirit-of-kindness.html

http://themiddleagedwomanwholivedinashoe.blogspot.ca/search/label/Dealing%20With%20Our%20Grief

http://themiddleagedwomanwholivedinashoe.blogspot.ca/2012/01/spirit-of-kindness.html

    When you lose a child your biggest terror is that the rest of the world will forget them.  Honestly it is absolutely terrifying.  It still is.  I think about that smart, funny boy and all the things that he could have given to the world, all the things he could have been, and it was all stolen.  The only way his name will ever live on is through us, and by us sharing who he was.  The Spirit of Kindness Award was the way that we thought that we could continue his legacy while respecting who he was.  Originally we had these huge hopes that word of this amazing week long celebration of kindness would catch on Canada wide (foolish optimists that we were), in the end we were happy that the children of our school would benefit.

     The first year we celebrated the Gabe Lindsay Spirit of Kindness Award it was all still very raw.  Gabe had only been gone 39 days.  The principal at the school at the time, I got the impression that she was not sure what to do to handle the death of a student.  In response, the school sanitized him, erased him from the classroom, erased him from the school.  I honestly hold nothing against her (I did), death is a scary thing, especially I see now with the benefit of distance when you are in charge of almost 400 children.  In her defense she allowed us to celebrate the first "Gabe Lindsay Spirit of Kindness Award".  She was also kind enough to allow us to play the slide show from his funeral.  That year the school awarded my best friend's daughter, who also happened to be Gabe's friend the award.  Over the years the award began to look like we had envisioned.  It became a week long celebration.  Class acts of kindness were done and shared at the final celebration that ended on Gabe's birthday.  We even had the Peterborough television station come and do a piece on the award.  It was exactly what we wanted!

     Over the last few years the "Spirit of Kindness Week" began to feel like it was too much of an effort, not to us, but to the school.  I began to feel like we fighting to get the teachers excited.  It felt like we were asking them to do one more tiring thing that they had no time to do.  I suppose we were asking a lot, but honestly I become blinded by my vision.  To me Kindness is something that we should all promote.  It should not be an effort.  It is something that my family lives and breathes, and so I have the childish expectation that everyone should feel the same.  I truly feel that if we treated everyone with kindness that there would be no bullying.  I honestly feel that bullies are really children/ adults who are hurting inside and striking out is the only way they know how to express their pain.  Kill them with kindness is my remedy to everything.

    Since Gabe's death we have had to fight to get everything that we wanted for him.  We fought the cemetery to allow us to decorate his grave.  The caretaker would throw everything we put up there in the garbage, knowing that it was a child's grave, a child' grave that was still freshly dug.  At one trip to visit the cemetery he actually verbally assaulted me, telling me that although he felt bad for our family, we were making a mess, and this all had to STOP.  His idea of a mess was putting flowers and toys at his grave.  We begged to plant a garden on his grave, but we were told that was against the cemetery rules.  We begged to be allowed to sod or put grass seed down on his grave, and were told no.  It was endless.  Eventually after writing a letter in the local newspaper we spoke to the head of the cemetery board and we were allowed to put grass seed on the sandy area that was our baby's grave.  Every time the care taker would cut that new grass he would scalp it.  We began to beg him to allow us to cut that area.  Now many people at the same cemetery have solar lights up there for their loved ones and flags and things that do not take away from the peace of the cemetery, but allow people to feel like they are stilling caring for their loved ones, even after death.

    We wanted to change our street name to "Gabe Lindsay Lane", there are only 2 houses on our street.  On our first meeting we were told flat out no, it would set a precedent and they did not want that to happen.  We set about to obtain written permission from our one neighbour.  We investigated the reason why our road had named "Roscoe Road" turns out, no one knew.  We took pictures of the poor condition of our street.  This time we went to the second meeting with ammunition.  We offered further to pay the costs involved in changing the street name.  Now our road is called "Gabe Lindsay Ave".  Once again we had to fight tooth and nail for our Gabe.

     After a while you become warn down and tired of having to fight for everything.  It would appear that we are not the people who are afforded breaks.  Sometimes you just have to preserve yourself and admit defeat, wave the white flag of surrender.  That is what we did this year for Gabe's award.

     The writing on the wall for the death of Gabe's award came early in the school season.  The Board of Eduction does not want to have memorials anymore.  Apparently at a local Belleville school a child's parents built a butterfly garden in their daughter's memory.  This butterfly garden is world acknowledged for it's role in helping to save the monarch butterflies.  This is a place that the other children can come and see beauty, and learn about butterflies.  Apparently one of this little girl's friends has been traumatized by this garden, and refuses to even walk near it.  Because of one sensitive child, everyone else must be penalized, and the other children robbed of beauty and the parents robbed of the ability to continue their child's name.  It seems so unfair.

    This year Christopher and I asked if we could sit down with the principle and vice-principle of our school and discuss this year's award.  We also asked if they could open the invitation to the teachers at the school, because we really wanted their input.  We wanted to know if we were asking too much.  We met after school in January.  Only one teacher came, and this was her first year teaching full time at our school.  She was unfamiliar with the award.  Honestly I bit the inside of my mouth, trying not to cry.  It was heart breaking that this award meant so little to our school.  Ideas were suggested that perhaps the school felt it was unkind to celebrate this award of ten years, because it would be unkind to the memory of little Emily Trudeau, who tragically passed away this September.  "Shouldn't we be kind without being prompted to" was another response of the teachers.  In the end the result of the meeting was as we suspected, it was just too much work.  Our poor principle.  I so felt for her, she was in a terrible place, she wanted to help us, but to also respect the wishes of her staff. She suggested that maybe we could have this one last award, and then re-evaluate later.  Her face was full of anguish.  We thanked everyone, but knew when to stop beating our dead horse.  Our award was gone.   Our chance to create change and to have at least our small community remember our beautiful boy was gone.  The funny thing is that in my opinion we have some the kindest, most caring teachers at our school.  I know that some buy milk tickets and give the to children in need in their class, I know of one teacher who supplies his students with supplies that he has used his own personal money to pay for.  We have amazing teachers, and yet they did not want to support this award any longer.

    Christopher and I came home from that meeting and were very silent.  We both knew what was coming, and yet still we were shocked.  I quietly went into my room, shut the door and sobbed.  It felt like a death.  After the kids all were tucked into bed we sat together and held each other.  Thank God we have each other.  I sobbed again.  I was full of grief because I had lost the ability to allow our Gabe's name to live on.  So many people think that after ten years, our grief should be gone.  There are those that say that they think of us, and I know they do, but they have the gift to briefly thinking of our loss and then go on with their lives.  The only comparison for losing a child I can think of is that of an amputation.  When you have a limb amputated you are in agony for the first while.  You need to learn how to live without that limb, learn how to do things that used to be easy.  Over time the pain of the amputation goes away, but you still have fantom pains, and you still have that missing limb.  That is how I would describe the death of our child.  Over the years the pain has subsided.  There are times when the pain of missing him is almost unbearable, but it is no longer that agonizing pain that it was at first.  We have had to learn how to live without Gabe, and that was not an easy road.  We have created a new life without him physically here, but like that amputation we are very aware that he is not here.

Our Community Re-Use Day

    Now I don't mean to brag or anything, but I am pretty sure that I live in the best town ever!  

This little town of mine is everything you could want for a place to raise your family, and I'm told to retire to, but I'm quite a ways off (who am I kidding, by the time we get Elly out of high school we will be to senile to know if we enjoy retirement).  Our's is a community that comes together in times of crisis.  It's that place that when I have gone to the grocery store, only to discover that I have no wallet in my purse at the check out, the cashier says "Hey Tristan, just bring it by later", or someone behind me says "I can pay for that, and you can just pay me later."  Imagine what would have happened in the big faceless cities.

    Now that I've bragged a bit, I wanted to share a genius idea that I'm pretty sure our Community Development Manager, Rachelle Hardesty has come up with.  It's a "Good's Exchange".  Basically it's like going to a yard sale, but instead of paying you just walk away with your item(s) for free.  It's an opportunity for people to clean out their attic's, garages, or basements and de-clutter, but knowing that someone else has a use for it.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone out and about shopping for their new treasures.  Not only is it an amazing way to de-clutter your home, but it's an amazing way to strike up conversations and get to know the people in this amazing community.

    This May 16 (that's this week-end), for those of you living in Tweed, put out your usable items, mark them "free".  Walk around the neighbourhoods, and speak to the people you see, get to know your community neighbours.  I would like to take this one step further and ask that the people in my community who take advantage of this, please send me pictures of your best finds and I will put them on the blog.  Heck, maybe I can try to put together a prize for the best picture.  

Happy Mother's Day / Mother load of Insecurities

    Happy Mother's Day!  So often you hear people complain about Mother's Day.  "Shouldn't you be thankful for your Mom everyday, why do you need a special day?"  While this is a good question, the answer is we take our mother's for granted.  We see them as "ours", as possessions and not people.  We understand as adult's that our Mother's are "People", but honestly, I think we all carry that childish notion down deep that they are our possession.

    Mother's Day is that one day in which we reflect on how lucky we are to have our mothers.  It's a time of sadness for some who have lost Mother's or who never had Mother's for which they ever felt blessed to have.  It is a day of reflection and thankfulness.

    Recently I saw a video clip that a friend had posted on their facebook.  It was a church group who asked mother's about how they thought that they were as mothers.  Most of them worried that they were not patient enough, did not give as much as they could.  All of these mother's were crying because they felt so inadequate.  I could so relate to their words.  Sometimes I lie awake at night playing the day over and over again in my head.  Why did I yell?  I could have used kinder words.  Had my thoughtless words caused them damage.  I wanted to be a zen mother, a gentle mother, but somehow I kept getting in the way of my own goal.  After they had interviewed the women, they showed them a video of them asking their children what they thought of their mothers.  Their answers were beautiful, " I don't think she knows how good a job she does", "My Mom is beautiful", "She makes me feel better when I am sad".  All of the mother's were shaken to the core to see their children's answers.  They had been expecting their children to mirror their own insecurities, but instead they mirrored their intents as mothers.

    Today my children were so excited to shower me with their love and with the gifts they had made for me at school.  Two of their teachers had done similar things.  I was so touched at their answers, at how they saw me.  I saw my love for them reflexed back at me, like a mirror.  All the things that I wanted to be as a mother, I saw.  All of my insecurities became transparent.  

    Riley's page struck me the most.  She was asked what her mother's favourite things are and her first answer was "my dad", then "us kids", then "family".  At first I wondered about "my dad", did she feel that I chose him over them?  There were the old insecurities trying to rear their head.  When I thought about it, it made me happy.  She saw how much I love her father, and enjoy his company.  I am modeling a healthy, loving relationship for my children.  I can only hope that they will find partners who compliment them as much as their father and I do each other.  

    Mother's Day is only once a year, but that one day is a gift in itself.  For one day we feel our children's love.  For that one day we can put aside our insecurities and see ourselves in their eyes.  Today I felt like I was doing a good job.  Today I felt like the Mother I want to be.  I do not pretend that I will not torture myself at night, for ways I could have done better, but I think that desire to be the mother that my children deserve, is part of the job.  

    My children gave me a beautiful gift today.  Today they showed me a mirror as to how they see me, and it was beautiful.  It gave me the strength I can carry with me forward to those days when they tell me "they hate me", or the days they have temper tantrums.  

Happy Mother's Day

Fried Cauliflower - YUM

    Last summer I thought I was very smart, I bought up the cauliflower while it was reasonably priced.  I cut it into small bits, blanched and flash froze it (I tossed it into boiling water for a second or so, then lay out the cauliflower on a baking sheet and let it freeze).  Unfortunately, although my plan was well thought out, the cauliflower was soggy when it came around to cooking it.  I kind of wanted to cry.  I had spent hours feeling like mother earth, laying down stores for the winter, only to have it blow up in my face.

    I am not one to easily admit defeat.  My poor husband can attest to this fact!  I took lemons and made lemonade (not literally, although technically I could).  I took that sad, soggy, albino cauliflower and made it delicious once again (although probably not as health conscious).

    I began by cutting the cauliflower into small florets, and put them into a bowl.  I then heated up my beautiful best friend, my cast iron frying pan.  I put in a generous amount of butter and let it melt.  Honestly at this point I feel like I am writing erotica.  Next I poured in a small amount of the florets.  I let them brown up a little, then added a sprinkle of onion power and a sprinkle of garlic powder, salt and fresh ground pepper.  In a perfect world, I should have cooked some nice diced onions and a clove of garlic, but hey.  I let the florets get nice and brown, then tossed them into a casserole and started all over again.

    The almost final step is to add some finely grated old cheddar cheese (or honestly any kind of cheese that you might like) and if you are so lucky as to have it, everything tastes better with real bacon bits.  If you are serving right away you don't have to put them in a casserole, they actually held the heat really nicely.  If there's a little gap in cooking and serving, they can go in a casserole and warm up really nicely.

    So there you have it, my newest favourite side dish.

Tweed & Company Theatre

I sure hope they don't mind me stealing this.....

Don't give up... 'cause you have friends

Don't give up... you're not the only one

Don't give up... no reason to be ashamed

Don't give up... you still have us

Don't give up... we're proud of who you are

Don't give up... you know it's never been easy 

Don't give up ...

'Cause there's a place there's a place where we belong

Peter Gabriel

    A year ago I thought that perhaps I should be singing this song to The Iana Theatre.  Here was this group of amazingly talented twenty somethings, trying to make their mark in the world of theatre.  I still stand behind my statement that Alex Bell was truly one of the best plays that I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few lavish productions in Toronto.  I felt so badly for them.  They had this wonderful dream of creating Canadian productions, something that is in short supply in this country.  It broke my heart to go to one of their productions and see empty seats.  I wanted to walk around and smack people and tell them to get their butts into that theatre, they didn't know what they were missing.  "Don't you know that this group of young people have amazing talent,  go on in try it, you'll like it!"

    It was a little over a year ago that Iana Theatre announced that they were taking a one year hiatus.  I thought this was the writing on the wall.  I felt like this group of talented and enthusiastic new comers were going to wave the white flag of surrender.  The theatre is a difficult life.  It involves travel and wearing your pride on your sleeve.  It involves rejection, who among us can deal with rejection?  For most of us rejection eats away at the soul.  I thought this was it, and it truly broke my heart.  It broke my heart because I felt like we as a community had let them down, we had not supported them, encouraged them.  We had destroyed their ambitious dreams.....

     Earlier this year I was delighted when I saw the notice that Iana had dissolved, but had metamorphasized into tweedandcompany.com .  YAY, those kids have moxi!  They licked their wounds, they regrouped and have come back ready to take a bite out of the world.

    Last night I had the pleasure of seeing "Tweed & Company's" first show... "All You Need Is Love".  That group have the most beautiful singing voices.  Their harmonies set the hair on the back of my neck up.  I am always so blown away by Tricia Black's pipes.  She comes up on that stage ready for comedy.  She puts on funny voices and does goofy characters, and then this huge voice comes out.  Tricia could easily be a recording artist.  I was delighted by the beautiful voice, and even more than that, I was delighted to see our community come out and support them.  It was almost a sold out house! Finally, maybe you don't really know what you've got 'til it's gone.

    Not only has this amazingly talented group come back, they have come back with a vengeance.

Stalkyard Hurts, one of their original productions has made it!  They performed at famed Lee's Palace in Toronto, and this July they are playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival.  What's the Fringe Festival?  It's this amazing opportunity in Toronto to see 150 shows in 12 days.  The tickets are maximum $12 for adults.  To put that into perspective for you, basically what you would pay for a movie theatre ticket.  $12 theatre tickets are pretty much unheard of.  In terms of volume, they sell over 60, 000 tickets in 12 days!  YEAH Tweed & Company!!!!  The masses are going to see and love, our Tweed & Company.  My only hope is that they don't love them so much that that talented group of twenty somethings forget where they came from.

fringetoronto.com

    What I am saying is that if you have the opportunity to see this play, go.  I'm including my original blog about this play for you to peak at.

http://themiddleagedwomanwholivedinashoe.blogspot.ca/2012/05/iana-theatre-company.html

    Incase you hadn't figured it out, I'm really proud of our little company that could.  I can't wait to see what amazing things their future holds.

Our First Aid Experience / PUSH for Life

    Many years ago when Christopher and I were still engaged we took a first aid class together.  It was very dry and very serious.  These were life saving measures and there was no fun to be had.  Although it was very dry, I have to say that I walked away from it feeling like I could handle a medical emergency until the ambulance arrived, should the situation ever arise.  It included learning emergency first aid and the heimlich maneuver, but no CPR.

    For the last 12 years I have been talking about wanting to take a CPR course.  I know 12 years, because that is the length of time it has been since my father had his massive heart attack.  It's one of those events that is vivid in my mind, no matter the passage of time.  Dad at that time was working shift work.  It was October 2 when I got a call from Mom, could I come over and take Dad to the hospital, he wasn't feeling well, it looked like the flu.  I was in pjs and pretty grungy.  Gracie was just just over a year.  I showered, changed, and then went to pick up mom and dad.  I was shocked when I saw Dad.  It rapidly became apparent that he did not have the flu, and I should have come right away instead of cleaning up.  He was grey.  We helped him to the car, basically we carried him to the car.  The whole while I'm suggesting that it would be better to go by ambulance, but he said he wouldn't go to the hospital by ambulance.  I don't recall ever driving so fast as I did that night.  Every so often Dad's head would feebly peek up from the back seat to tell me to slow down.... I ignored him.  That night in the sterile, white hospital we didn't know if Dad would make it through the night.  I'm not sure I have ever prayed so much in my life as I did that night.  Mom and I sat huddled and afraid in the waiting room, waiting until they could get him stabilized.  He lost most of the bottom of his heart.

    Last year Dad received a defibrillator/ pacemaker.  It sits like a pack of gum under the skin of his chest.  It's a visible reminder of Dad's heart damage.  That visible reminder of Dad's weakened heart was the final push that sent me in the direction of CPR training.

    I am a member of my school's School Council (it's what we call our PTA, but I honestly like PTA better).  We as a school council decided to host four week First Aid / CPR sessions that anyone in the community could attend.  I was in charge of setting it up.  I surfed the internet and made several phone calls looking for he perfect person to teach our group.  I found that person in Corin Vail.  http://pushforlife.ca  Her credentials were amazing.  She was so easy to speak to, and so willing it fit into our schedules.

    I found myself looking forward to Monday nights.  Monday nights were Christopher and my date night / First Aid night.  We had a small group of 9 which was excellent.  Such a small group allowed us to be more interactive, and because we all knew each other it made it so much more comfortable.  It also made it a more fun night.   There were many a time I found myself howling with laughter (in fairness I have an extremely sick sense of humor and will find humor in pretty much everything.  It was really just nice that the group put up with me).  I especially went into hysterics over the head bandages, just look at the picture below and try not to smile.  I'm pretty sure that would not have been o.k. at the serious First Aid class I took all those years ago.

    So now it's over.  Christopher and I are both card carrying Red Cross First Aiders.  Please feel free to have a heart attack, choke or have a traumatic injury in our presence, we are ready!  All joking aside I am really glad that I finally took the class, it feels good to feel prepared for the worst.  The class was fun, Corin was an AMAZING teacher and put up with my stupidity.  I think that more people would take these classes if they knew that it could be so relaxed and affordable.  Because Corin is an independent teacher, she can come to your home and teach a group of you, and she can make the classes suite your schedule.  Just think how enjoyable learning first aid could be with wine and cheese.  Don't keep putting it off like I did, just do it.

http://pushforlife.ca