Script Streams - Meanderings

On Friendship

It is not friendship day or week or month. Yet it seems that I receive a beautiful message about friendship and friends almost every week and they all end with a command that I send it on to my friends because it is the day or week or month of friendship. I don’t pass on to anyone but the constant flow tells me how important it is to have friends.

I do not need reminders of the value of friends. My friends know how much I value them. My friends and friendship are always on tap every day and all year. It is a two way street.

My friends cross all borders, whether cultural, religious, social or economic. There are friends from childhood and friends I have not yet met. I have often opined that I was not blessed with a large family but certainly made up for that with a host of dear friends. The bonus is that I got to choose them and they chose me. My friends span the globe.

Friends fill that need all humans have for companionship. Friends share a commonality of purposes, desires, mores and love. There are all occasion friends, special events friends but all are friends of the heart.

We laugh with friends, cry with friends, and share caring hugs. Friends are there for you. There is the friend who after a particular traumatic time called me every Sunday morning for almost three years just to say “Hello, I am here.” She knew that what I needed most was that call, that Sunday morning chat about anything, everything and nothing.

I lost a dear friend recently. Our bond was the silver lining that grew from the dark cloud of sharing the dementia journey as we cared for our beloved spouses. It triggered this item, an item that is an update of a post I wrote in 2019. We were lifeliners and I miss those morning and evening calls that said: “We’re still here, what joy!” And always ended with: “Love you.”

Every friend is precious so it is with a full heart that I say “Thank you” to my friends. Thank you for giving me strength, love and courage. Thank you for sharing the ups and downs and the in between. Thank you for being beside me to laugh and cry; to rejoice at successes and commiserate with me at the failures.

Thank you for bringing me back to see the light when I flounder in the dark. Thank you for raising me up. Thank you for filling the interstices in my book of life with love.

The Meander: My friends make the anguish less and me more.

Christmas 2024

What a year! The agents of chaos ruled. The world saw awful expressions of the depths of man’s inhumanity to man and women and children.

Yet despite that the universe unfolded as it will and in the little corner of this small portion of the world things unfolded as they will.

We love and revel in the joy of travel and this year there were two major events.

First children and I went on a cruise starting in Hong Kong and ending in Singapore. Between, there was Vietnam and Thailand. As the history and culture of each new place was explored and explained I watched the wonder and excitement blossom on my children’s faces. They boasted that they had their own personal guide in their mom who were retracing and remembering former voyages to those places.

Yet for me it was not a ‘been there, done that’ but more rediscovering and wondering at how much the world, and places, and opinions, cultures and people change and grow. There was so much newness it took a lot of thought to assimilate and ponder the way things do change.

Next was the family reunion n Sweden. The best way to describe that was a time of love and togetherness as a family that has grown and flourished. There was such warmth it glowed. My time in Oland was a restorative. Lazy days, games at dusk, walks by the sea, embraced by new friends, laughter and amazing food.

I celebrated a major milestone birthday. My expressed sentiment was that I would let go of past regrets the ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ and live in the ‘what is.’ I have succeeded in some ways but I still have to let go of the busyness that sometimes is overwhelming. I have to practice saying ‘no’.

Now it’s Christmastime again and for this year I offer these words as we light the Advent candles of Hope, Peace, Love and Joy:

Every time a hand reaches out to help another…that is Christmas.

Every time someone puts conflict aside and strives for understanding…that is Christmas.

Every time people forget their differences and realize their love for each other…

That is Christmas.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy Happy New Year.

January is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.

On New Year’s Eve I wrote some thoughts on the sacrifices caregivers caring for persons with dementia must make as they care for their loved ones.

No matter how much you give you are called upon to give more. Alzheimer’s is a disease that takes. As a caregiver you give.

I share my thoughts here:

MORE
We never know how much MORE we can be

The greater the challenge the MORE you find

You can be MORE

You never know the depth or height of being until

You are tested to be MORE

When you know you have reached your limit

You discover the unknown MORE

Trust your MORE

Be bold in your MORE

Speak your MORE

To help others

Find their MORE.

The Meander: Thanks to those wonderful care partners, the Personal Support Workers (PSW) who everyday wherever they work give MORE.

A Useful Gift

Thirty years ago I received a Christmas gift. It was a hardcover perpetual calendar titled: Special Days: A record Keeper for Birthdays, Anniversaries and Special Days.

For thirty years I have used it, filling it with my special people and the dates that correspond to birthdays, anniversaries and other important occasions that merit annual acknowledgement. When I got that gift I had no idea it would become such a useful and necessary tool.

An important year end tradition embodied in this gift is the annual ritual of transferring the names, dates and my own classification system as to what is being celebrated to the new desk top daily journal.

Yes, I still have an annual journal/diary on my desk. At first it was only for a quick reminder. Now it is a critical memory resource. My desk diary tells me what I am doing when and where, with whom and why. It tells me as I turn the pages which family member or friend has a special celebration.

I need no reminder for many but recording the names gives me a moment to pause and to be grateful for the people I have in my life.

As I transfer the names and particulars I also put a red ’D’ beside the names of those who have died during the year. I won’t have to put them in the new desk diary anymore. Yet each year as I continue the tradition I will have a moment to pause, to reflect and to remember the impact they had on my life.

2023 was a many ‘D’ year. My red pen almost ran out of ink as I diligently freshened past ‘Ds’ and marked the red ‘D’ beside each new death.

For a brief moment I will mourn the loss again. There was a frisson of intense sorrow as I placed the ‘D’ beside a name of one who shared my birthday and later on beside the name of the spouse. Both lost in one year.

I remember too that despite my avoidance of technology how the digital age has allowed me to attend so many funerals. It is now customary to send out the Zoom link with the announcement of the celebration of life arrangements. Like it or not, this age of technology does have its silver lining.

I have not yet crossed through, blotted out, or overwritten a name. Instead they remain with just that ‘D’ that indicates they are in a different place, but remain here in my calendar and in my heart.

This year I also noted that although so many have gone the count of names in my calendar has not decreased. In fact there are three more than last year, including the birth of another honorary grandson, to be sent birthday cards!

Three more names mean that I am connecting to more people, still making friends who qualify for my perpetual calendar in perpetuity. That’s the silver lining of my thirty year old Christmas gift!

The Meander: “Time doesn’t take away from Friendship, nor does separation” – Tennessee Williams

Happy New Year!

A Christmas To Give

Do you like to watch the news?

Has the chaos and atrocities got you feeling down?

Do you feel helpless?

Are you wondering what is happening to our world?

Such questioning only add stress to our already stressful lives. Yet, throughout this year I have yearned to replace helplessness with hopefulness. In these very dark days I wonder why. I think it is all beyond me, that I should give up on hope. But I cannot because a life without hope is a life not worth living.

Let’s make this a holiday season to give as we are able. To share what we can. To be grateful that we have enough so we can help others. It does not have to be financial. Perhaps instead you can smile as you stand in line; phone or reach out to a friend; speak kind words to a stranger. Let’s try to spread hope.

Also, gift yourself too. Replace the news feeds that seem to relish blaring out the bad and the ugly, the atrocities and man’s inhumanity to man and woman, with good news stories. It may be hard to find enough good news. Those are not ‘sexy’; they do not bring high ratings. Evil sells.

When you run out of good news in the media look around to find it where you are. There is enough if we just pause from the daily busyness and despairing thoughts and look. Once again as you celebrate this holiday season substitute Christmas with whatever you celebrate. We all need Peace, Hope and Love.

We wish you Peace which is the Spirit of Christmas

We wish you Hope, which is the Joy of Christmas

We wish you Love, which is the Heart of Christmas.

AND

We wish you a bad news blackout!

May you have good health, and find myriad moments of joy today and always!

The Final First: Love Endures

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806 –1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

For 53 years the couple would awaken and read or recite or hear a friend saying these immortal words. It was a January ritual begun on the first wedding anniversary.

On January 11, 2023, in love and remembrance only one mouthed the words in the cold morning. It was comforting.

Today, September 25^th is a day that should have no special import but from now on may be a day for mourning, or not. On waking, the first thought, the first need was to hear this poem. The accompanying memory was of a soft slow issuance of breath, an afterthought it seemed. That breath came after a long pause and seemed to linger as it floated outward and upward and returned on the gossamer wings of a butterfly to settle with a soft caress. My Bert smiled. It was the final, soundless aspiration that filled the room.

But today is a day to put aside maudling sentimentality and contemplate present reality. Today marks the first year of living a strange unfamiliar singleness.

It was a poignant year not of mourning but of doing. Too busy advocating, informing, educating, sharing, caring, remembering, living. There were a few tears outweighed by a plethora of remembered joys. Tears wiped away within the ever surrounding arms of family and friends.

Today I meander through our song, gaze at albums, twinned biographies, and I laugh at our shared moments of joy or sigh at our shared moments of grief and wonder at the miraculous journey of two lives entwined.

And today I share our love poem with friends, families, all who love and mourn and remember their loved ones who are gone but have not left.

The Meander: Love endures. There is an everlasting delicacy in loving someone after they are gone. There is blessing in memory.

August 17, 2022 No Regrets

We wheeled him across the street. One helium balloon already declaring in bright, bobbing shiny proclamation: “It’s My Birthday”.

He was well dressed. I was told that when he was asked what he wanted to wear he had only said: “Blue”. He was dressed in a lovely blue shirt, gray dress pants and dark blue slipper shoes. He was well groomed having just had a haircut five days before. He smelled nice.

Destination was the Italian restaurant a short block away. All was ready including the 14 guests that would celebrate this special day.

“How old am I?” The voice was tentative, slightly raspy, low and slow. The once talkative man was showing the ravages of Alzheimer’s and the onset of aphasia which began just two weeks before. The rock had become shifting sand.

“Today you are 90 years old”. The still bright eyes opened widely and the ghost of that most beautiful mischievous smile broke through. “That… no, you 90 too?”

There was laughter.

There was laughter as a favourite niece got him speaking German, and Dutch then it doubled in volume when he answered in Swedish.

The food was great, the conversation lively and the 90 year old man was happy to be the VIP, the celebrant, the focus of all around him.

A conglomeration of cards, balloons, flowers, odd items surrounded his plate. There were pop-ups, noise makers, puzzles, musical renditions of the birthday song all coming from the cards, gifts and trinkets. More helium balloons decked his chair, tied to show off the witty sayings displayed on them.

He did not say much. Each question was passed on to his wife with: “You tell them”. When she answered with an encouraging word or mnemonic aid to have him join in answering he would nod or say one or two words. And he smiled.

It was a very happy occasion and for three hours his usual tiny sliver of view of the world became a whole pie. He ate. He drank. He smiled. He saw the entire street. The cars, the bus, the gardens, the small plaza were seen at earth level, not from the constricted view from his third floor window.

Those who had not seen him for a while marveled at how well he looked. He reached for my hand and held it even as I fed him.

There was a parade going back to the home. It was a celebration.

His place at the table was crowded with his birthday gifts so some had to go into his room. The noisiest, brightest, most comical pop-up cards were shown around to his companions in the room. Flowers were on the window sill. There was no guessing who the birthday guy was as his chair was festooned with the bright helium balloons. Many came by to look and those who could, chatted, touched, stroked and wished him a Happy Birthday. Then everyone had cake with tea.

“Okay sweetheart. See you soon”.

“Bye, my Paula, soon.” It was the clearest he had spoken all day. He was my Bert.

August 17, 2023

It could have been bleak. It was not. It was filled with happy memories and I was happy to recall the last birthday party. We had no idea then that in 39 days that world view would expand to encompass the entire universe. None of his guests knew then that the next time they saw him would be for another celebration, of a life well spent.

This year his birthday party is with the stars while I was treated with lunch at a friend’s home. There was love, and I marveled at how much the world, life, business, pleasure, sadness and joy, like glass in a kaleidoscope, shifts and reassembles as you adapt to a new reality.

We walked down to the lovely creek that meanders through the property. There has been so much rain it is the fullest I have seen the water. It had risen to be lapping at the footbridge and as it rushed with musical notes to the lake it seemed to say: “You done good, girl”.

The Meander: Yes, I have.

Worth Repeating

Almost every day there is news of more book bans, challenged books and a host of new education guidelines for books to be used in schools.

Books have been challenged for as long as there are books. The recent spate is so filled with vitriol it boggles the mind.

Also, this weekend I am mourning the loss of two pro-book voices. I do not use the word icon too often given its definition but the retirement of two CBC Radio hosts brought that word to mind. I will sorely miss Eleanor Wachtel host of Writers & Company and Shelagh Rogers host of The Next Chapter. Those two programs are staples in my radio listening. They introduced me to Canadian writers of all genres and to many authors I am sure I would not have met but for their programs and their commitment to showcasing the best literature.

A prized possession is the recording of an interview I arranged with Malcolm Gladwell and Eleanor Wachtel. That recording is now even more precious.

So what’s worth repeating? It is Alone but not Lonely a post I wrote some years ago under the Travel banner extolling the virtues of books as friends. You may read it here: https://paulasmeanderings.com/alone-but-not-lonely/ Or URL https://wp.me/p9c4ml-cY

The Meander: You cannot ever be lonely if you have a book. Keep on reading.

The Novelty of Widowhood

It is a New Year and there is so much that’s new. I have a new schedule. I have a new life of living without another, the one who had been partly absent, but only partly.

Most bewildering is the new ID. I am signing documents that ask for my marital status. I hover over Married then move to Single and then uncomfortably to Widow. I place a tick as the status is officially correct, officially.

I have no problem with the word widow. The hesitancy comes from the fact that for such a long time I was a widow in waiting or in training but now that it is a fact the training turns out to have been woefully inadequate. How do you own a state of ever mutating feeling?

It has nothing to do with living alone. I passed that test long ago. Yet somehow it was incomplete because he was still here. He was less present than before but much more than total absence.

I am beginning to think that I have major fault lines that need mending. Family and friends remind me that the ‘Firsts” are stressful, demanding and catalysts for deep mourning that may resemble depression. I am told to mourn, to grieve and take time to BE. I understand, yet somehow this widow identity has so far been the worst issue in the process for me. How trite!

The first Christmas has come and gone. Children and friends made it beautiful if poignant.

The first New Year’s Eve has flown on the wings of memories that are full of laughter and quiet aloneness but with comfort and feeling of still here. He remains a gift that keeps on giving despite the absence.

Anniversary number 54 was spent enjoying dinner and a theatre performance in the company of friends who are another type of family. The two ‘widows’ knew the muddle that resulted in the tickets for the performance and the anniversary date being the same was no mistake. In our hearts we knew the two friends who are no longer here made that choice for us. They decided this first, this gathering would be to celebrate, not mourn.

There are many more ‘firsts’ to come. Somehow I am able to think that those firsts will only become days to remember on the personal calendar. That personal calendar has many firsts from other losses and triumphs. I am so grateful that there are many more dates to celebrate than to mourn.

When we meet, let’s talk about the happy memories, the firsts which can be met with equanimity and remember that sometimes death can be a gift of love.

The Meander: Let’s greet each other with love and cheerfulness and for heaven’s sake don’t call me the widow Paula!

Christmas 2022

What a year!

It was too short; it was too long

It was too busy; it was not busy enough.

There were tremendous highs and the deepest lows.

All in a single year.

New IDs – Author. Widow. Honouree 100 ABC Women.

A disease gave new direction.

Love conquered.

May you have a wonderful Holiday Season whatever your celebration may be.

May your New Year be filled with new Hope, more Light, unconditional Love and PEACE!