A second chance after all,

In going through and editing my photos, I came face to face to face with the physical resemblance between Maya and my Mum. My mother died 15 years before Maya was born so I never saw the connection at all. Then, in organizing the pictures side by side in a collage, it jumped out at me - Maya looks like my mother. Yes, she looks like her paternal grandmother, Rose, but dear God she looks like my Mom as well - same face shape and same smile - and I'm pleased with that. I look more like the Hogenkamps, than the Balharries, but I still have their DNA in me. So Maya does look like me and my mother and my grandmother, since my mom looked like her mom (a Ghilchrist to be specific).

What an amazing discovery. Why it took so long to see this is beyond me. Perhaps it's because I spent so many years not wanting to be like my mother, that prevented me from seeing her genetic and cultural influence. She was such a complex person in my life and my feelings were so layered that I just distanced myself from her. I muted my memories and shut her away so she couldn't hurt me. It's time to let her out of the box and recognize her influence on me and her many gifts. Her spirit was very strong even as she was very weak.

She longed to be accepted by a father who never could. It mattered a lot to her what people thought. She was convinced that she didn't quite measure up to the opinions of others. Hence she was an education and social snob. She was a well read, very gifted, quick and articulate woman who always believed that people were looking down on her from some unfathomable place that she couldn't attain.

Yet for all that (fear) she had huge courage.

She lived through a combined seven years in a TB sanatorium, where she was expected to die but survived. She trained to be a registered nurse and was struck down with TB in her final year
so missed graduating with her class. When she returned all those years later to complete her training, she was not allowed to nurse because she had had TB. She finished her training anyway.

At 27, she sailed to Holland to marry a man she hardly knew in a foreign country where she didn't know the language, history or the culture. She always referred to that decision as her salvation. Without my father she saw her life in Ottawa stretching out in unending narrowness.
She learned Dutch and became fluent within a year. She had to because to speak with an English accent could have cost her her life once the Nazis occupied Holland.

She raised her child in occupied Holland while her husband was away in the resistance and she never complained of the danger. She loved Holland and always longed to go back after returning to Canada. After my father died. and after years of being a stay at home mother, Mom went back to her first love, nursing. It was probably too hard for her by that time but at age 48 she became a geriatric nurse to prove to herself she could do it. She still was a snob, still cared what the neighbours thought, still was embarrassed by her radical, ban the bomb and civil rights marching daughter, but she never ever said I was wrong. She just wished I could demonstrate less visibly.

We had come a long way towards being friends again by the time she died so suddenly at 50. I was devastated to be left alone with all that unfinished business between us. The things she never saw me do and become. She never saw me get my Masters Degree, become a teacher and university lecturer (it would have warmed her snobbish heart). She wasn't there for her grand daughter's birth. It would have been her second chance at mothering. She had an acerbic sense of humour and was the master of understatement.

Sitting one rainy day, in our (Alfie and my) yet unfinished farm house, the windows leaking a tidal wave, with pots and pans everywhere catching the water. The sound of dripping water was filling the air, and my mother smiled sweetly. "This is such a wonderful house" she said..." just a few minor wrinkles need ironing out". It was her understatement at its finest, calmly delivered without a hint of criticism.

Sometimes I don't even know if she was aware of her understatement. Once we were sitting in her garden after I had married Alfie (which she greatly approved of) and the subject of children came up. She leaned forward in all earnestness and said " remember dear, never ever strike yor child in anger, because when out of control, you can really hurt your child". I stared at her in confusion, she couldn't be real? My mother, the past master of corporal punishment was counseling me against hitting my children. I don't know if she was even aware that I had once been afraid of her. I think she had erased that whole dark period of her illness out of her mind.

I said nothing. She died a year later. So much was left unsaid. I'm glad Maya looks like her.

Our DNA is who we are.

Three generations of Maya's maternal family women. My mother in her early twenties with the first in a long line of Winkies; Maya showing off one of her many talents -spoon hanging; my favourite cat Chester demonstrating his dedication to personal hygene; and me at nine, fifteen, sixty and now.

Can you see the family resemblance? It's interesting how photos can reveal what the eye sometimes misses. I never realized that Maya looks like my Mom. Because Maya never knew my Mom, we always assumed she looks like Rose, her paternal grandmother, and she does. However, look at the shape of her face compared to my mother's. Pretty clear isn't it?

What an interesting melange of genes is found in each of us. No matter how we may wish to escape our heredity, we never can. So suck it up disgruntled ones, our family DNA is who we are. It's what we do with it that counts.

Natasha Belle Manley and Oma, April 24, 2010. Two weeks old and perfect in every way.

Quintisential Willy

 

This is my Willy. He is a clown, a cuddle, clutzy, and very bright. He gets into trouble every day and must be constantly watched in the house. He is allowed outside on short adventures when I'm out too and he is remarkably cautious out there. Willy likes playing with people, cats, toys, mice and flies. He sleeps soundly when he sleeps but can wake up in a nano second ready for action. He brings joy and laughter into my house. He was a foundling, another delivered to my door by my HP and I'm happy for that.

My tipping point.

Another really nice day and I spent part of it out taking care of business: banking, shopping, and other irrelevancies needed to sustain life. Throughout the day I reflected on my preceding post and wondered if I hadn't been too hard on my Toronto friends. Was this really so much worse than previous visits? Perhaps the behaviour was no worse but Julie was worse and seeing that, I reacted more intensely.

Julie's memory is going as is her connection to the reality of today. It is getting harder to have a conversation with her and she gets confused a lot. It pains me to see it. Before too long her kids will begin notice that she is no longer fully present. Then the opportunity to really communicate will be gone. It is slipping away for me too. Though we have the past to connect us, we have very little shared present time. I'm frustrated by our conversations now because Julie is faking it more and more.

I want to shout at the family and cut through their complacency, "don't waste her time with your self centered nonsense. There isn't much of it left". But I think they see it and are afraid.

I had the hope of showing her the Equinox photos, discussing the art and sharing my impressions. It became clear that she really couldn't see the photos properly and didn't recognize the "Grief" sculpture series. She talked about the earlier sculptures but couldn't see the connection to the new series. After years of bemoaning the loss of the original series, she didn't register any recognition of the new sculptures. I was so sad. We two, who had shared a studio for years, exhibited together, and exchanged our values and ideas, have lost that ability now. Julie had a gift for analysis and practical criticism like no other and I miss it. I miss Julie.

So maybe my reaction was more intense because I have reached my tipping point. I have to rethink my expectations and accept the realities of the here and now.
That doesn't mean I have to accept Jerzy's abuse. Nor do I need to be present at the family circus. In future visits I must protect myself from disappointment and avoid stress. I can't come home sick and suffering from hives again.

Well, I'm back in the Petes after a really up and down weekend in Toronto. The weather was amazing. My arrival and first night started nicely but ended with me being yelled at for reasons I can't quite understand. That resulted in Jule apologising for her husband's behaviour and me going to bed early with a bad headache. Sunday morning I fled early to meet my cyber girls for brunch at Zoots.

I was so early, I drove around several blocks. walked up and down streets and took in the diversity that is the Dundas and Dufferin area. We brunched and had a wonderful time with the added bonus of being joined by Maya. I was invited back to Norah's place and saw her jewelry. I ended up buying a stunning silver pendant. So now we're even. My print adorns her wall and her pendant adorns my neck. How great is that?

Then back to Julie's for the Birthday celebrations. Her whole family came, the grown, married children with their little, lively grandchildren, and good friends. The meal was great but after eating, they have this ritual of letting the kids go berserk, encouraged by their parents, whereby balloons are punched and popped, the couch is jumped on, chasing and screaming ensues and we older folk can't hear each other for the noise. We are supposed to sit back and watch this with indulgent amusement, because after all we have nothing of interest to contribute anyway. We are all over seventy, have hearing issues, two survived strokes, one is just recovering from cancer surgery and collectively we retreated into ourselves to try to minimize the clamor and stave off exhaustion. I watched cushions tearing open, the couch sagging, books and toys being strewn all over the place and asked myself how Julie could stand this. She, who values calm and order so highly and who always encouraged creative play in her own children, was helpless to influence the scene being played out. It was like a violation How could her home, values and personal space have become so unimportant to her family? Is that what being handicapped does? Does being dependent mean you are no longer respected? Does her husband allow this din to recur as a form of retribution or has he just lost control? He did try to steer the kids into the basement to play but their doting parents brought the action beck into the living room for us all to "enjoy".

Looking at the whole dynamic, I realized that although nobody means to be thoughtless, they are so self-absorbed, and complacent that they can't even see what they are doing. That is a dysfunctional family, full of love but unable to really engage each other. There is a smugness in that family that borders on rudeness. Five seniors were present and not an iota of sensitivity was shown. Apparently, we were there as a cheering section for the kids, not to honour Julie's seventy-eight years. This passes for fun and everyone goes home satisfied that a good time was had by all. Julie was so exhausted that she slept away the last day of my visit and I departed from my best friend's home with such immense relief that the visit was over.

Maya got it right when she said that focusing on the their children allows the adult children to not see too deeply into the declining existence of their parents. No-one was allowed to hold a conversation with Julie, because of the noise and apparently that's ok. All those people symbolically celebrating Julie's Birthday, with very little interest in the needs of the celebrant. Noise creates confusion and a sense of isolation in the stroke survivor. No wonder Julie retreats into sleep.

I never got to say good-bye to Julie the next day because she was sleeping. I slipped away to visit Jane for lunch with spirits soaring. We had a grand lunch at her place and I was on the DVP heading home before three. I arrived back with a bad cold, a continuous headache and a killer soar throat, but thank God almighty, I'm home.

Footnote: I was so unwell, I had to cancel my physiotherapy and pottery class for the week. All I'm able to do is sleep and chill. Today the cold is much improved and the headache is almost gone. A day in the garden with my cat Willy and under the sunshine has done wonders. I really must give careful thought to protecting myself from future visits. I don't want to abandon my friend, but I can't really handle the stress those visits provoke. They are bad for my health.

Congratulations and hugs Tracy and Paul. Welcome to the world Natasha Belle!