Category Archives: friendship

It’s all in the signs

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I admit to having a warped sense of humor.  But in my defense, I have many friends who share my love for the strange and twisted things that make us laugh.

There is a road sign about five minutes from my house that I am assuming leads to a lovely cottage on Lake Muskoka.  It was really just an innocent sign until I told a friend about it and our back and forth texting about that sign had us both in tears we were laughing so hard.

The simple amusement about the sign itself turned into a full-on laugh fest when we thought about invited guests coming up to this cottage but, before they drove down the road, they decided there was no reason to go any further.  The point was moot.  We pictured groups of people milling about at the end of the driveway wondering why they even made the drive up in the first place.  The more we thought about it, the more we laughed.

My friend drove up here to have lunch and we made a point of stopping in the driveway to take some pictures of the sign.  The laughter that we had shared before was brought back quickly as we sat in our seats, tears staining our cheeks as the laughter started all over again.

Now, every time I drive by Moot Point, it makes me giggle.  One innocuous sign is now the thing that can bring a smile to my face because it brings back memories of sharing great laughs with someone who is just as warped as I am.

Sometimes you just need a hug

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Emotion is a very worthy adversary.  It can lay dormant and sneak up on you when you least expect it.  On Monday I fell victim to its stealthy attack and was on the verge of an ugly cry in my office in the middle of the day.  At that moment, all I wanted was a hug.

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Being affected by a wave of feelings is nothing new to me.  I get overwhelmed by, not only my sorrows but, the melancholy felt by those around me.  Like a kettle that is too full of water, that emotion has nowhere else to go and eventually it spills out.

In those moments, I feel like a child holding my arms in the air, waiting for someone to come and pick me up and tell me it’s going to be okay.  I know the surge of sadness will pass, but sometimes you just need a hug to make everything feel better.  The comfort of an embrace is what we are born knowing and trusting.

We had a senior’s bus tour at the lodge this past fall and I met one of the sweetest ladies during that tour.  She was all of 4 feet high and spoke with a wee Scottish brogue.  Every morning she would come into the office and ask if I wanted a hug.  I never turned her down.  And she did the same thing with the 38 other people on the tour, always careful to ask the wives’ permission to be able to hug their husbands.

She gets it.  She knows there is nothing more heart-warming than a genuine embrace that will make the sorrow seem less sad, that will make life seem more manageable and that will make reality more acceptable.  A hug can speak more than words, can drain sadness from your soul and can let people know how you feel about them without having to say a word.

While life may try to challenge your reality, one simple hug can bring you right back to where you need to be.  Hugging is the most beautiful form of communication and it allows someone to know that you truly care.

 

 

If I say I’m fine….I’m lying

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Many memes and many jokes (mostly at men’s expense) have skirted around the fact that if a woman says, “I’m fine”, there is an emotional undertone that means something far beyond being fine.  My experience with the phrase ‘I’m fine’ has completely surpassed that, to the point that nobody in my immediate family uses those two words to describe their current state of being.

Both of my parents were alcoholics and suffered through a myriad number of complications through their later years.  It is an ugly disease with ugly consequences.  The worst part of watching the effects of alcoholism deteriorate a human body is having that person tell you that, while they are suffering numerous symptoms and contrary to every doctor’s diagnosis, they are fine.  Fine is no longer a word I use to describe how I feel and for very good reason – it’s bullshit.

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I sent a text to a friend yesterday to ask about their well-being and was given the response “I’m okay”.   Although it was not the tried and hated response of “I’m fine”, it ranked right up there and it made my Spidey senses tingle.  I knew there was more going on but I also knew not to push.

When you get a text message from someone you know on a very personal level, the inflection in their voice is heard loud and clear above the silence of a text message.  The only thing I can do is be here when they need to vent, to be present when they realize that I know they are not “fine” or “okay” and just be ready to listen.

 

I just called…..to say…….I love you

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I was sent a message by a friend who, like me, has been struggling to find a reason for all the recent losses that our small town has endured.  In a community like ours, you either know everyone or you know them by six degrees of separation, so when someone passes away the ripple effect of that loss reaches everyone.

It is times like these that I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support shown to the families of those who have passed.  And it is times like these that remind me to hold my loved ones that much closer.

My dad was a very emotional man who never shied away from saying ‘I love you’.   He was very demonstrative about his feelings and nobody was ever left guessing about his affection for them.  My mother didn’t start out that way, but she eventually found comfort in sharing her feelings as well.  It wasn’t until after my parents had passed that my brother and I drew much of our strength from sharing that same three-word phrase with each other.

It saddens me that some people feel uncomfortable saying ‘I love you’.  Even though they have the feelings, they are unable to comfortably share those sentiments when, ultimately, that is how they feel.

I don’t want to regret anything in the brief time that I have in this lifetime.  I don’t want people to not know how I feel about them.  Everyone one of you, whether we are family, friends or we have met through this blog, has had a tremendous impact on my life and I love all of you.  Each of you has taken time to comment on or like the thing that I am most proud of, my writing, and I am grateful for that and each and every day.  You all hold a very special place in my heart.

So, if I say I love you and it takes you off guard, just know that I am not trying to make you uncomfortable nor am I expecting you to tell me how you feel.  I just want to know that I took the opportunity to tell you before it was too late.

Grief cannot be fixed, it can only be carried

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I have suffered my share of grief through the loss of many people I held dear.  There was no reason for those losses to occur in the way they did and dealing with those wounds has not made me a stronger person, contrary to popular opinion.

It is tough to find words to say to people after they have suffered the loss of a loved one.  There are no magic phrases to make it all better.  There is no invisible salve to heal the wounds.  There is only comfort in a hug.  There is the ability to hold them when they can’t stop crying.  And there are the moments to share the wonderful memories of the person who has passed.

Loss never becomes easier with time as much as people try to tell you it does.  The only thing that time changes is our ability to live our lives in a new way and deal with the absence of that person on a daily basis.  It is true that some days are better than others.  But it is also true that you can be so overwhelmed by the pain of loss that you cannot leave your house because your tears are uncontrollable.

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There is no right or wrong way to grieve.  Emotion will control you, not the other way around.  The only thing you can do is carry that pain with you and wear it like a badge of honor.  That pain reminds you of the connection you had to the person who has passed.  That grief is the glue that binds you to the soul who has left this lifetime.  And those tears are the reality that make you painfully aware that grief cannot be fixed.  It can only be carried.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you can’t go back

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Not so long ago, I ran into a person who used to be a friend of mine.  We parted ways after I grasped who this person truly was and I realized that their definition of a relationship was far from how I defined my friendships.  It was an awkward reunion, to say the least, and after the uncomfortable hug was over I left thinking about the many things that had occurred during our friendship that helped me to redefine my idea of a relationship.

I have grown up knowing that a true relationship is born of empathy and that a relationship, in its purest form, receives as much as it gives.  Thus was not the case in this instance.

It is difficult to put a relationship under a microscope and analyze the small parts that make up the sum of those parts.  In the initial stages of that friendship, the sum seemed to make complete sense, but upon further scrutiny, those parts did not add up at all.  It was easy for me to dismiss the signs that our friendship did not compute, but I was unwilling to see the failure in the equation, for whatever reason.  Seeing this person again made me realize that I was right to stand behind my feelings and although there is always the urge to keep a hold on what is familiar, sometimes you can’t go back.

I can’t forgive many of the things that happened in our past and I certainly can’t overlook that this person could never see beyond themselves to put me first, in any situation.  I can’t disregard the fact that my needs never came ahead of theirs, and I can’t ignore the numerous times that I put my needs aside to get them through their next crisis.  I wanted to move forward and so many of the parameters of our relationship needed to be redefined in order for me to do that.

I  will never be sad that I gave so much of myself in that relationship because that is who I am.  I will never regret the time I spent trying to help.  But at some point, I realized that my needs were just as important and, even though there had been many good times in our relationship, the need to move forward was more important that the urge to go back.

 

 

 

The power of the written word

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Words have always been a passion of mine.  I can remember penning poems before my age was in the double digits and I loved to lose myself in books at a young age as well.  Having said this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that words affect many others the same way they affect me but today I was shown a glaring example of how words, my words, had a greater resonance than I ever imagined.

On August 30th, I wrote this poem (click here) about a dear friend who had gone into hospital the previous night.   Writing, especially writing poetry, is very cathartic for me and allows me to deal with my emotion on a level on which I feel very comfortable.  I had given the poem to the companion of the woman who was the subject of the poem hoping he could read it to her in the hospital.

Sadly, a week after she went into hospital, she passed away from a virulent bacterial infection that her body couldn’t fight due to the aggressive chemotherapy she had been undergoing.  I never found out if he had read the poem to her while she was still conscious.

Today, I drove to the city with my friend and co-worker to attend the celebration of life for this dear woman we both had met at the lodge and absolutely adored.  When her companion, Sandy, saw us at the golf club, his eyes welled with tears and we were both met with a warm embrace.    He invited us to sit at his family table and treated us like we were a part of his family.  After a toast to Joan and some funny stories, I found out that Sandy had read my poem at her funeral service.  I was moved to tears.

As I write this post through many more tears, I can take great pride in knowing that my words fell onto the ears of so many others who loved her as well.  One simple night of pouring out my emotion into a blog post turned into a tribute that hundreds of people were able to hear and know how much she meant to me.  Words have connected me to her friends and family and for that I will be forever grateful.

 

 

And just like that, she was gone…..

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I was introduced to the term “pathetic fallacy” in my grade ten English class.  We were told that the phrase was used when weather mirrored a character’s emotion in the story we were reading.  Today that term popped into my head as I drove through town, the dark, churning black clouds reflecting the absolute devastation I felt after hearing a dear woman, a dear friend had passed away this morning.

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The irony of my learning of her death did not escape me.  I had called the hospital to find out if I was able to visit her on Friday morning, or at least spend time with her husband while he spent his day in the ICU waiting room.  The nurse felt that the family would not mind if she informed me of her passing.  My breath caught in my throat and for a moment I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.  The tears came soon after the nurse’s words settled into my ears.  She was gone.  I can only be thankful that I had a brief moment to hold her hand and tell her that I loved her before the ambulance whisked her away from the lodge last week.

Her age and her illness have no relevance to my overwhelming sense of loss.  She was the most lively spirit I have ever met.  She and I were two peas in a pod and I cherished the time I got to spend with her.  She looked every bit the part of a polished, regal lady but she wouldn’t hesitate to drop an f-bomb here and there when she felt it appropriate.  She was grace personified and I shall miss her radiant smile and that slight smirk that would accompany those frequent f-bombs.

I spent the drive home today barely able to see through my tears.  I had gone to let my dog out and, when I reached my entrance way, I was greeted by a tiny brown bird inside the entrance way perched on my cake pans.  It fluttered its wings and flew to the nearest window sill.  After a few attempts to retrieve the little bird with my golf ball retriever, the bird ended up on the floor behind some boxes and seemed to wait patiently for me to reach in and pick it up in my hand.  The bird did not hesitate to grip my finger with its warm talons and let me carry it outside.   For five minutes, I talked to the bird and gently stroked its feathers.  It didn’t fly away.  Instead, it closed its eyes and I just stared at it.

I am a big believer in signs and I truly feel that this tiny bird was Joan’s way of saying, “I’m okay. I got my wings and I’m not suffering any more”.  When I finally put the bird on the table on my deck, it sat and stared back at me for a few minutes, hopped across the table, pooped on the glass table top and then flew away.  It makes me smile to think that she still got the last word and left me with laughter and not tears.

I shall miss you, sweet lady.  We didn’t know each for a long time but we knew each other well and you will always have a big place in my heart.