Safe Passage 06

It's time for more of this, I have to finish this piece. In March it will be 12 yrs since my mom died, so that is really enough time to put together a story and create a small book which is my goal for this project.

The Saturday before... we take the ferry from Tsawassen to Victoria. The plan is, we will stay overnight with a friend of yours and the following day her boyfriend will drive us up Vancouver Island to your place on Quadra Island. He will stay to perform some minor repairs so it can be listed for sale. You and I plan to drive back to my house in a few days in your 1983 Jetta. (it was such a beater, I can't believe you never bought a newer car). In the ferry terminal you sit in a borrowed wheelchair and inform me that you are not going to watch Seinfeld any longer. You proclaim the characters losers. I will laugh about this for years to come.

In Victoria your friend talks to me about hospice care. I don't really know what it involves but promise to look into it when I get back home. You are in a lot of pain and lay on the floor to relieve the pressure on your lungs and abdomen. Your friends boyfriend drives us up island only he drives like he is trying to win a rally race and we have to stop twice so you can vomit. I feel helpless to make you comfortable.

2009 So far

So it's a new year and I am putting it out there re the projects I hope to complete this year. This is some nice pink wool I picked up at NW Handspun Yarns in Bellingham. I plan to make a hooded jacket for Pearl's newest cousin in her birthfamily. I had never knit anything for a small person and I am looking forward to it going quickly. I am doubling the wool up to make it extra thick. It seems like I rarely knit anything with the wool that was intended for the pattern. I also want to knit a blanket for Pearl's new sister who will arrive in May via her birthmom. I'd also like to make a few more of the little hats I am currently wearing (I know you can't see but trust me, it's orange and the wool came from SpinCycle).

Next on the list are a series of small quilts. I make no promises about this one as it is a true journey of exploration. I plan to create a small piece (8-12" sq) every two weeks containing the capital letter R (Clarendon to start with but that could change and there may be words worked in, we'll just see what strikes me). I came across this book, The Uncommon Quilter and it just thrilled me. So off I go on that tangent.

I have decided to stop vending at the market in Bellingham which I am hoping will give me some more free time to write. I have my moms story I need to finish as well as a few others.

Stay tuned.

Death in the Family

Some of the cousins, circa 1973. Anne is seated in front of my mother. My dad is not pictured, but Jim is. We are the children.

Am back home after 4 days at Mark's place. I dropped Pearl at school and now I am trying to warm up the house and office. It's always a bit lonely and dark when I first get back home. Today is a little worse as I am reflecting on the recent death of Anne Ironside. Thoughts of death and loss abound. I'm tripping on them.

She is not technically my aunt. One of our long-running family exchanges featured this discussion about how we called them Uncle Jim and Aunt Anne for convenience and we would lapse into the discussion of the second cousins once removed thing which was the accurate description of our familial relationship. Jim is my dad's first cousin and I think their relationship was more brotherly, they have always stayed connected, their mothers were sisters. They both went to the University of Edinburgh. Jim was a surgeon, my dad went into Anesthesia. Jim married Anne after he moved to Vancouver in the 60's and she is the mother of my two girl second cousins, Andrea and Cybele. Andrea is my age and I have always known her. So Anne was my second cousins wife and she died on Saturday of complications associated with liver disease, many sad complications. She was 72.

Today I am wading around in this knowledge that she is gone and now Andrea is just like me, motherless. It was hard to call her to offer consolation because really there is nothing that can console this particular loss. You feel it in your body, in your DNA, in your womb, your bloodstream, around our brains, and in our lungs. It's so deep and feels so endless and enormous. A big empty hole blasted through your whole being.

Gently, somewhere in the journey of this horrendous realization, the pain steps away and in it's place is love and deep human connection. It hurts so much and is simultaneously so beautiful.

Safe Passage 05

The day before you died when we went to see your doctor, he asked you a few questions mostly about the Methadone you were taking. It was a liquid and I gave you about 10ml. per day, I gave it to you in the morning before a warm, soothing protein shake. It helped to keep you from feeling nauseous once the drugs kicked in. Your doctor decided to switch you to Morphine because we felt we needed more on hand and the Methadone was hard to get. We had to go to Canada to get it and you didn't like the clinic. I think you felt people thought you were an addict, there was no easy way to tell you had cancer beyond the fact you were very thin. You don't like the Morphine, it makes you constipated and I worry that eventually you won't be able to swallow the hard pills. It doesn't occur to me that I can crush them up in jam as you did when I was small, before I could swallow an aspirin.

After the trip to the doctor I got the large morphine prescription filled via the Pharmacy in Campbell River. The bag of pills rode across on the ferry with the crew. Back at your house we watched "Cold Comfort Farm" but you were sleepy and uninterested. I call Catriona from the extension downstairs and let her know what is going on. Before bed I try to write a letter on your behalf, to a friend from college in Scotland. It's March 2nd and your Christmas letters remain unanswered.

Safe Passage 04

The Ferry

On the little ferry between Quadra Island and Campbell River we run into the guy who drywalled your basement suite. Your plan was to supplement your income with a modest B & B business. The drywaller is tall and blond with a long pony tail. We saw him 2 days ago outside the little market on Quadra. He said Oh Sally you are not well. I don't remember what your response to him was all I could hear was how lyrical his statement was.

Oh Sally you are not well.
Oh Sally you are not well.

On the ferry I give the drywall guy the remainder of the ferry passes you have in the glove box of your Jetta. I don't try to explain to him that you won't be coming back. He is grateful for 8 free round-trips to town. The short trip is uneventful and I don't think about you telling me of your earlier plans to slip off this ferry under cover of darkness and disappear into the channel.

_

Safe Passage 03

The Bank

Before we leave the island for the last time we make a stop at the bank. It's not open yet and we have a ferry to catch so I ask them to let us in. One of the women in the bank recognizes you and unlocks the door. We conduct your business in chairs at her desk, you are too weak to stand at the counter. When you look at me you seem small in your clothes, you're trying to communicate something to me with your eyes, it feels like you are saying I need you to take the wheel now. The woman from the bank suggest some things regarding your accounts that might make it easier for me to manage your money. She realizes you are sick and not getting better, I am trying not to think about it, staying firmly in each moment. We empty out your safe deposit box and I sit patiently while you sign your Canada Savings Bonds over to cash. Your signature is weak and uncharacteristic of your former self.

_

Safe Passage 02

Do you remember the day that you died?

I do. It was late winter and we drove from your place on Quadra Island to Nainamo where we boarded the ferry for Tsawassen. I crawled into bed with you that morning seeing you were suddenly much weaker and more distant. I laid behind you and hugged your whole body with mine. I said, I don't want you to die. It was the only time during those last six weeks that I acknowledged you were slipping away. You said you weren't dying and I helped you get up and go to the bathroom. I gave you yogurt for breakfast, you ate it on the couch and spilled a bit on your cotton turtleneck. I can't remember what happened to that shirt, it went away with you and the yogurt stain never to be seen again.

Safe Passage 01

Safe Passage 01

In the months leading up to my mothers death I dreamt a lot about her. The dreams were always centered around water, an ocean shore, a river bank, a pools edge. The edges of water, the dividing line between breath and suffocation. In these dreams she was forever slipping into the water, silently and with purpose. I was forever leaping in to save her. Searching around under water looking for her, eventually pulling her up and out to the breathing side of things.