December 22, 2024
 
It’s coming on Christmas.
 
Isn’t that just a beautiful line? From a beautiful song? It was years ago, while watching the movie You’ve Got Mail, that I first learned about the very existence of that song. Meg Ryan’s character referenced it while decorating the Christmas tree in her book shop. Afterwards, I looked up the song and have since come to appreciate the gentle moodiness and words of River.
 
Today, that first line runs round and round in my mind.
 
It’s coming on Christmas.
 
Christmas, this year, Christmas Eve in particular, is going to be a highly emotional time for me. I just know it. You see, my father passed away last month. On Remembrance Day of all days. He slept peacefully away in hospice after an incredibly full life (he was 90 years old). During his life, Dad was an Anglican minister. A very successful minister who cared deeply for the parishioners of his various congregations. So, yes, I grew up as a ‘preacher’s kid’, but I would never describe us a highly religious family. Church was more of a social experience, a gathering place on Sunday mornings to be with other families and friends. It was the sense of community that came from my father’s profession that I remember, and cherish, the most. My parents made life-long friends at every parish. It was a privilege to grow up in such a family.
 
During these past few weeks, since my father’s passing, I’ve been realizing more and more just how fundamental the Christmas season was in my childhood, or rather how fundamental our family Christmas traditions truly were. I haven’t thought about it a lot over the past years but now, today, as I reflect on my father’s presence, it’s staggering how profoundly entrenched those traditions are. They really do mean a lot to me.
 
Christmas Eve at church, compared to Christmas Day, was always the main event. The 7:30 evening service. With all the young families with their young children. I can instantly see my father, bedecked in his clerics and red velvet-trimmed cope, strolling down the aisle at the beginning of the service, his voice resonating warmly to the words of O Come All Ye Faithful.
 
Last month, during his Celebration of Life service, held at a lovely local church, I was transfixed by flashbacks. As the very first note of music played at that service, I was instantly transported back to my childhood and all I could see was my father moving about the sacristy and altar, seeing his gestures and noting his particular mannerisms. Even remembering how he’d emphasize certain words or how he paced certain sentences when reciting different parts of the service.
 
In a couple of days, on Christmas Eve, I plan to attend an early service with my mother. While she was very certain she wanted to attend such a service, I, at first, was hesitant. I was an absolute mess at my father’s service last month, unable to sing or recite any passages. So overcome by memories, I simply let the images flow in front of my eyes. For this reason, I was almost afraid to return on Christmas Eve. I have, however, since realized that I will attend with my mother. For her sake. For my sake. And, for my father’s sake. The tears will flow, they will. I’ll pack a box of Kleenex in my purse and sit in the back row, but I need those tears and memories to flow. They were good memories, grand memories. Paying tribute to the man who helped create those memories is the right thing for me to do.
 
Over the past two years, I spent a lot of time with both my parents. I temporarily relocated myself to where they live in order to spend that time with them. In the past month of my father’s life, and in the final two weeks in particular, I dedicated all my time to him. Caring for him, chatting with him, laughing with him, sitting next to him when he slept. For all the love he gave me as his daughter, I could finally give that love back to him. As emotionally difficult as those final two weeks were, I wouldn’t have been anywhere else than by his side. It was a privilege to be with him in his final months, weeks, days, to bond with him, to help let him know it was okay to float away. That he’d taken such good care of all of us that it was time for him to rest. To have the opportunity to reassure my father that he’d been such an incredibly caring and attentive force in my life was one of the best experiences I could ever hope to have.
 
Thank you, Dad. For everything. I imagine you out there, somewhere, picking pears with Grandma and telling jokes back and forth to each other.
 
I love you.
 
Always.

October 4, 2024

Later this month, I will be attending (for the eighth year in a row!), the wonderfully inspirational Whistler Writers Festival. It is an autumn highlight on my calendar and an event that combines thought-provoking panels and workshops with an abundance of socialization, laughter and good old down-to-earth merriment (in other words, it’s a few days of hanging out with girlfriends!). Over the years, I have had the privilege of hearing highly astute and beautifully eloquent authors speak not only of their own written works but of their personal perceptions of the world at large.

Typically, I attend a wide array of sessions, keen to hone my own writing skills and garner insights into how to elevate my most recent memoir manuscript to a higher level of readability. My schedule is usually chock-a-block-full from Thursday evening through to Sunday afternoon. This year, however, my festival schedule will be different. Very different.

Back in June, at the beginning of the summer, I retreated to a log cabin in the Canadian Rockies with the intent to write, write, write. Draft #4 needed polishing into Draft #5. A packed box of previous drafts, copious amounts of notes and several reference books came with me, along with my laptop. When I packed all my belongings back up at the end of the holiday, I had typed out not a single word. Instead, I wrote in my journal, watched the birds, read books, and luxuriated on the deck with either a cup of coffee, a pot of tea or a glass of wine. I had zero interest in tackling my memoir nor its required revisions.

That same packed box has sat, unopened, throughout the entire summer. All it did through June, July and August was collect dust. Months went by without me writing a single word. Most of the time I wasn’t even thinking about it. Last month, in a moment of profound acknowledgement, I decided to move that box from my living space onto a dark back shelf of my storage closet. I then closed the door. That day, I literally and figuratively (and emotionally), shelved my memoir.

For weeks before, I struggled with the whole notion of whether I actually wanted to continue finessing the manuscript into something a publisher would be keen to publish. I knew the wordcount was too high (over 100,000 words in Draft #4). Perhaps, more importantly, I knew I had not dug down deep enough with my own character. I had not revealed enough of myself on some of the pages. In the earlier chapters, she was still too one-dimensional.

Rather than the question being to write, or not to write, I had to ask myself whether or not I had it in me to plunge myself even further into what had already been a lengthy and emotionally gruelling process. Looking at the overall timeline, I endured thirteen years of challenges in my 20-year marriage (and that’s putting it mildly!) and then spent the next ten years healing from that trauma. Coming and going throughout those ten years were the days, weeks and months spent writing about it. Even though I divorced him back in 2016, the trauma he inflicted upon me remained. Fast forward to 2024, and I am simply exhausted from all the time travelling back to the past. Physically, he was out of my life. Mentally and emotionally, he never really left.

Well, last month I decided that I didn’t want him to have that kind of presence in my life anymore. Which is why I shelved the book. Also, next year, I turn 60. I want this next decade to be completely about Me and what makes me happy (my children, my parents, my sister, my girlfriends … and I want to finally get my passport back into action!). I do not want to be weighed down by him nor the trauma he caused. He’s taken up enough of my mind space and life space, thank you very much.

Now I know I had big dreams for my book. Visions of book tours and speaking engagements and blowing the lid off the topic of domestic abuse drove me forward and kept me focused. Visions of the book being translated onto the screen were also part of the dream. This was going to be my retirement plan. But I have nothing left for any of that. At least not at this moment in time. Perhaps I’ll get reinvigorated and re-enthused at some point. Perhaps I never will. Perhaps the half a million words I’ve already written over the past eight years, over four different manuscripts, were simply meant for me and to help me heal. In that regard, every single word was a stunning success.

So even though my writing dreams are on hold, I will still be in Whistler in a couple of weeks to see friends, listen to authors and just kick back and have fun. I think I deserve it.


Thanks for reading.

July 18, 2024
 
Today is a significant day for me. And I fully appreciate that no one else likely understands why. I wouldn’t expect them to. It’s not so much that today is a Thursday. In fact, the day of the week has no relevance, whatsoever. But ten years ago today, at approximately 11 o’clock in the morning, my world shifted in a monumental way. On that perfectly lovely Squamish morning, in the middle of July, I irreversibly altered the very fabric of my family’s existence. July 18, 2014 was the day my family of five became a family of four.
 
Standing in the sunshine that day, with a gentle breeze blowing wisps of hair around my tanned face, I looked my (then) husband in the eye and declared I could no longer live with him. With a shaking voice, I stated I could no longer live with the man whose behaviour had become so unpredictable (yet too predictable in many other ways). I essentially said I’d had enough of being the focus of his bad moods and bad perspectives and all the turmoil in our lives. 
 
At the end of that fateful conversation, he walked down the street, alone, in one direction, while I walked, with head held high, in the opposite direction. By standing my ground, by standing up (finally) for Me, I pulled the proverbial rug out from under his feet, turning his world instantly upside down yet, at the same instant, landing myself, and my three cherished children, on the most solid ground we could ever have hoped to stand.
 
It’s easy with words, in a couple of sentences, to make a gruelling and heart-wrenching process seem so effortless. But let me tell you, the past ten years have been anything but easy. The emotional reckoning and healing was, at times, excruciating. At other times, heartbreaking and soul-wounding. Lots of anger was felt and many, many, many tears were shed. But through it all, I had (and continue to have) the overwhelming joy of being a constantly available mother for my three adult children, with a string of absolutely amazing girlfriends at the ready. From my own side of the family, from my parents and older sister, I’ve received only unquestioning love and support.
 
Besides the angst, the past decade has also been a thrilling ride of freedom, self-discovery and self-fulfillment. I know for certain what makes me happy and most definitely know when to draw the line in the sand. Putting it simply, I don’t take anything, from anyone, anymore. But most of the time, I try to smile and laugh as much as possible because Life really is just so awesomely beautiful and wonderful.
 
In recognition of all that transpired since this day in 2014, I’m going to do nice things for myself. My toenails need a fresh coat of fire-engine red polish and I definitely need to get into the lake for a swim (or two, or three). Somewhere, at some point, there will no doubt be a glass of wine and some chocolate, too!
 
Happy 10th Anniversary to Me! Here’s to what Life will offer up in the future.

​P.S. Couldn't resist including more photos from last month's Rocky Mountain holiday!