Twelve years ago today, at 6:04am, I officially became an orphan. I was sweaty and smelly from spending two days in the hospital - I remember I was wearing blue Calvins, a white Washington DC t-shirt that I never wore again, and my black cowboy boots. My hair was tangled and natty. I was sleep deprived and running on adrenaline, barking orders to nursing staff, relatives and friends. I had a list... after Dad was pronounced at 6:21 (we had to wait for the on-call to arrive), I went into the nurses' lunchroom and pulled out the little black and gold plastic card (it looked like a VIP card for a posh and exclusive club - and it was, in a way. it was the 24-hour contact number for the undertaker, for pre-paid clients only) and arranged for the "pick-up", like some kind of mobster.

I called work, told them I wouldn't be in.

I called my father's best friend (who also happened to be my best friend's father) to activate the "Danny's dead telephone tree".

I called my cousins - my father's brother's girls, even though their father was with me. I had assigned him the task of cleaning Dad's room instead. He needed to be kept busy.

I called my Godmother. She hated me, I hated her, but hey, these are the things you do.

I called the lawyer.

I called Air Canada to begin the process of giving me my quarter million.

For the next three days I donned my staid black dresses and low heels. I smiled wanly at distant relatives I neither knew nor cared to know. I allowed old people to pat my cheeks and kiss me; already familiar with the smell of death, what was three more days of it. I stood vigil to make sure that no one opened the casket - Dad's express wish, because cancer is a disease that makes you ugly. I arranged cars and hotels like a good travel agent. I signed forms and checks without paying much attention to fine print or dollar value. I mouthed the 23rd Psalm which I already knew by heart, having been to so many of these events since the age of 7.

Occasionally I remembered to eat, remembered to feed the cat. I desperately wanted a whiskey, but there was too much driving to be done. And when it was all over, and everyone had gone and left me alone, I baked pies. Really, dozens of pies. I was all by myself, my boss had forced me to take more time off than I needed, and I realized (after almost running over a group of schoolgirls on the sidewalk) that I was in no fit state - with or without alcohol - to be driving. So I was trapped in my apartment with nothing to do and no one to talk to. And I baked 23 pies.

A few days later I turned 19.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

Today is my mother's birthday. Had she lived, she would have been 64. I completely forgot about it until a moment ago, when reading an article that had the date prominently displayed. I guess that's what 16 years can do.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

On this day 30 years ago, the angel who was sent to save my life was born. Every year I make it a point to celebrate the day, and the life of the one who was tasked by the Divine to rescue a sick, battered orphan.

I don't know what purpose I was saved for. Take a bullet for the president? Find a cure for something? Heed the Oracle of Steyn?? No idea. All I know is that I was down as low as a person could get, and as I lay in a hospital bed and opened my eyes, I saw him there, and for the first time I saw the golden light around him. And I began to believe. For the first time in my life, I had faith.

I tend to think that after all these years he probably wouldn't care much for the person I've become in terms of politics and ideals. Perhaps if he knew how I saw him, he may even rue his participation in my continued existence. For of course, he never knew he was doing the work of someone more powerful that himself. In his mind he was just a kind boy caring for a sick girl. But he was so much more than that: he was put in my path for a reason.

If I chose to I could pick up the phone and once more hear his voice, but I have chosen not to. His work with me is complete, and I won't bother him in his life. He is successful and happy and brilliant and everything I knew he could be. That is his reward. I'll not spoil it.

He continues to be the standard by which I judge all humanity. Not just the impossible standard that no man could ever hope to live up to, but the standard by which ALL humanity is measured. Will any of us ever measure up? I hold out hope - he taught me to hope.

Happy birthday, my angel. And thank you for this life you have given me. It isn't always easy, but I owe it to you to try.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

It's been fifteen years since my mother succumbed to lung cancer. Cigarettes were her vice. Two and a half packs a day for thirty years. When she died she was just 47 lbs.

Everyone loved my mother. She was a perfect angel to all who knew her. Kind, benevolent, trustworthy - she was a girl scout. Funny, silly, a middle-aged child.

Why then do I have so many nightmares about her? Why was I so shy when she was alive, and only came out of my shell when she was gone? Sure, I fucked up a lot of my life after her death, and my father's a few years later. But I can't help but wonder if I would be as strong, interesting and successful as I am today had she given up her habit and lived to see me into my twenties. Or would I be doing as all my friends are beginning to do, and turning into my mother?

The dynamic of a mother-daughter relationship is a strange one. Every one is different. Some mothers and daughters are remarkably alike in looks, interest and temperament. Others are like night and day. My mother and I weren't at each other's throats, but we were quite opposite. I was my father's child - smart and sharp and acerbic. I was dramatic, a diva at a young age. My mother was a tomboy in jeans who would entertain the kids (my friends and I) by building a campfire or teaching us to climb trees. She could shoot. I could walk in heels. She was a backwoods girl who said "eh" a lot. I read my first Tolstoy at 11. When she died, I felt like I could breathe.



My father, on the other hand, was lost without her. Within five years, he drank himself to death. Saying it that way makes it sound so ugly - and it was, don't get me wrong. But time and distance have a way of letting you blur the edges, and now I prefer to say that he died of a broken heart. Because he did. The day we buried my mother, we left him behind in her grave.

Over and over he would play Honey, and cry silently, empty bottle on the table and tears streaming down his cheeks from his glassy bloodshot eyes. I've never seen any man of any age so in love with a woman that he willed his heart to stop beating for her. Terrifying as it was, it was also beautiful. Fifteen years ago today, he lost Honey.

Labels: Ghosts, Honey, Music, Parents, Personal

Today I had to trek out to one of the more far-flung areas of Toronto, taking subways and buses till I finally arrived at my destination. As I sat looking out the window of the bus in one particular part of town, I felt the little hairs on the back of my arms stand up in fear and fury. The Slums.

Lest you misunderstand, I'm not afraid of slum people. I'm afraid because I'm one of them. I was born in a part of Montreal that was never prosperous, and grew considerably less so over the decades. I got out. My family and I fled to suburbia, fled from the drafty, damp basement apartments, from the slumlords, from the rats. We worked - all of us - to ensure that we'd never have to go back. I did things beyond the comprehension of most of my middle-class mates, just to secure my place among them. Yet now, when I pass through a slum, a ghetto, my skin crawls, and I can almost hear their dirty streets calling out to me, reaching out to snatch me back into the fold. To bring me down.

I felt so much anger toward the people there. Not the newly arrived immigrants who spoke no English, but the Canadians - black and white - who were born to have the same opportunities as I had. They went to school. They had clean clothes and modest meals on the table. They could have been even more than me - I who blew most of my opportunities, or didn't recognize them at the time. Instead the white boys grew up to be meth heads, and the girls of both colors didn't grow up at all before bringing in the next generation. So it begins all over again. They'll never get out. And we have to wait and see what their children will do with the opportunities they're given.

I, the gutter child, fight every day against what I came from, lest it drag me back. The climb out is a hard one, the slide back can happen in the blink of an eye. I have gained too much, seen too much, accomplished too much, to ever go back. But nothing will ever make me forget.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

Tomorrow I will be taking a train into my past. I will be hurtling along the tracks to Montreal, to face people I haven't seen in years. I'm terrified, but I must go.

Nanny died.

She wasn't my grandmother, but I came to regard her as such. On that terrible day when I was five, and my mother took me out to the rotting stump in front of the Cottage to tell me Grandma had gone to Heaven, my little heart broke for the first time. As I sobbed and wailed, my friend TG came and put her arms around me, and said, in her little six-year-old voice, "You can share my grandparents." And I did, in all the years that followed.

When I was six and I split my head open on an end table, Nanny was the one who washed the blood away and kept me calm till my parents could be located. When TG and I were in school together, I often had lunch at her house (Grandpa made great soups). When my parents died, she was there - with pastries and pies, with hugs and a place to escape to if I needed it. She made a kickass hot pepper jelly that I would devour during turkey dinners at the Cottage. I was lucky enough to be at her 65th wedding anniversary party in 2000, when the letter from the Queen was read out, congratulating the couple on their longevity. When I got married, she gave me the lovely crystal wine goblets that I still use today. I last saw her 3 years ago, when Mr. Right and I were visiting from Scotland. I made it a point to go visit her, and I'm glad I did.

Nanny saw my whole life. And on Saturday morning, I will pay tribute to hers. For this I will make the journey into my past.

Rest in peace, Nanny. You had a good long life, and you didn't suffer. In the end, it's all any of us can ask for.

Labels: Ghosts, Personal

In my ears tonight: the rushing of blood, the buzz of a million thoughts, and music...

The Letting Go - Melissa Etheridge
I came here to let you know
The letting go
Has taken place
I have held the winter's son
Become one
Set my pace
Isn't that what we wanted all along
Freedom like a stone
Maybe we were wrong
But I can say goodbye
Now that the passion's died
Still it comes so slow
The letting go

Path of Thorns - Sarah McLachlan
Through the years I've grown to love you
Though your commitment to most would offend
But I stuck by you holding on with my foolish pride
Waiting for you to give in...
You never really tried or so it seems
I've had more than myself to blame
I've had enough of trying everything
And this time it is the end...

Goodnight and Thank You - Madonna & Antonio Banderas
Oh but it's sad when a love affair dies
The decline into silence and doubt
Our passion was just too intense to survive

Breakfast After Ten - Blue October
And I've learned a lot from all these break ups and make ups
And fuck ups and fake ups
Things that I wish you could comprehend yeah, comprehend
But for now I'll lace up
these wingtip shoes, boys
And I'll go have breakfast with my good friends

Bad Timing - Blue Rodeo
I never meant to make you cry
And though I know I should call
It just reminds us of the lost
Of everything we've lost
Bad timing that's all

Did I Shave My Legs For This? - Deanna Carter
I bought these new heels, did my nails
Had my hair done just right
I thought this new dress was a sure bet
For romance tonight
Well it's perfectly clear,between the TV and beer
I won't get so much as a kiss
As I head for the door I turn around to be sure
Did I shave my legs for this?

Labels: Ghosts, Music