Don’t Stay Alone

Don’t Stay Alone

I once worked for a group home with mentally challenged young adults.  The house they lived in was in an older area of the city, where most of the houses were what would be called, character homes.  This was one of those.  It had high ceilings and tall windows that went to about eighteen inches from the floor to near the ceiling .  There was stained glass throughout the house that added to the old character feel of the house.  The mouldings were made of big, dark wood, lots of it, also hardwood floors that creeked.  There were large banisters on the stairs and old plastered walls, well painted, but you could tell it’s age.  This house was three stories tall with a basement.  The basement, although well lit and clean, wasn’t an area many wanted to visit.

Many of my coworkers told stories of how the house was haunted and had spirits roaming around.  One of the residents lived on the third floor, all alone.  When you worked the over night shift, you generally worked on your own.  One of the girls said she would often see the image of the resident from the third floor, sitting on the sofa in the living room in the middle of the night.  She knew he was sound asleep in his room three floors up.

Another staff had noticed planters move across the living room floor and it was common to to see images out the corner of your eye, moving out of the room.  The basement had a narrow staircase and people had often said, they saw the image of a child at the bottom of the stairs, when they turned on the lights.

There was a period of time in the house where stress with the residents had escalated to the point of violent aggression.  This had gone on for several weeks.  One night late in the evening after a particularly stress filled day, the staff was gathered in the front office to review the days events and complete reports, when an image, a brown mass really, appeared above the table for a brief moment and then slowly floated out of the office door, into the hallway and disappeared around the corner.  We all looked at each other to confirm in our own minds, that we had really seen the same thing.

I’m a, ”you have to show me and I’ll believe it”, kind of guy.  After working there,  I’m not so sure that is the case anymore.  I’m definitely not as quick to disbelieve a story now.

Walking A Mile In My Shoes

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

I saw a meme recently that said “ Never mind ‘walkin a mile in my shoes’...Try spending a day in my head.”.  It made me think how would I describe what it’s like in mine with a traumatic brain injury.

Let’s see, you would wake up early around 5:30 to 6:00 AM every day.
You don’t connect with time like you used to, so your first thoughts are to try to figure out if today is a work day or a stay at home day.
Shortly you become aware of the ringing in your ears, one of the new symptoms you are still trying to get used to.
Your brain injury brings new symptoms as time goes by and nerves fail and deteriorate.
The pain in your hands and feet is a throbbing tingling sensation this morning , another new symptom that is annoying right now, which is better then the pain from last night.
When you get out of bed to start your day you find your balance is a little unstable, easily corrected with the support of the bed and the wall.
You brush your teeth with the lights out because it’s easier on your light sensitive eyes.
Brushing your teeth can be a challenge, sometimes you have trouble figuring out what items you need to accomplish this simple task.
Often you have trouble with your balance in the shower.  Getting rescued from the shower because you fall is probably not on your bucket list.
Putting on your deodorant can be a challenge too, you may find yourself standing at the bathroom counter knowing there is something you should be doing next, but you can not find the memory anywhere.

Memory loss is a symptom you will have to deal with daily.  Short term is the worst, most every thing from the last three years is gone.  Anything you experienced recently won’t stay unless you find a way to repeat it some how.  Anything you do retain, will feel like a distant disconnected memory.
When you try to recall memories from the distant past, it brings on headaches.
There is a tingling sensation inside your head, it’s almost like you can feel every connection in your brain activating.
You’ll try to avoid bright light and loud noises because they both make you uncomfortable.
Your vision is one of your oldest symptoms.  You’ve lost some of your right peripheral vision and everything is generally blurred.  As the day progresses, a tension headache will start from your temples, then across your eye brows and forehead.
Fatigue will start to hit by 10:30-11:00 AM.  You’ll need a nap by early evening or maybe some time in a low light room to rest your eyes and head.
Your migraines are finally under control, now that you are on the right medication, as long as you remember to take it.
You’re going to experience a disconnection from your surroundings.  It’s a feeling like you are watching what is going on around you but you are not really taking part in it.
Confusion and distraction come over you, you can’t understand why simple tasks are so challenging.
Repetitive tasks set well and allow you to be productive.
New tasks challenge you, strain your thought processes and generate headaches.
You spend a lot of time in your own head but find that you don’t really spend much time thinking about anything.
You’re ready for bed by 10:00 PM but you know you won’t sleep more then five hours so you have to stay up till midnight or 1:00 AM.
You realize you’ve made it to the end of another day.

Protecting Princess

Protecting Princess

It’s ten O’Clock and you are sitting in the back yard with your dog and you hear a noise.  It’s the shed door caught in the breeze banging against the side of the shed.  You run in the house to tell me about the door.  I asked if you closed it?  You said no you didn’t, you are scared, you want me to help and you need me to protect you.   You tell me it’s not your fault I raised a princess.  I give you a smile and we head out back to take care of that scary door.

Protecting you is a job I gladly accept.

Eight years your mom and I tried to start our family.  Then we received the gift of your brother.  We thought our family was complete, until the morning your mother came to me to tell me she knew she was pregnant.

The first doctor she went to said she was wrong, but she knew something just felt different and she was right, it was confirmed by the next doctor she saw.
You were on your way to us, our second gift, four years after our first one.

Your pregnancy with your mother wasn’t without drama.  You were going in for weekly checkups and ultrasounds and two weeks before your due date, your doctor said go straight to the hospital.

I was at work and received a call from your mom to let me know what was happening and ran home to get all our stuff for the hospital stay.

I couldn’t have felt more helpless then standing by your mothers side in the hospital waiting for your arrival.

Holding her hand, helping her sit up and handing her a cup of ice chips and trying my best not to be in the way of the nurses and doctors.

As is your way, you were going to do this delivery your way and on your time.

Three code blues brought doctors and nurses rushing into the delivery room.  We kept losing your heart beat.  They had to attach probes to your scalp to monitor your heart rate.  I watched as a doctor instructed the resident on the procedure.  All I could do was stand to the side and stay out of the way.

You had months to plan your arrival and you were going to make it a grand entrance.

After hours of waiting and no baby, the doctors decided it was time for a c-section.  They wheeled you and your mom off and handed me scrubs to change into.  Then you two changed the plan again and it became an emergency c-section and I wasn’t allowed in with you.  I was left alone in the hall, once again, unable to be of help.

It was not a long wait and a nurse came out with you in her arms.  She walked you across the hall to a little room full of monitors.  This was the first time I saw you.  I stood behind you and started to talk to you, you turned your head and looked right at me.

After a long night mom and baby were going to be ok.

You were home in only a few days and you wanted to put some excitement into our lives, because the hospital delivery wasn’t enough I guess.  While your Granny was feeding you, the milk foamed up in your mouth and you stopped drinking and breathing.  I scooped you up in my arms and told your mom to call 911.  We walked into the bathroom as I watched your tiny body turn purple, your little arms and legs tight and your back arch.  You looked up at me, eyes wide with a desperation, “help me Daddy!”

I rubbed your back as we walked trying to keep you calm, maybe that was for me.  I knew I had to clear the bubbles from your mouth, so I used my little finger to clear out some of the foam.  You took care of the rest.  While I was removing the bubbles you started to suckle on my finger.  Your body relaxed and your colour returned.  The fire department and perimedics were there in minutes.  They gave you a good check over and said you looked perfect.

Just for fun you did this again a couple of days later.  I was ready for you that time.

Soon we were walking you to the school bus.  Talking to you about street safety and stranger safety.  We walked with you when you went to visit friends and when it started to get dark, even when they were a few doors away.

Over protective maybe, maybe not, we waited over eight years for your brother to arrive and four more for you.  We were going to do what we could to keep you two safe.

We taught you the evils of boys, and you still wanted to date them.

The first guy to catch your interest turned out to be an abuser in training.  You knew the best place to meet was in public and with friends.  When he tried to separate you from your friends you stayed with your friends.

We share with you our experiences and open our hearts to you.  Our conversations are open and honest.

After standing by helpless in the hospital,  I wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to stand by you to support you.  Whether it was to walk with you on the streets on Halloween night, or wait for you at basketball practice, and maybe, if it’s one day down the aisle on your wedding day, I am always going to be there for you.

Protecting and teaching you is a job I proudly accept.

Jupiter

Jupiter

Imagine you are four years old and you are told that you were adopted.
You have autism and no one knows yet.
You have above average problem solving capabilities.
You know who your birth mother is and you have met many of your birth family.
This is how our son rationalized his situation:

He told us that he came here from Jupiter with his silly uncle.
He will be returning soon to live with his birth family on Jupiter.
First he and his silly uncle will have to fix their space ship.
But, they need to find spare parts.
Then they can repair the ship and leave.
He says he’ll miss you, but he needs to return to his birth family.
Now imagine having your four year old holding your face with both his little hands, looking you straight in the eyes trying to tell you his story.
You can not laugh because you know he is very serious and he will get upset.

Taking Time

Taking Time

“How are you doing?”
We ask and respond to this question, what, maybe a couple dozen times a week? Maybe more.
I have never really given the question much thought, it’s just a greeting you throw out.
What I have noticed is that, if I take the time to respond to the question, that people generally are not that interested.
When I start to explain how things are going with my injury or about a new symptom, they turn it into a joke or a personal story.
Is this a natural reaction to an uncomfortable situation, and our way of deflecting?
Is this a way of controlling the conversation?
Have we forgotten how to listen, or is this a case of poor manners?
Why did we ask if we weren’t interested in an answer?
When this happened to me again today, I felt disappointment and hurt, and that prompted me to share these thoughts.

This just felt so personal, but as I sat looking at the words I was writing, I realized they were more personal then I originally realized.
How many times had I asked that very same question? How many times had I taken the time to actually listen to the response?
Most times my response these days is “I’m ok”, “l’m fine”.  But,  I’m not ok,  I have shit going on that I can’t fix.  I have shit that others are controlling that I
don’t know if I’ll ever be able to change.
How many others have answered the question to me the same way, and have had their own shit to deal with but found that it was easier to say “l’m fine”, rather then be disappointed in a disinterested response.
This is my disappointment, that I didn’t give you the time you deserved, that you felt I wouldn’t be there to hear you.
When did our lives become so busy that we can’t give someone a few minutes to find out “ How are you doing?”.

Tom

Tom

It was one of those perfect fall September days, the sun was warm, the trees were turning, they had become that copper gold colour.
It was one of those days you wanted to drive with the windows open and the radio up.
I was driving passed the college when a car pulled out in front of me.  Inside were four young ladies coming from the college.
On the radio was playing Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels“.  This song has a strong defined drum beat.  If you have ever heard the song, you know what I’m talking about.
It turns out the girls in the car in front of me are listening to the same station.  I know this because every time the song hit that beat, the girls bounce in their seats.  They are laughing and have smiles on their faces.
Perfect.
This is how I’m going to always remember my radio friend Tom.

A Child Never Held

We have been blessed with two amazing children.  Our son now twenty, we adopted and he came to us when he was three days old.  Our daughter we gave birth to four and a half years later, she will be sixteen this year.  We couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out for us and our children.

It wasn’t an easy road for our family.  There were many years of disappointment and heartbreak, endless tests and surgeries and doctors appointments.  Days in a fog, sleepless nights and our days and nights were accompanied by frustration and tears.  Eight years of creating charts, tracking temperatures, and negative test after negative test.

There is a connection, an image in your mind, a dream of a future that you have with a child you are trying to conceive.  There are tiny foot prints on your heart and soul of a child that you will never see, that you will never hold, that you will never hear.

We would walk the malls, always aware of every neglected child even if for a moment.   We would look to each other knowing we asked the same question “ How could they take their gift for granted?” .

How often do you notice a pregnant woman walking on the street, in the mall, at work, when you are waiting month to month for a positive result you notice every single one of them.

The silent pain and expected acceptance of others joy with their new additions was heart breaking.  Being invited to baby showers, or worse, asked to help organize, would bring on tears and a pain in the heart you were sure would never heal.   You don’t understand why no one sees your pain but you don’t feel like it’s something you can talk about.   Making kids isn’t a real problem, who can’t make a kid?

“ When are you starting your family?” “ Don’t you want to have kids” “ What are you waiting for?” “ Maybe you should try...”  How those questions cut so deep. They only wanted to know, to help, they had no idea how much those questions hurt.

There is a fifteen percent chance of conceiving a child for a normal healthy couple.  How hard can it be, any idiot can make a kid, kids are having kids.

Why can’t we do this?

There were support groups, but joining and participating was accepting and giving up on your dream.  They say ”there is always a chance”, ”it happened to a friend“, ”I heard of someone that when then stopped trying“.  You try to explain, you know the numbers, you know how often it doesn’t happen, eighty five percent of of the time it doesn’t happen.

We made the decision that we could be a family as a couple without kids.  We could focus on our house and travel.  We could buy a new car every other year.  Even the empty dreaming could never really convince us that a life as a couple without children would be as fulfilling as a family with kids.

We have been blessed with two amazing children.  Our son now twenty, we adopted and he came to us when he was three days old.  Our daughter we gave birth to four and a half years later, she will be sixteen this year.  We couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out for us and our children.

Life became busy and full with our family, those days of struggling with infertility, the unknown and disappointment seems so far away now.  There are moments when we reflect on those days and we are so grateful for the two wonderful gifts we have received.

There was a child in our hearts, in our dreams, who was never born, who was never held, who never had a chance at a future, who never received a name.
There is a child that was loved only in our thoughts,  that will never be forgotten, our child.

Labels

Politically Correct

Acknowledging and labeling our identity is a hot topic today.
Somehow we need to know what sex or absence of sex we are, and who we have or don’t have sex with, to identify who we are.
It has become our responsibility to know how others identify themselves before greeting them so as not to offend them by using the wrong terminology.
We all carry many labels, which ones identify who we are?
When I was born in 1962, I came with 10 fingers, 10 toes and one penis so they said I was a boy.
They gave me a name, they called me Blair.
A day old and already I had two labels.
I was born in Canada, so I’m Canadian.
My dad’s father is originally from Scotland.  Now, a Scot too.
My mother’s dad is from Italy, so let’s add Italian.
Her mother is of canadian aboriginal heritage.  Add Metis in the mix.
My parents divorced, Broken Home.
To young to understand grownup problems and not knowing how to deal with them, I left home, Run Away.
Both parents remarried, Son and Step Son.
I have four brothers, two are steps, Brother and Step Brother.
I lost a parent to suicide, Suicide Loss Survivor.
Growing up, I managed to get into some trouble at times, back then I was a Punk.
In my early teens I had a severe acne problem, I was Pickle Face and I was told I was Gay because I had acne.
I hurt my friend Mark, felt bad about that, his mom said I was Dangerous.
I liked to fight to win, before I figured out I didn’t like to hurt anyone, Scrapper.
I enjoyed alcohol a lot, alcoholic maybe, Addictive Personality most likely.
Clean for over thirty years, I LIKE that label.
Smoked a pack and half a day, now Non Smoker.

I have a knee that is failing, Physically Disabled.
I have nerve damage to my left hand, both legs and right side of my face, we call this Peripheral Neuropathy, fancy label.
I was electrocuted and injured my brain, in the emergency I was told I was Lucky.
The brain injury is called Traumatic Brain Injury, big label.
With the brain injury I also have vision loss, Vision Impairment.
I deal with depression, Mental Illness.
I have had girlfriends and have been married to a woman for 31 years with no desires towards anything else, makes me Heterosexual I guess.
We adopted our first child so I’m an Adoptive Parent.
We attended a support group for couples having trouble conceiving children. We were greeted as Fertility Challenged.
We gave birth to a daughter after twelve years.  Sixteen years later there have been no more children for us so I guess we are Fertility Challenged again.
I have two children and a wife, so I’m a Father and Husband.
I have one child with autism, parent of Dependent With Disability.
I have one nerotypical child, makes me a Parent of two. Labels for our kids too.
I have always been over weight, makes me Fat.
When I finished growing I reached six foot one and half, I’m Big Guy.
Now I’m an Adult and a Man.
I’m only one person with a lot of labels.
Do we really need to know who we have sex with, or what body parts we have or don’t have before we greet each other, so we don’t offend with the wrong greeting?
Should we wear tags stating how we wish to be greeted so that it doesn’t make us feel uncomfortable using the wrong term?
Even this Big Guy doesn’t have enough room on his fat chest for all his labels.
They called me Blair.

Trailer Park Kids

Trailer Park Kids

As a family we moved a lot, in fact we lived in six small towns before I was ten.  We then moved to the big city of Winnipeg and even being there didn’t allow us to grow roots that took.  We lived in four more homes in different neighbourhoods from grade four to seven.  That’s when we found ourselves living in a mobile home trailer park.

This wasn’t one of those trailer parks you see in the movies that are raided by the police, ending in gun fire and some junkie being hauled away in a body bag.  This one had young families, retired folks, and lots of kids. Even though the trailer park was located in the city, it was isolated, bus service was limited, and the nearest store was about a twenty minute walk.  We had to take a bus to school.  Over time the city developed around the trailer park, but for those years in the late 70’s into the 80’s we were our own community.

We had an outdoor pool, it was small, but it was a nice place to cool off in the hot summer. There was always kids and young families hanging around the pool.

The tennis courts weren’t used for tennis much, we used them for skateboarding and biking and a version of Rollerball that should have sent most of us to the hospital. Some would bike around the courts while others would kick out their boards into the wheels of the bikes. Should have been hospital bound.

Out front we had a couple of baseball fields.  After school or on the weekends it was never too hard to find enough kids to get a game started of touch football, pop up 500, or a baseball game.  You could get a group together for a night of board games that sometimes turned into a weekend marathon and someone would have to sacrifice their dining room for a couple of days.

One side of the park had a number of gardens that were a personal challenge for our ninja skills.  Once the sun went down, we would dress up in our darkest clothes and head out for some garden raiding.

Behind the park was a wooded area and an area that was used for dumping soil which made great biking trails.  This was a great area to explore and target practice for pellet guns.

There was also a meeting hall where we held teen dances.

This was where we learned to drive and how to hood surf, sometimes we did find our way to the hospital.

For a lot of us, our first jobs were found there, babysitting for one of the neighbors.

We made new friends, we made life long friends and we buried friends too soon.

This was the place where many of us found our first love and for some, our last love.

We would walk around the park in our groups or riding our bike or sitting around one of the hilled green spaces discussing life.

We hung out until the lights came on and then gathered at the playground before heading home.

You could walk the streets at night without fear.

This was where a group of kids came together and found a connection through sports, games and friendships.  We shared first experiences together, heartaches and good times.  There was no internet, no cell phones, no game consoles.  What we had was our friends.

To this day when I run into someone in the mall or online from that time, the trailer park comes up in the conversation and it is always animated, jumping from story to story sometimes barely finishing one story before starting another.

This was a time and place that had connected so many, even though many of us have moved across the world now, this time and place will be ours that we will always share.

🏐🏉🥊🏀 Sports Fan 🏒⚽️🏈⚾️

Sports Fans

When does it start, this life long commitment to the sports world, as kids I guess for most of us.  We are drawn in by our friends and family, we start cheering for the Home town team and then latch on to that one player.  That player that has all the right moves, or maybe it’s the one that has shown so much promise in minors and our team told us that this is the one we have been waiting for to take us all the way to the finals.

We invest our time every week to the games, sitting at home around the TVs, jammed together in bars or sitting with thousands in arenas and stadiums.  We watch the sport news all week in hopes of some small bit of information from the inner circle of the team.  We share those tidbits, those prized jewels of information with everyone that we can, on social media, in line at Costco and of course at work.  We cringe over player injuries, trades made, trades that weren’t made,  we boast about plays made and bitch about plays missed and complain about the missed calls by the officials on the other team and how the officials seem to be blind to some players antics.

We buy their shirts for $30 and their jerseys for $300.  We have that one player picked out and have their name and number added to the back.  Then we hope and pray they don’t get traded, injured or does something to embarrass the team so we can enjoy the jersey for a long time. We also buy their game day tickets, eat their hot dogs, popcorn, drinks, and their over priced beer.  Some of us invest in the season tickets, dishing out hundreds to have that same seat, that seat they can call ”my seat”. This allows us to be there every week to make sure the team hears and sees us and knows we support the work they do.

Sometimes our home teams are taken from us and moved to another city, or worse, another country.  We have rallies, call out for new investors, and raise donations to try to keep the team at home.  Standing in the street by the hundreds, wearing those shirts and jerseys arm in arm singing and crying, cheering and yelling hoping someone can see how much the team means to you and hope they listen to your pleas to stay.  In the end, sport teams are a business run by billionaires,  and it turns out that your team was leaving and it didn’t matter how many rallies you stood in, they were going anyway.

A hole is left, why, what did we really lose?  We didn’t own the team.  In a way, the team belonged to us, it was a part of us, it was a symbol of belonging.  Even though we weren’t on the roster, we became a part of the team and the team becomes a part of us.  How do you fill that hole?  Do you just go out and claim another team as yours?  One that you have no history with, other than they were one of the rivals all those past years.  There are players on those teams that may have taken part in plays that hurt someone on your team or maybe were involved in a missed call by an official that resulted in a season ending goal or point for their team. How can you choose one of those teams now as yours?

Once in a blue moon, a miracle happens and your team comes home, or you get someone else’s team to call your own.  You have a home town team again and if you’re really lucky, it has the same name as the last one.  The shirts and the jerseys can come out of the closets and the team chants can ring out.  It’s a new era with new players which means new shirts and new jerseys and an opportunity to sing our national anthem with pride before our team goes into battle.

We watch our team through the season as they work out of losing streaks and push on with winning streaks.  We cheer for the effort it takes to complete those impressive plays and sigh on should have had plays.  We watch the standings, starting week one of the season and make predictions on where our team will finish up.  We watch carefully, holding our breath as trades are made throughout the season hoping our favourite player doesn’t go and that we will finally get that help we have been needing since last season to get us to the playoff at last.

If your team pulls off enough wins in their division to make the playoffs, it starts a whole new level of commitment to your team. More games every week, more news highlights to follow and more conversation. Ticket prices go up, keeping ”my seat“ just got more expensive, but still finding a way to make it work.  You have to be there to support the team!  Every game win is one step closer to the finals, some teams wait decades to get to play in the finals.  Every playoff loss is crushing but nobody expects to sweep the series.  All we ask of the team is just to win the series or advance in the playoffs to reward us for our years of support with a run to the finals.   Then we will be there with you loud and proud sitting on the edge of our seats!

The season is nearing the end, every playoff series could be the end of the run and every series advancement brings us one step closer to the finals.  We cheer louder as our team gives that extra effort to control the game, and watch intently as they try to regroup and reorganize to regain control.  We yell GO! GO! on the break aways, we cringe on the turn overs, we high five on every added point and groan on every lost point.  Every win is a celebration and every loss a disappointment, for some there are tears for both.  We start out hoping for a winning season, then we think maybe playoffs, then just get through the first round that would be a good season.  Moving from one level to the next in the playoffs, could there be a chance this year?  Is this the year?  Are we going to go all the way to the finals?

And then it’s all over, our team loses.  We look on in disbelief, hands over our mouths, how could this happen?  We were so close!  If only we hadn’t played so, why didn’t we play more, why didn’t the officials make that call, they had to have seen it!  You can see those questions in the eyes of the fans and players as they realize their season just came to an end.  The players regroup and acknowledge their fans for their support, knowing the dedication it takes to be a sports fan. The fans acknowledge their teams sacrifice for them, all that the players go through, the hundreds of hours training and practicing, working through injuries and having to spend days away their families.

 Next year, we’ll get them next year!!

Penny

Penny

This is one of those tales that makes you go hmmmmm.

For this story it is important to know that we waited a long time for our first child.

We tried to start our family and for many years we had no luck.  Then we were blessed with our son Bailey that we adopted from an amazing person with an incredible heart.  Our first miracle.
Here is the hmmmm part of the story.  Lisa, my wife, was having a tarot card reading at our place, and she invited some friends over.  Now I have never been one to believe in the dark arts, but I also wouldn't trash them in a dark alley.  Since I have never had my cards read, I thought it would be fun to see how it went and if I could trip up the card reader.

So the night comes,  and a couple of readings are done and then it's my turn.
Penny the card reader,  sits me down and shuffles the cards, I think she had me cut them, and then the card turning starts.  She sees a holiday for us somewhere with palms trees.  Ok, well that could happen.  Turns out she was right, thirteen years later, we went to Florida for the Disney World, Sea World, and Universal trip, there are lots of palms trees there.

This is the good stuff.  She sees a change in jobs for me, but not a complete change,  a second job is coming.  At the time,  I'm working on applying with the police.  Then, she is looking at a card of a knight on a horse, and she says, ”no it's not that, it is more of a mentoring kind of job and it will happen in a few months”.  I'm sure she is wrong,  it has to be the police.  She is now looking at a card with a fence, this, she says indicates that I will be keeping both jobs at the same time.  There is no way I could keep two jobs while being a cop. So, a little later,  the time arrives that the job changes are to take place.  I get pulled aside at work and told they have to cut my hours.  Great, now I have to find another job, or at least a part time position to fill the missing hours.  Just by chance, Lisa's cuz says they are hiring where she works.  The job is assisting mentally challenged kids and adults in a group home. Hmmm, sounds a lot like mentoring.

Skip ahead a couple of years.  Bailey is about three and still no siblings, Penny is back for another reading.

So she starts the shuffling and then the turning of the cards again.  Wow, another job change.  Still going to be in electronics field, but not exactly the field I'm in at the time,  this will happen in a few months.  Guess what, I get offered a new position at work more hours, less money.  I would still have to keep the other job to make ends meet or take a lay off.  I decide to go back to school and learn programming.  Not in electronics field as she talked about.  She says money will not be a problem with the new job.  At last we are going to win the lottery, no such luck.  With a little effort things do have a way of working out.

Then the scary prediction.  There will be a baby girl.  She will be born in thirteen months.  I ask her how that would happen since we have been told that we could not birth kids.  She takes the cards and splits them in three piles, then asks me to choose one pile.  I choose the middle stack.  She flips over the top card showing an angel, she says it will be a miracle.

Ok, so here is how this came together.  Penny's reading was in July that year.  August the next year our daughter Sydnee was born, thirteen months later.  Our second miracle.  When the time comes to finally start this new job, it happens three years after the baby came, now working installing cable, Internet and digital phone services.  As predicted, it’s a job in electronics but not like I had been doing for the previous sixteen years, and the money did get better.

Hmmmmmm.

Do I believe? I would have to say I believe that there are special people in this world for a reason.  For some, it is a way to share in a unique way that may take others to have an open mind to understand.

Night Pleasures

I awaken in the middle of the night barely aware that my hand is already on it moving back and forth.

Slowly, hardly noticing the pressure but starting to feel the pleasure starting to build.

My hand starts to move a little faster, I know I should stop, already I’m reaching that point where I know I may not be able to quit.

My wife is laying next to me, if she wakes I know she’ll be upset.

I can feel the surface getting warmer and I can feel the blood starting to rise to the surface.

A little cream would make it feel so much better but I left it in the living room.

If I don’t stop soon I know I’ll have regrets, why do I still do this?

I have been at this since I was a kid, is it a habit? An addiction? Or is it something else that takes control?

Now, there is more pressure and I’m going faster, the feeling is so good.

Then, just like that, it’s too late.

Stupid eczema.

Now the side of my leg is raw and burning.  I can‘t see it in the dark, but I’m sure it’s a crimson red.

How can something feel so damn good hurt so much?

Tomorrow I’m putting the Hydrocortisone cream on BEFORE I go to bed.

Living In A Small Town

Living in a Small Town

From 1962 to 1971 we lived in six small towns.  I was born in one in northern Manitoba. Saint Jean Baptiste was the last town before we moved to the big city, it’s the one I remember the best for some reason.  I have flashes of the others, but there is something about St.Jean that has always stuck with me.  This was a town and a time where the kids could play kick the can until dark, where people gave out homemade popcorn balls at Halloween and the neighbors got together to play cards.

The one missing piece is names for some reason, I was never able to hang onto any names, that’s always bothered me, that I couldn’t contact anyone from that time.

Today the population is only 1700.   It’s one of those communities that is just far enough from the city that most wouldn’t want to commute daily, so it’s able to keep its small town charm.  I took a drive through it ten years ago to see if I could find our old house, it had been torn down.  The town was pretty much as I had remembered it from thirty years prior.  There was a kind of comfort in that.
Seeing the vacant lot where the little green and white stucco house and garage once stood, felt odd, I really hoped it would still be standing.  I’m not sure how we all fit in that little shack.  One of my brothers and I slept on bunk beds in the basement bedroom.  We shared the basement with a retaining room for water, which was our water source for the house.  I don’t remember where my youngest brother slept, it must have been in my parents room, as he would’ve just been a toddler.  The garage wasn’t much more than three walls and doors with a beat up floor.  There was a spot up in the rafters you could climb up, then walk across the open 2x4 joists to a covered area where we would hang out.  Some how no one ever fell, amazing.  We had a huge garden in the summertime, we would pick n go all summer.  I have just the faintest memory of a tv, it wasn’t a big part of our day.  It’s funny when my kids were younger, they would ask, did you have this show or that show when you were a kid?  We didn’t have 24 hour cartoon channels.  We had three channels and one didn’t turn on until noon every day.

St. Jean is in a flood zone. The first time dad took us to see the town, was in the spring, and I remember seeing a bridge under water.  The town is surrounded by a ring dyke that protects it from overland flooding.  Our little house was the second house from the dyke. We saw the water rise pretty high up the side of the dyke in the spring. Once the waters settled back down the river became a place of exploration for us.

Us boys from my street, would pack up a lunch and head out on a hike.  On the edge of town, there is a bridge for the train to cross the river that is made out of timber.  The wood was treated with oil or something to give it that dark stain look and a smell that still stays with me today.  We would head out past the the bridge, climbing over and under it and along the river bank heading out of town.  Boys out exploring, blue sky, no sun screen, no cell phones and no worries.  The river bank is overgrown with willows, creating a hanging curtain of shimmering green that every once in a while, gives you a peek at the sparkle of the sun shining off the river as you walk by.  The grass is tall and dry, grasshoppers spring through the air in front of us as we make our way along.  The sound of being there is like nothing anywhere else.  The water gurgling and splashing along the bank, willow branches whisper as they move in the breeze, the stirring wings as bugs flee our path, the swishing grasses on our legs and the silence in the air.  All that and a warm breeze and the sun on your face through a blue sky.  We come across an old building on the edge of a field.  It’s outside walls have all greyed from the sun, and the hinges and nails have turned a red brown colour of rust.  Inside are spider webs and forgotten artifacts for us to explore, the perfect place for lunch.

The girl that lived next door, her family raised rabbits, and they had a small building just for them.  I just realized they probably weren’t raising those rabbits as pets.  She was the first girl I French kissed.  I’d like to say I already had my moves down back then, but I think she was the one that directed that scene in the hutch.
The boy that lived across the street and I formed the first rock band in St. Jean.  We only had one performance, and it was for his mom.  He sang, I played drums, well I played cardboard box, but we rocked.  We had a transistor radio in the drum, and played along with what ever happened to be on.  For our performance, it was The Stampeders.  Oh, a transistor radio is like an iPod, except it’s bigger and it’s someone else’s playlist.  He had the first ATV I ever saw.  It had three wheels and was a whole lot of fun.  He had a space behind his house for a track, we spent a lot time back there.  The trike had huge tires and we would take turns laying down and driving over each other, and no cell phones to record it.

There was family in town that had three boys, their mom made homemade root beer.  I had never had homemade root beer, or have I had it since, and it has alway been what I compare root beer to today.  We would be in the front yard practicing our best WWE moves, and she would bring out cucumber sandwiches and cold root beer for us, amazing!  It was the best after working on our sleeper moves, body slams, full Nelson’s, and pile drivers on the hard dirt with never an injury, well sometimes an injury, we almost always walked away.

One of the best ever road rashes was from St. Jean.  With small towns comes gravel roads. I had a bike that was too big for me and while making a turn, the bike went down with me and I slid along the stones.  I scraped my leg from below the knee all the way up to my ribs including my arm.  Mom had to wash out the little stones.

Something we don’t see much of in the city, are ditches, in small towns there is no shortage.  I don’t know if my kids have ever really experienced a booter.  That’s when you walk along the ditches in the fall and spring in rubber boots to test the ice.  At some point the ice breaks, or you step in snow covering water and go through, your foot sinks into the ice cold water and rushes over the top of your boot filling it, that's a booter.  Then you would end up with this burning red ring around your leg from the top of the rubber boot.  Once, we were following snowmobile trails on the river bed in the winter just running along them, we came to a dirt patch and I went to run across it, stepped on the patch and sunk my whole left leg into soft mud.  When I pulled my leg out, no boot, and I had to walk back home over the dyke with only one boot on.

St. Jean was where my parents separation started.  There was a lot of arguments in that little house.  This was also where my rebellious stage in my life started.  I once ran away from home then. I took off from school one day, headed out in the world on my own in the winter at about nine years old.  I think I was going to the big city of Winnipeg.  I didn’t quite make it that far, I was picked up on the highway and taken to the next town, my folks were called and back home I went.  Eventually it was determined that I needed someone to talk to, for a little reprogramming or a reset or just a little help on how to deal with the separation.  It wasn’t long after that we left the small town for that big city.

I think of those six small towns from time to time and the memories of the kid back then.  Could I go back to that life?  I like where I’m at now and the life I have.

Basketball 🏀 Parents

Basketball Parents

Our family has been involved in the girls basketball organizations in our area since our daughter was nine, she is now fifteen.  She has played in as many as three different leagues in a season and two seasons a year since she started.  She played on several different teams for different coaches.  This has given us exposure to different cities and venues to play in.

Something  we see that doesn’t seem to change from league to league or year to year,  is the quality of the refs, the bullying on the court, and the physical aggression.

Our daughter has for the most part always played on teams a year or two older then her, she likes the challenge and goes in knowing that there will be more physical contact.  We have seen kids slapped, punched, pushed and pulled on.  All of this, right in front of the refs and no calls made.  I have had the opportunity to talk to a couple of refs about why some calls are not made.  I was told it had to do with time schedules and score leads, both reasons made no sense to me.  If you have players making the same errors on the floor,  it’s our obligation to take advantage of the opportunity to teach them to be better players, there is also the safety factor to consider.  We have seen moving screens where players have been knocked down.  We have seen players get knocked to the floor by an opponent that didn’t attempt to get the ball from the ball carrier, in front of the refs, and no foul calls made.  When I asked a ref about the aggression,  I was told  “kids get hurt”:  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for playing hard, but being there with the intension to hurt others, not so much. is it too much to ask that safety and respect a higher priority then the schedule.

We have experienced so many different levels of experience in refs.  I’m so in favour of seeing inexperienced refs getting exposure in real game play.  What we see often,  is one ref that makes most of the calls, while the other runs up and down the court and only uses their whistle to call out of bounds.  What ends up happening is calls being made by a ref so far out of the play, that mistakes happen. This frustrates the players and leave confusion in what is and isn’t being called or when.  This also means,  many fouls are missed or seen by refs that don’t make the calls.

Over the years we are hearing more and more name calling on the court, this has gone past the normal game trash talk.  Hearing teen girls calling each other bitch, or the ever effective “C” word or dropping the “F” bomb on each other is disturbing.  This has to be something the refs have picked up on and again,  this is an opportunity we have to teach our kids respect.

We brought these concerns to the league organization that asked for specific situations where these occurred.  When we responded that it was a situation that the league, refs, parents and players, needed to get involved in,  they didn’t respond.  We have heard of parents contacting league leaders with concerns about team rosters and refs,  and received no satisfaction.

In today’s youth basketball and all sports really, as well the zero tolerance in the school systems towards bullying, fair play is promoted and yet this is an environment that has seen little change to improve the interaction and respect between players. League leaders need to start listening to parents and coaches about what they experience and start working with them to find effective solutions. Change is only going to happen when the leagues, refs, coaches, parents and players work together.

The World Will Be As One

“Congratulations to all the teenage kids who organized the marches across the USA on Saturday, raised money for flights, buses, television crews, made signs exceeding their vocabulary and arranged for hundreds of thousands of hotels, that's pretty impressive for a bunch of kids”, “media puppets”

These are quotes from Facebook that refer to the thousands of students and parents that have been publicly standing up in non-violent protest of a subject they feel passionately about.

This is a group of people that has found unity in loss and belief of a change needed.  It started with students coming together using their social media and school walk outs, to say what they were feeling about fear and loss. Very quickly their supporters came to stand with them.  They gained support from politicians, media, entertainers, peers, parents and teachers.  The movement ran across their country and went international.

They are not doing anything that hasn’t been done before, standing together to share a message, standing against a force that doesn’t want change.  History has shown that getting this message out is never easy, influencing change can be harder.

It was pointed out to John Lennon,  that he was disconnected from the the Vietnam War and people didn’t understand how he could protest it.

“The whole effect of our bed-ins has made people talk about peace," Lennon said. "We’re trying to interest young people in doing something about peace.  But it must be done by non-violent means -- otherwise there can only be chaos.  We're saying to the young people -- and they have always been the hippest ones -- we’re telling them to get the message across to the squares.”

I’m guessing the Facebook comments were sarcastic when referring to the economic growth that has come from the collective support these young people have generated, or the comment “media puppets“, wasn’t referring to the national and international exposure they have received.

Young people coming together in a non-violent inspirational force,  that stimulates the economy and supports jobs seems to me to be far more important then any passive aggressive comments on social media.

“You may say I'm a dreamer
   But I'm not the only one
   I hope someday you'll join us
   And the world will be as one”

Dad Joke

Dad Joke

While Dad is riding in the the car with the kids they approached a train crossing,
Dad say “ It looks like a train just went by.”
Kids ask “ How do you know?”
Dad responds “ It left it’s tracks. “

Karma for Dad

Karma for Dad

Being a father of a teenage daughter has to be the definition of Karma.

You start to notice that she doesn’t need your help as much.  “ I can do it daddy”,  is the line that makes you the most proud, and hurts the most at the same time. The little girl that once looked up to you, now goes to her girl friends for advice and consulting.

The conversation turns to boys, but it’s not directed to you. You catch bits and pieces in passing, a name here and there, but never enough to put a whole story together, but enough to make it difficult to fall asleep.

You want to trust her to make the right choices.   You’ve had long talks about young relationships, about respecting herself,  and that we are always there for her if she needs us. You aren’t the one she goes to for answers now.   It’s the teen support group she spends all her time with that has the answers to the worlds problems for her now.

Boys, those bastards that will never be good enough for my baby, start circling like a Thom cat looking for a female cat in heat.  How do you keep the little monsters away, while she dreams of romance and love?  Some how I have to protect her from getting hurt.

I’m not sure how I survived my teen dating years with out rock salt in the ass, not that I didn’t respect the girls I dated,  I did at least, I think I did,  I’m sure I’ll hear about it after this is posted.  I know I  wasn’t the best influence for anyone then.  Knowing who that kid was back then, assures any boy knocking on our door will be compared to that kid, that makes for one hell of a handicap to work out of.  I’ll be damned if some punk with his pants below his ass, living in the burbs with an East L.A. attitude, is going to screw up the future of my hounor student and her potential for an academic and a basketball scholarship. No one messes with my baby girl.

That’s the hard ass dad, the dad, the one wrapped around the little girls finger, that dad that looks on with a pain in his chest. That’s the pain of worry, the hope, the fear, and the dream.  That’s the dad that wants her to experience all that life has to offer her, even if it means dumb ass boys.


                                   RULES FOR DATING MY DAUGHTER

                                            1. I Will Go To Jail For Her.
                                            2. Her Body Her Rules.
                                            3. You Hurt Her I’ll Hurt You.
                                            4. Never Separate Her From Her Friends.
                                            5. Be With Her Not Her Body.
                                            6. Don’t Lie To Me.
                                            7. You Get One Chance.
                                            8. I Will Go To To Jail For Her.

Dream or Memory

Have you ever had a dream that was so vivid that you question whether it may have been a memory?

I had one of those last night or I should I say, early this morning, during one of those sleeps where you were awake for a short time but was able to fall back to sleep. That’s the sleep where the dream took place.

We are all familiar with those commercial strip malls in the industrial parks. They have a drive entrance and exit creating a horse shore shape around the mall. Generally, the front of the mall has enough room for two lanes of traffic and a row for parking and a sidewalk along the front of the stores.

The dream takes place in one of those parking lots. The scene is heavy snow maybe six inches deep.
I’m driving in a white pickup truck in the right hand lane nearing the far end of the mall from the entrance. I’m being followed by another pickup. Rounding the corner of the end of the mall backing up, is a flat bed trailer of a semi truck pushing through the snow. I veer to the right into the parking area to avoid the trailer and the pickup behind me goes into the left lane next to the side walk. There are three men walking on the sidewalk near to the action.

Behind the second pickup was another semi truck, this one green, following us in, he continued forward. While passing the second pickup, the green semi bumps the other pickup up onto the sidewalk. This created a pile of snow under the pickup lifting the drivers side tires off the ground and on to the side of the building, some how the pickup continues driving forward. One of the men walking on the sidewalk was bumped into the snow between the pickup and the side of the building. He is tossed around in the snow and dragged along with the pickup. The other two men are in front of the pickup and don’t see it coming at them. Before they know it, they are caught up in the snow that is being pushed by the pickup and end up under the pickup bouncing off the side of the building and the sidewalk.

As the green semi passes me, it bumps into the side of my pickup, and then just misses the front of the semi that was backing around the corner. That’s when one more semi drives around the corner of the building, this one slams head on into the green semi hitting it at the front of its trailer, causing the green truck to separate from its own trailer.

The green semis momentum is enough to keep it driving forward towards a chain link fence in the corner of the parking lot.  With help from a pile of snow in the corner of the lot, I guess the impact of the collision with the other semi, and dream physics, the green semi drove up the snow pile and over the fence.

From what I could tell, before i woke up, the three men from the sidewalk escaped, bumped and scraped but otherwise ok.

They say dreams are trying to tell us something, if there is a message here, it’s not slapping me in the face.

The Guilt of Surviving Suicide

The guilt of surviving suicide.


My first blog comes on the anniversary week 1996 of my mother’s passing.
Terri was one tough lady. Alway spoke her mind.  Small town girl from Swan River Mb. Spent time in foster homes. Married young, had three wonderful boys ( and the grey hair to prove it ). Divorced, worked slinging beer at a biker bar, got her G.E.D. and completed a secretary course at the community college. She loved sports, competed in archery, played baseball, curled and bowled.  She followed hockey, baseball, curling, football and the olympics.  A true Manitoban, she liked her bingo. She loved her family.

Our relationship with our parents changes as the stages of our lives change. They start as our care givers and protectors. My mother at the end, was a friend.
We talked often, I had the opportunity to share lunch with her from time to time.  She would listen to my ideas of job prospects, and dreams of how I saw them developing into some kind of successful future.  She always smiled and gave me encouragement even when the plans changed the next month. We talked about future grandchildren and dreams.  She missed out on two amazing dreams that came true.

We shared a love for the Blue Jays.  If we weren’t watching together, we would be on the phone talking about a play or player.  After she was gone and even now, I still reach for the phone to talk about a trade or a game, or cause it’s one week till season starts.  I wonder what she would think about this years line up.

My mother had been sick for many years.  She had had a number of surgeries, some that had not gone so well.  As a resolute, her doctor told her that they would not do anymore unless there was no other choice, she had too many finger prints inside.  She had epilepsy that had haunted her for as long as I can remember and was one of the factors in her depression.  I remember as a child seeing her being put into hand cuffs on the living room floor because they didn’t know how else to protect someone who was having a seizure.  She lost her drivers license because of the epilepsy, several times over the years.  This was very hard on her.  She dealt with migraines that would shut her down.  Her doctor suggested that she was depressed and she being stubborn, got upset and ignored him. She, I found out later, had been spending time at the casinos and not winning.  She had started to build up some debt.

In the weeks leading up to her suicide she made a comment to me that I didn’t respond to.  She told me that she was worth more dead then alive.

I heard this same statement a second time a few years later from a friend, this time I did say something.  We talked about what it would be like for his wife and children to survive with the loss of their husband and father.  I wouldn’t presume to think that our conversation changed his mind but I like to think that it was enough to open it to other possibilities.  I am happy to say he is still with us today.

Our son has autism and deals with depression on a daily basis, and suicide is a conversation that is common in our home.  Letting our children known that they matter and they are important to us and their future, is a discussion we will never end.

The Sunday before her passing, I was curling with my step father and my mother came to watch.  She hadn’t been feeling well lately and hadn’t left the apartment in awhile.  I don’t remember the last time she came to watch a game, she didn’t go often since she couldn’t play any more.  She was dressed up with her makeup on too.  We sat and talked for a short while and after I gave her a kiss and said good bye.

The next day, with a glass of Crown Royal and the same medication that helped her with her epilepsy, she left us.

She left post-it notes on the backs of the things in the apartment that she wanted each of her kids to have. She also wrote us letters. She had a plan.

Not responding to my mother and not staying longer at the rink has been with me all these years.

She could have stayed longer.

Is it fair to ask those we love that are in so much pain to stay for us so we can avoid the pain of their loss?