Letter to my dad

Dearest dad,

I'm writing you this letter for Father's Day, even though you've been gone from this world since December 26, 1992.  That's 20 years ago this year, and really hard to believe.  You were only 67 years old, so today you would be 87!  You would be happy to hear that my little sister is starting to look so much like you I can hardly believe it.  Maybe it's her new glasses and that she's turning 50 today.  You've missed so much since you left.  The most important of all are the additions to our big family.  We've added new husbands and wives, but especially all sorts of new children were born.  You have eight great grandchildren who have never had the pleasure of meeting you.  They are the apple of everyone's eye.  Luckily for all of us, you passed along your secrets of how to treat and love kids, because that's something you did so well and were known for.  I had someone tell me you were an "angel of a man", and she was certainly right.

We have all missed you sorely.  We took years to get over it, but as time wore on, we've come to terms and even though we think of you often, we've had to put one foot in front of the other and slowly get on with our lives.  The day of your funeral was the coldest day on record.   The wind blew, it stormed and it approached 50 below zero.  Seemed like you didn't want to leave either. Auntie Dianne had similiar weather, so I don't think she was really ready either...  There have been other losses of family and old friends, but we are comforted to know you are all together.  The loss of your teen-aged grandson, was especially hard.  You, him, Merton, and Auntie Dianne must make quite the merry bunch to add to all the other family and friends already there.  I'm a person who saves cards from funerals, and they are really beginning to pile up!

You know what I miss the most?  Sitting on the couch in the crook of your arm.  Probably watching some TV show like Bonanza.  Me playing with the hair on your forearms.  I miss you tucking me into bed at night when I was a little girl.  Every night without fail you would come in and talk to me and kiss me good night.  We always had big hugs. Those are memories that can never be taken away.  I miss your impromptu visits after I got married and moved away.  If you were in the vicinity, you would be at my house.  Being in the funeral business in those days, sometimes you set the neighbourhood all a-twitter by showing up driving the hearse.  Well after all, you might have had to make a trip to whereever I lived all in the line of work.  No point in missing the opportunity to visit your family if the chance arose.  You had no qualms about telling me my bathroom needed cleaning either.  There again,  I wasn't afraid to hand you the toilet brush and it wasn't beneath you to use it!  You would help me with whatever I needed, if only I asked. 

My own children grew up knowing their grandparents very well.  They loved you both as much as I did and loved going to your house for a visit.  As the years went by and they got older, the visits would sometimes be for weeks on end during the summer. Somehow, having them around seemed to make you and mom younger.  Sitting on your knee or letting them lay down for a nap with you made such a mark in their lives.  They loved going to the fair, the same as we did when we were kids.  You and mom always went and made sure they had lots of rides, games and candy floss.  We all loved going out to see you at the farm.  You often had pop and chocolate bars or some other treat for us when we showed up.  You would make time and be happy as anything to see us.

We loved to go with mom to take meals to the field during harvest.  You would be driving the combine and I can see you in your coveralls, jumping down and walking toward us to this day.  Mom would make big meals of meat and potatoes and the whole crew, including us and the hired men would eat voraciously. Sitting on the tail gate of the truck or just on the ground in the stubble beside the car was absolutely the best.  I didn't know the difference, but was told you were such a great farmer.  We got to ride on the combine for a short while with you if we wanted to.  I remember coming home from school one day and finding out that you broke one of your fingers.  You'd  caught your ring on the metal stairs coming down off the combine.  I don't believe you wore rings while working much after that.  I remember you being happy about the insurance you got for the broken finger though!  I remember you telling us about the wildlife you would encounter while combining into the wee hours of the morning.  Bears, coyotes, foxes, deer, moose they were thick at Hudson Bay near the newly broken land. 

I distinctly remember having a discussion with you about money.  Of course, I was going to university and thought I knew everything.  I think we were talking about who I should be dating and it would be nice if the person had money.  A sort of a philosophical conversation.  I was quite insensed and said, "dad, money isn't everything you know!"  I mean, who on earth would stoop to marrying someone for their money?  His answer was so succinct and to the point...."no, but it sure helps."  Those kinds of things have stuck with me. 

When we visited you in the hospital, your face would light up and you would be so happy.  I wish I would have stayed longer on each and every one of my visits.  I was always having to leave and get on the road...and you were always wanting me to stay longer....I wish now that I had made those visits last much longer than I did.

You were a practical joker and one of the things I still have as a reminder is a shoe box full of safety pins.  I guess I mentioned I need some once.  You wrote "To Jean Love Dad" in black jiffy marker on the top.  I think of you every time I see that box.  I have pictures of you, but not nearly enough.  I wish I had so many more, but there again, I don't.  If anybody has any pictures of my dad, I would absolutely love to have copies.   I think that's one of the best gifts you can give somebody...photos of their loved one that you might have sitting in your closet.  They really mean the world to someone.

Dad, your shop was always as neat as a pin.  You could fix most things, and even though it might take you awhile to figure it out, you would be successful in the end.  I remember your set of funny-looking open drawers that were full of screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and you name it.  You had them all sorted out  in this really orderly fashion.  You were a big game hunter and kept us fed with moose meat most years.  We often had company staying at the farm and many of them came to Hudson Bay to hunt big game.  Your shop was the place you hung the meat.  When I think of all the buildings on that farm....all the equipment....all the land...I wonder how you had any time for yourself.  I used to wonder how come you'd go to bed right after supper in seeding and harvest and be up by 5:00 a.m.  I thought you were crazy.  I remember you asking me why I didn't go to bed earlier.  Well, I was a teenager and I thought it was cool to stay up until 11pm and then sleep in..  (Mom made sure I did my quota of housework and cooking...lucky for me or I would be useless in the house today).  Now I know why you had to do that. 

I remember you saying things to me like I might lay an egg if I kept laughing.  You teased us kids and laughed and when we got mad or pouted you'd say "bad old dad"...I remember you saying things like, "oh yeah, wear out the old stuff first".  You meant, we were asking you to do something we were perfectly capable of doing ourselves.

I still think you had some mid-Victorian values and ideas though.  You were ultra conservative about many things.  Now I understand why, but at the time when I was a teenager, I wanted to talk openly about everything including the birds and the bees.  You put mom up to that.  I guess I'm mid-Victorian too, because when she tried to have "the talk" with me, I said  she didn't have to because I already knew "everything"....even though I really knew nothing.  I think my face was flaming red for three days after.  Neither you nor I were quite ready for the sixties I guess!  You dad, had a knack for knowing what to do or say when I really needed someone.  After a tiff with my boyfriend, you came out and sat on the step with me in the dark and told me one thing.  You said, and I will never, ever forget this...  "No boy is ever going to love you the way I do."  I said, "I know dad."   It made me cry, but turns out, you were right.

Dad, I always loved listening to you sing.  You sang so much when I think of it. You'd be working away and just singing...mostly songs off the radio, I guess. You whistled too.  You were a good dancer and took us to all the community hall dances.  I just don't know what ever happened to  events that were so much fun for the whole family.  Dad, you would come in from the field and for entertainment would take the whole family for a drive around the country looking at the crops.  We loved those intimate family times.  We'd stop and get out and walk  a little ways into the field, imitating your  every move.  You brushed  your hands over the heads of the barley, waved your hands through the grain, and so did we.  You cracked the heads of the wheat open and ate the grain inside...so did we.  We'd watch the sun as it started to set.  You were one helluva driver when you were looking at the crops though...even I remember that.  Even so, you drove thousands of miles on combines, tractors and trucks and when I realized I couldn't see well at night to drive, it was you that I handed the wheel to.  It was you who let my son drive with you to the lake, when I was such a basket case around a brand new driver.  You were on morphine by this time, and I said you were so brave because you were under the influence.  You would have done it regardless, but I'm a teaser too.

Dad, you were so handsome.  Your hair was never out of place and you always liked your clothes pressed, even if they were for out working in the field and riding on the tractor.  I so wish you were still here, but I would never have wanted you to continue on with the pain and suffering you were going through.  I just always wanted to have you with me and I always will.  I carry you in my heart and soul forever.  Your are as much a part of me as I am of you.  Until we meet again, my dearest dad.

Did I tell you the one about....

Did I tell you the one about one time when I was working on a hospital ward as a nurse?  I wore no cap that day, but  was wearing a white uniform dress.  I was covering over the lunch hour for another nurse's patient.  He was an elderly male who was dying in a room across from the desk and had family members with him.  I knew even though my own assignment was crazy busy, that I still needed to check on him. I had been told he wouldn't be living very many more hours, since mottling of his lower extremities was present and he was having regular apneic spells.  I walked into the room, only to find the sun streaming in through the window enveloping him and the entire bed.  It was one of those times where you can see the lit-up dust particles floating in the air, if you know what I mean.  I didn't speak, just quietly tip-toed in.  He heard me I guess and turned his head toward me.  All of sudden, he smiled and cried out in wonderment, "an angel!" You may not believe this, but he died right then and there. I stood for a minute, rooted to the spot, thinking he had mistaken me for an angel because of my white uniform and blonde hair.  Then I wondered if I didn't have someone walking beside me from another world or dimension that he could see and I couldn't.  I guess I will never know.  I walked up to his bedside still in shock, took out my stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat.  There was none.  I was astounded and of course, it was something I will never forget.

Another late evening, after dark, when the hallways were vacant and the visitors had gone home, a lady patient I was caring for started telling me she had just had her deceased relatives come to visit her.  She was ecstatic and described to me in fairly vivid detail who all she talked to.  Although I held her hands and marvelled right along with her at the excitement of it all, the whole idea rattled me.  I talked it over with my nursing partner and we both had seen enough TV shows to know it could mean something ominous.   Even though everything about her had been normal for the entire day, we decided she would bear close watching.  I called her doctor as a safeguard and told him what had happened.  Sure enough, as the night progressed, her vital signs became more and more erratic to the point that I did indeed have to carry out the orders the doctor had given, should she take a turn for the worst.  I had told him of her odd circumstances and to my relief he had no misgivings or qualms that my suspicions were not correct.  He did not argue whatsoever or make me feel like I was blowing her condition out of proportion.   If he hadn't listened to me, I think she would have headed somewhere else besides earth on that night.  It was uncanny. 

Quite a long time later, I sat with my aunt as she struggled to pass away.  I had arrived at the hospital back home as her family member and not as a nurse.  Some of my family had been to see her in the afternoon and she was talking and laughing.  It was supper time when I got there and the minute I walked into the room, I recognized the signs.  She had the distinctive breathing pattern associated with dying....the death rattle.  She was no longer conscious.  I stayed with her during the night, since she and my uncle had no children of their own.  He was terribly unwell himself and the kindly hospital powers that be allowed him to be admitted into the bed next to her.  He slept off and on and worried about her all night.  She was turned and attended to by the nurses regularly during those long hours.  She was working really hard with her breathing and it was a sad thing to watch.  Come lunch time the next day, my Mom and I talked my uncle into leaving the room to go eat some lunch downstairs in the cafeteria.  When we returned, there was the tell-tale light I had seen before surrounding her and the hospital bed she lay in.  There were the shining dust particles floating through the air.  She never regained consciousness, but within minutes of our return, she gave her last breath, along with a sound that was almost like an exclamation of relief as a final noise.  My uncle was devastated and immediately showed the one and only display of anger I had ever seen on him.  He was standing up, holding onto his walker. He picked the walker up and slammed it down on the floor and asked, "why did I go down for lunch?"  Awwhh...it was such a sad day. 

I know from other experiences with those who are dying that they seem to develop a sixth sense or something.  They sometimes wait until family leaves the room, or hang on for longer than seems humanly possible while they wait for a certain loved one to arrive.  Unfinished human interaction and touch needs to be attended to before they can go it seems.  Although I have always heard, "when it's your time, it's your time"...I do wonder...are things really as random as we think?  Unexplainable happenings always give all of us pause to wonder about the very nature of life's miracles.

Friends

Friends....over a lifetime we all make a multitude of friends and acquaintances.  Some come into our lives and stay, but others are like the revolving door.  Some keep resurfacing, because just when you wonder if you'll ever see them again, there they are.  Some are there when you need them, some aren't. You are there for some and for others you aren't.  Some friends you might not have talked to in years, yet when you do reconnect it's like you've never been apart.  You know each other's every nuance, every smirk, every frown.  You and your friend both know when to talk, but also when to listen.  You and your friend have  been the shoulder to cry on the and the one who has done the crying.

The important thing about being a friend is that you care for the other person and you know they care about you.  You truly care about what happens to them and their family and likewise for them about you.  You feel this deep underlying sense of respect for the person and it is returned with full force.  Often a friend, at least from my point of view, is someone that you can learn from and vice versa.  I like to look at a friend and find one or more qualities that I can aspire to.  Some are excellent cooks, others awesome housekeepers or stupendous mothers or fathers.  Some are fabulous drivers, strong of character, wise in the ways of the world, smart with their money, brilliant with numbers, and role models in all sorts of ways. Some are fabulous dressers with fancy shoes, purses, jackets and outfits to die for.  Some have their houses decorated to the nines and it takes your breath away.  Just when you can't bear the look of anything around your house or any of the clothes in your closet, you get a boost by even a short visit with a friend.  Some friends are nothing like that, because their forte is personality, and their house may be lying in rack and ruin and their wardrobe is frumpy and made up of hand-me-downs or garage sale items.  These friends really give me inspiration.   I just want to rush home and clean my house and be happy with the clothes I've got.  I see that they've found great outfits even at bargain prices and it makes me love garage sales all the more!

Sometimes the shape  of a friend's body can serve as an inspiration to me.  If I'm feeling fat (trust me, I have NEVER felt too thin), I'm motivated by an overweight friend.  I'm also influenced directly by a friend that is svelte and sleek.  Whether the friend is overweight or has the figure of a model, each makes me want to do something better to improve my look.  I get a whole new lease on life to get back to exercising, eating right and trying to look a little more stylish.  Hairdos have the same effect.  If I'm growing my hair out (I have very fine, dirty blonde hair) I will realize I look like a scrag when I see a friend who is letting her's grow out if it makes her look unkempt.  Presto, it's off to the hairdresser for me.  If I see a friend with a chic new cut, it makes me want to improve my look too.  You see, friends can hold alot of power over our self image and we can do the same for them. 

If you have achieved something in your life that others can aspire to, that quality will be shining through.  That quality is something  I would like to see you bottle, metaphorically speaking, and share with others, especially me.  I, for one,  would dearly love for you to show me how you reached that certain lofty goal...like becoming that seamstress or quilter.  How did you learn how to build that lovely house or plant that exquisite garden?  Where did you get the ideas for all your award-winning parties and your flamboyant personality that everyone is drawn to?  Teach me, because I love to be enlightened, and I'm certainly not unique in this trait.  After all, I'm all about living in the light and shedding any form of darkness (except for sleeping and enjoying the end of the day).  I think most people are like this....always striving to find the good. 

Friends who have found their way in life may be envied by others, but their real friends only look at them and feel inspired.  Seeing your friend succeed in their career or build and maintain a profound and devout sense of spirituality and/or religion gives others strength...especially  friends.  Seeing young mothers caring devotedly for their children, while juggling everything else in life motivates everyone around them, but especially their friends and support groups.

They say we make very few 'true friends' in our lifetime, yet we have hundreds of acquaintances.  I find it harder to be the friend who reaches out and makes the call.  I may be thinking of the person, but get wound up in my own life.  Contrary to my behaviour, my true friends continue to call me, to come and visit and to make me feel like a worthwhile person.  I'm sorry to say that I take friendships for granted, yet they continue on, year after year, no questions asked.  The old adage, 'we can choose our friends, but we can't choose our relatives' was said tongue in cheek, but some of our best and truest friends may indeed be our relatives!

Who gets your brand of humour?  Likely your family and friends. Laughter is the best medicine and who better to do it with than friends, true friends, acquaintances, family and long lost relatives.   Even the guy at the grocery store, the taxi driver, or the man who knocks on your door can appreciate a friend.  Cherish all friends, both old and new... Make a friend.  Have a laugh and bring some joy and light into the world.

Fairness

We strive for fairness in our daily lives.  In our own nuclear families, amongst our children for instance, the cry goes up if one gets more love and attention, goods, or toys than the other.  As parents, we try to strike this unequivocal balance as best we can.  In our work places and schools, our administrators and bosses strive to treat all of us as much the same as possible.  Policies, procedures rules and guidelines are developed, put in place and followed to ensure this.  When we perceive unfairness or are perceived that way, we have appeal procedures and court rooms and lawyers to outline and defend our cases.  The final word comes from a judge or a jury to determine whether fairness was exploited or not.  Obviously, murder is not fair at first glance, but what are the details of the root cause?  What led this person to perform such an awful act?  Perhaps there were heinous circumstances.  Since the inception of television we see, before our eyes, daily examples of victims who couldn't be blamed if they were to retaliate and take out their tormenter(s) for all time.  We see victims related to child pornography, kidnapping, torture, human trafficking, drug addiction, sex crimes etc. I try not to watch the many shows that instill in us what is actually happening in the world, but after watching just one, I know it exists and to a much greater extent than I want to believe.  Yet we have to accept there are those in the world who harm others because they want to.

The quest for fairness is like all things though.  It swings like a pendulum.  First too far one way, and then too far the other way.  We saw it with the Canadian Gun Registry.  Someone got loose with a gun one too many times before something had to be done.  The whole idea was balked from the beginning by all the law abiding citizens who use a gun to hunt for sport or just plain old target practice.  Everyone agreed that those with a motive to kill would not likely be registering their weapons with the government.  In addition, crimes of passion do exist as well as those by people who are mentally unstable and whose outrageous behaviour is impossible to predict. Several years later and after going through millions of taxpayers dollars,  the registry was scrapped.  Does that mean the dangerous gunslingers have gone away? Don't be too complacent.

Unions in the workplace have played a big role in bringing about fairness for workers who were being exploited.  Decades ago, there were wildcat strikes and people jailed so that we could enjoy a decent working environment today.  The pendulum was far out of alignment in those days and unions were instrumental in getting things righted.  They are to be commended for their work.   Years later though, and depending upon the workplace, sometimes the quest for fairness has resulted in an off-kilter pendulum once again.   Those employees who have worked and represented workers at the local level have done their level best.  The bigger the union though, the less involvement from the guy on the front line and the less communication of what is happening.  Consequently, the little guy isn't having alot of input.  As a result, sometimes huge unions operate unfairly in the eyes of the individual worker.  Would it be wrong to realize that there may be a new chapter about to turn the corner in this quest for fairness with workers?  Does a new reality and era have to involve confrontation and poor or toxic relationships between management and workers?  Is there a better way?  Is there a collaborative method ready to emerge that that might result in a win-win situation?  We all need time to stop and think.  We all need time to understand what is fair and what is right for all.  The pendulum has swung too far and needs to be righted.

Look around at the infrastructure in our cities, towns and rural areas that surround us.  All this was dreamed of, planned for, and built by our forefathers.  Just how smart were they?  Smarter than us?  Think of the ancient people and all that they built.  They did not have computers, or GPS's, neither digital nor analog.  They had the sun, the moon, the stars, the directions, time, and math as their constant educators.  Our forefathers built giant bridges, buildings, roadways, waterways, and dams.  They were great architects and adept at manipulation of objects...the pyramids, for example.    People feared God, yet treatment of others was not stellar.  The pendulum was very much to the bad as far as treatment of people was concerned.  Punishment involved being pulled apart on a rack; having eyes plucked out, or hands, or heads chopped off.  Boiling oil was poured out of castle towers onto invading marauders.  I like to think we have come a long way.  We don't really do stuff like that any more.  We just nuke each other.  :-(  See where the pendulum is?

In our quest for fairness, we get involved in wars where we perceive injustices to others.  Take Afghanistan.  Women and men alike in our part of the world are outraged by what we perceive as atrocities to their women.  Fourteen or so years later of our involvement with their foreign occupation, the behaviour continues and it's become apparent that it's time to move on.  Plenty of goodness resulted from our involvement, such as the building of much-needed infrastructure.  Our soldiers were loved and developed many positive relationships with tons of very good people.  Many soldiers lost their lives and are mourned greatly as a result.  We learned something.  We learned about trying to force our brand of fairness  on others.  When power is held, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, under the guise of a radical religious movement, it is a tough pill to swallow.

In our quest for fairness, we follow our own religious doctrines or spiritual callings, whatever they may be.  A large percentage of us attend church, help others such as the sick, the impoverished, and those who struggle.  We all know how the religion pendulum swung too far in the colonial days with aboriginals and residential schools.  In Canada, more and more in the last few decades we have heard of one or another lawsuit that was settled in favour of a victim of some sort of abuse at the hands of those who were instilling their brand of fairness.  The church helps with building community, with keeping rules and mores.  It helps people feel a sense of love and belonging and spirituality.  People in some cases this decade, and more than ever before, are tending to use the church for obtaining a menu of services....baptisms, marriages, and funerals.  We consider ourselves full-fledged Christians, but may have our own individual relationship with our creator, rather than attending regularly as a group in a building.  We may have good intentions to attend church, but working and family responsibilities can get in the way.  We keep one foot in the door though, not wanting to cut ourselves off entirely.  Is the pendulum swinging too far the other way, or is this only a new  direction for people who are inherently good and who are struggling to cope with the designs of their existing reality?

Time and the counting of it will march on.  The pendulum will exist and we has mere humans will try to keep it centred.  The key is the weight of it...when it starts to build momentum, how do we get it stopped?

Four Seasons vs One Season

I am totally amazed.  I have only been blogging since December 31, 2011, which makes it almost five months.  Today, officially, there were 900 people in total who have viewed my blog!  753 from Canada; 66 from the United States; 42 from Russia; 15 from Germany; 4 from the United Kingdom; 3 from Thailand; and 2 each from Australia, Brazil and Latvia.  At first when I discovered how to check my 'audience', I was floored at these climbing numbers.  What I have found out since is that there is a button at the top of the blog that says "Next Blog".  You click it and it takes you to somebody else's blog.  Try it yourself and you will see what I mean....I expect for the most part that's how readers are happening onto mine, not by design, but purely by accident.  Who knows if they even read it or not. I hope so, because if some of the stories make me laugh, then surely they're making some other person smile too.

I'm so happy with the way this year has turned out weather-wise.  In this part of the world, we've had day after day of lovely weather all through the Summer, Fall, Winter and now Spring.  2011-12 has given us the best weather we've had for years.  I love the changing of the seasons and don't really know how I would fare in a country that only had all hot or all cold.  To me that wouldn't be too much fun.  Personally, I think Spring is the best season because as the snow melts, the water starts to run and the air becomes incredibly fresh with the humidity moving to normal.  The birds come back and start to build nests and things outdoors start coming back to life.  The trees start to bud, plants poke through the soil, and the grass turns green.  All this tends to sneak up on you because one day the trees are bare and the next they are full of leaves.  It's incredible to watch. 

The melting of water bodies is also amazing.  The best part about the Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, for instance,  is when the ice chunks are going over the weir, near the railway bridge.  That is a mesmerizing sight that will keep you spellbound for as long as you stand there.  I could hang around and do nothing else but watch that scene by the hour.  Unfortunately, you have to time it just right, because the ice flows don't last very long.  It doesn't take much to miss the whole performance if you aren't careful.  Watching a lake thaw is also a timed event.  It doesn't look like much when you look out across it.  Just the lake frozen solid and covered with snow.  You know the weather has warmed up considerably, so you to realize that the ice is getting really rotten and slushy underneath.  You know that one day soon that blanket of ice and snow will magically become a big body of  water that moves to and fro with the gravitational pull and gets thrown around in the wind to form white caps.  Too many people have learned the dangers of rotten ice the hard way.  The ice may have been ten inches thick and great for ice fishing when it was minus 30 for weeks on end in January...but give it several warm weeks and that changes way too fast.  Remember some lakes have currents in them just like rivers, so that makes them unpredictable for somebody like you or I to play around on.    You might have guessed, when I see trucks and ice fishing shacks out on the lake in late Spring, I catch my breath.  The ice can go out from the lake in very short order, so if you're sitting there watching, be careful not to turn your back for too long or  go get a coffee, or visit the washroom because you just might miss it!   I'm kidding!...It probably doesn't happen quite that fast, but maybe...

Sometimes we get snowstorms in Spring and the snow is really wet and heavy.  That's a great time for snowballs and snowmen, but not so great for shovelling driveways and roof tops.  We had one like that this Spring, especially bad in the area that includes our lake.  The first thing that happened was trees snapped off or got bent right over.  Power lines fell and the power went out.  There was at least a couple feet of this wet, heavy snow and it took my son several hours to get out with his truck and up the fairly steep hill that leads out to the main road.

Imagine if you lived in a country near the Equator.  They never get snow.  They don't even know what it looks like or how it feels.  Now think about this, some likely don't understand, even in some parts of Alberta that in Saskatchewan, snow makes a sound....it crunches under our feet when we walk on it or creaks under our tires when we drive on it as the temperature hits minus 40 celsius.  My cousins were raised in Alberta by home grown Saskatchewan parents and this concept had to be taught to them.

If you live in the Arctic, I would think you definitely know what I'm talking about.  My brother worked for a seismic crew on the Beaufort Sea when he was quite alot younger.  He didn't have to watch the show "Ice Roads" on T.V., because he actually experienced driving on them.  I don't know if I could do it.  I guess the biggest problem can be from driving too fast.   If a wave gets rolling under the ice, because of increased speed, the pressure could cause the ice to break. The program itself shows these huge semis loaded with things like logs that must weigh a ton driving across a frozen body of water.  And you thought your job was stressful! My brother also talked about staying in a camp in the Arctic where their camp houses were up on huge pilons (stilts).  The reason for this was because of the polar bears who would otherwise ransack everything in search of food.  Those folks living near the Equator don't have to put up with anything like this.  Well, they do have to deal with other problems like scorpions, alligators and lions....but that's another story.

We don't either for that matter, but we do have to contend with surviving the winter.  Even with furnaces and car heaters, we still have to be careful.  A number of years ago, many people will remember a lady going missing in Saskatoon.  Months later, it was discovered that she had probably hit black ice, lost control and slid into the river, car and all.  I wondered why she just wouldn't crawl out of her car and come to the surface.  I never thought about it, but found out that even though the car makes a hole in the ice, the river is still moving underneath.  Chances are the person wouldn't surface at the same entry spot and wouldn't be able to break through the ice.  What a tragic thing to happen.

When you think about it though, there are lots of activities you can do winter or summer.  I just don't like extremes of either.  Heat is OK when I'm near a place to go swimming.  I like moderation in all things, including temperature.  I would never do well in a desert.  My friend is currently in a very hot country for a short while.  It is between 40 and 45 degrees there every single day. He says everything moves so slowly and there is a certain loss of civility.  I think I would get cranky too having to contend with that kind of heat every day myself.

So, I'll be happy enjoying the four seasons.  Watching them come and go and changing my life to accommodate them passes the time and brings me peace, a breath of fresh air, and most often a smile.

Memories

I asked my Mom what some of her earliest memories were.  She says when she was just a little girl, she remembers sitting on her Grandma Scott's knee in her big brick house.  She remembers her Grandpa Scott walking away from her towards the barn with his hands behind his back.  He was beginning to get sick and would eventually be stricken with what they called 'Creeping Paralysis' in those days. He eventually became totally paralyzed and was left bed ridden until the time of his death.  Close to the end, he could only blink his eyes to communicate.  I did some research and found that in some circles, the other name for Creeping Paralysis is Lou Gehrig's Disease.  Although I understand the mere mention strikes a chord of fear, apparently, it is neither contagious nor hereditary.

 Mom remembers her grandma giving my great grandpa a dill pickle to suck on at times as it seemed to help with something...possibly a dry mouth.   It must have been exceptionally heavy work for my great grandma to take care of him day in and day out because one day she simply laid down beside him and died.  Everyone assumed she had a heart attack.  If he knew she had died, there wouldn't have been a single thing he could have done about it.  All he could do was lay there and wait for someone to come by.  After her death, the grown children took turns sitting with him night and day. Mom remembers her mom going over and sometimes in the middle of the night.


The Scotts had ten kids ...  Aaron, Jimmy, Johnny, George, Irvine, Edna, Francess, Margie, Jeannie and Jessie.  My grandma was Jessie, and she was the youngest.  She of course was my favorite, but they were all special in my eyes and have been gone from this earth for many years now.  I inherited a silver tea set from Aunt Edna.  My Aunt Francess did beautiful handiwork and made me a beautiful quilt and a whole set of embroidered tea towels, one for every day of the week.  As you can imagine, after four decades of use, the tea towels are well worn.  The silver tea set however, is turning black,  even though it's all wrapped up in many layers of Saran Wrap!  I think the last one of the Scott children to pass away was Aunt Jeannie.  She was one of the feistiest ones, as she lived the ranching lifestyle with her husband, Uncle Roy and their family out in Alberta.  They were truly red necks even before there was such a term. 

Unfortunately, one of the first ones to pass away of those children was my grandma, Jessie Louella.  She was only 59 and it was from a massive heart attack.  She had been suffering with what the doctor's thought was an ulcer, but apparently it wasn't.  Grandma had short, wavy snow white hair for as long as I can remember.  They said it had gone white in her twenties.   One of the best things about grandparents is that they seldom give you heck.  They fit you into their household like you always belonged there, and they have so much patience.  My parents seldom gave me heck either, but I think we got things at Grandma and Grandpa's that we normally didn't get at home.  For instance, I was introduced to Dad's Chocolate Chip cookies for dipping into coffee with fresh, thick cream. We got this as a bedtime snack, so no wonder I had a hard time falling asleep! I'm pretty sure they hadn't invented decaffeinated coffee yet...My little brother and I slept in the middle bedroom which was located off the dining room.  There was a beautiful wine-coloured comforter on that double bed that was made of some kind of satin material.  It was so slippery it would  slide to the floor multiple times overnigth and for sure come morning.  We were little and I always remember we would wake up freezing to death.  I loved the closet in that room because there was a doll in it that would cry if you held her a certain way.  She also had glass eyes with eyelashes that shut when you laid her down and opened when you sat her up.

My grandma used Atrixo hand cream because after all the times her hands were in water they would be as rough as sand paper if she didn't.  She had beautiful hair and since 'kiss curls' were in, she had  one on either corner of her forhead.  She wore black cat glasses...and although that description sounds garish, she really was a very beautiful and well respected woman (even with the cat glasses).  They were all the rage after all.   In her bedroom she had a small built- in cabinet that housed things like a talcum powder puff.  I distinctly remember her wearing just a titch of red rouge and red lipstick when she went to town.  She would also dab perfume behind each ear.  There was no such thing as a "No Scent" policy anywhere in those days.  The rouge was in a tiny round metal tin inside the cabinet.  I can't really remember, but I think there might have been a mirror on the outside door too.  There was no such thing as make-up brushes, so she used her fingertip  to apply the colour.  She would have had a basin bath while getting ready to go.

On the other wall was a  half closet type cubby hole full of things like all these woman's hats, and matching gloves.  These were meant to dress up an outfit for church, weddings or funerals.  Her parents' huge black family bible sat open on the dresser.  It said when all the family had been born, married and to who, baptised etc.  It was a very important book, so I'm not sure how Grandma got it, out of all the ten children, but maybe because she was the youngest.  I don't know where that book resides today, but I am pretty sure someone has it.  She had another of these cubby hole closets in the dining room.  In there was a long, narrow can, that if you took the lid off a long snaky green thing would spring out at you.  It was a joke, but the first time you had it played on you, you got quite a jolt! They heated the place with an oil stove in the living room.  There was a stove in the kitchen that had some sort of contraption on the side of it, a reservoir I think, to heat water.  Uncle Jerry's bedroom was off the kitchen, and I remember that room was always freezing cold first thing in the morning.  We were reminded how important it was to always wear shoes or slippers inside Grandma's house in the winter time.

Mom remembers her dad hand-making little wooden baby carriages for her and her little sister. The little wheels were even made out of wood.  He was actually quite a good carpenter.  He built his own shop and a camp kitchen in the midst of a bunch of trees he had planted in between the house and the barn. The "Forest", to us kids, it was more like an Enchanted Forest.  We stayed out of the forest for no real reason other than it was rather creepy.  It was on the one side of the road that led to the barn and on the other side was the "Big House".  This was Great Grandma and Grandpa Gunderson's home.  In my entire youth, it had no one living in it.  It had original wood trim and doors and a wooden stairwell to a second storey.  The closets in the bedrooms had slanted ceilings.  There were women's leather shoes in those closets that had buttons on one side that came up over top of the ankle.  All those shoes were black and I always tried to see in my mind's eye what the women who wore them would have looked like. It was a huge two-storey home and I always wondered why it sat empty while my grandparents raised their entire family of four only a couple hundred yards away in a small bungalow.   I could only think that the big one would have cost too much to heat, or for whatever reason, I guess I will never know.  Once as a young girl, I was going through some of my Grandma's treasures, including her photo albums.  I had a big shock to see a picture of my Great Grandma Gunderson in her casket.  I had never before seen anyone dead, so I had a few nightmares after that!

There was a kind of closet at the front door of the Big House and for some reason some sticks of dynamite had been left there for absolutely years.  Eventually, someone came and removed them in a safe manner, but there were some tense moments, because of the instability of the nitroglycerine.  Dynamite was commonly used to blow up beaver dams that were affecting the free flow of the creeks with subsequent flooding of land and crops.  There were no ceiling lights in any of the closets in the Big House.  The walls were kind of chalky and great for drawing pictures on.  We drew an old fashioned telphone and played house and office by the hour.  There were trunks of books and clothes and we could stay most of the day if we liked never lacking things to do.  The windows upstairs were big and the position of the house facing south made it possible to have the sun streaming in, especially in the afternoon.  Downstairs, by the back door was a pantry-like closet.  I remember all the old things sitting on the shelves collecting dust.  One was an old wicker picnic basket.  One was a foot heater that a person could use to warm their feet while riding in a cutter.   The windows in the large living room were stained glass.  The dining room was off of the living room and I'm not sure if the room at the back of it was the kitchen or another bedroom.  It was always dark, so I didn't like going in there.  There was a big veranda out the front door that faced the road, with carragana and lilac bushes planted on three sides of the house.  The house was built at the top of a hill, so overlooked alot of countryside.  There is a creek to the south and east of the farm yard, so in the Spring of the year when the flood came in, the view from the house would have been spectacular.  The countless birds, geese, ducks and swans that flock to that area to this day during the flood in the Spring is nothing short of awesome.

Grandpa built a set of kitchen cupboards for grandma. He was a bit shorter than her and built the cupboards to his own height.  This was a little too low for her so she had to bend down a little while washing  dishes or vegetables or working at the cupboard in general, especially preparing meals.  I remember that issue being a bone of contention, but she was always happy with her new cupboards regardless.  I remember them being varnished to a really high glossy coat.  I remember her pen drawer and the fact that she always kept several boxes of Chicklets chewing gum in the same drawer.  After all, she was a closet smoker and it wouldn't do to smell like smoke when any of her sisters or brothers showed up at her doorstep for a visit . One of the best jobs my little brother and I had when we visited them was to check out all the scores of pens individually to see if they still wrote.  If they had dried up, then it was time to throw them out.  Another job we had was to gather the eggs.   For some reason, her hens were mean and cranky.  Grandma showed us how to reach under the hen to get the egg.  Some of these hens could tell just by looking at us little kids that we were easy pecking... Did you ever get hen pecked?  It hurts like anything to have a sharp beak give you a good one on the back of the hand.  I never really liked gathering the eggs for that very reason.  Then we would sit up with Grandma late at night until each and every egg was washed.   They would be sold at the creamery in town, along with cream from the Jersey cow.
Mom blistered her whole hand once on a hot exhaust pipe that ran from a motor on the washing machine and exhausted out a window.  Her dad had rigged up the motor to make the washing machine work.  Mom was a little girl and was fascinated with the whole set up.  For some reason, she reached out and grabbed the pipe and her hand instantly blistered.  Grandma Gunderson immediately thrust her whole little hand into the flour bin.  I really don't know how flour would help, but I guess it did.

Mom remembers going for a ride in an old car at her grandpa's.  It was in the 1930's and had a canvas roof.  She was just a kid and several cousins got to go for the ride with her.  She said it was a real highlight because no one had a car in those days.

What became of all these places?  The Scott house with it's dumb waiter (another name for lift or elevator) was burned unexpectedly one night.  It had housed leather couches and many other treasures that were being stolen because no one was left to live in it.  The Gunderson's Big House was ransacked by vandals and had the inside walls shot up.  Someone got loose in there with a gun and went crazy wrecking the place.  After much of the woodwork was salvaged by family and friends, it too was burned.  The big hip-roofed grey barn was burned one night  too and no one knows if it was lightning or deliberately set.  The smaller house where my mother was raised is still standing but as a cabin at a lake. 

On being a nurse Part I of a gazillion

Nursing can be rewarding, exciting and exhilarating, but it can be heart-wrenching and terrifying.  Particularly pediatrics, which is the care of children.  That is the area where you are either a match or not.  Personally, I chose not to work in that area, because I identified too strongly with the little ones.  For instance, I don't like needles myself and when I saw their little eyes grow big and well up with tears at the prospect of a needle, it broke my heart.  I knew that the innocent love and trust that they had felt for me as their nurse and substitute parent, was being crushed in that moment and they were too little to understand.  They didn't know why I was about to hurt them when they were already sick and hurting....That one look just broke my heart every time I saw it.  On the other hand, the  nurses who love and thrive on working in pediatrics nursing say they can give the needles because they know it will help reduce the child's suffering.  I give them absolute credit for their bravery with children.  It's not easy.  As you know, little children need watching every minute, as they are like herding chickens, scattering in every direction.  They're all over the place, catching their fingers in doors, falling, slipping in bath tubs.  You just have to have eyes in the back of your head as your mother used to tell you.  I wanted to play with and cuddle them all, but I had other things to do as their nurse, like look after a whole bunch of others.  At best, I think in future I would be a better volunteer on a kids' ward than a nurse.

The training to become a nurse can open up doors that you never knew existed. If you are thinking about nursing as a career and want to make a comparison of wages, think of it this way.  Those who do entry level positions in administration now, for instance, would stand to literally double or triple their salaries, depending where they might find work.  It goes without saying then, that the pay is pretty good.  Front-line hospital workers make top wages, with educators usually falling behind, physican's office nurses are sometimes paid less, and of course, volunteers bring up the tail end. Except that volunteering brings different kinds of rewards for the heart which are sometimes far greater than any hourly wage could compete with. Think of sitting at the bedside of a dying war veteran and having him tell you his amazing stories of life overseas. If you want to drench your soul in wam emotion that's one thing to try.

That brings me to some of the places in the hospital where I did work:  maternity, the nursery, long term care, medicine and palliative care.  As a nurse, I went from the beginning of the life span to the end of it.  It's the relationships, oh the relationships...they nurture you in a special way  that you may never have known existed.  Your ability to care for these people becomes symbiotic..you get so you need them as much as they need you.  You get filled up and rewarded simply listening to them, sharing the stories of their journeys, and being strong with and for them.  You may not even be aware of the impact you have made on them, as you try to calm and soothe with a smile, a word, a small deed, or most importantly, a touch.  You are there to help guide  and support them through a time in their life that they may have had no way of preparing themselves for.  You may think you are just  doing your job, but the appreciation and outpouring of thanks by some can really take your breath away.  They hug you and give you presents like chocolates and flowers  and sincerely thank you from the bottom of their heart.  They call you an angel.  One man called me the girl with the gentle hands...these big, old clumsy cow milking hands he liked because he thought I was gentle with his fingers and hands every time I checked his blood sugar.  These people thank you in the only way they know how which melts you and humbles you and tugs at your heart strings.  These people miss you when you leave.  One man I spent a whole summer working with on palliative care.  We became friends and he told me about his feelings of not wanting to be a burden to his wife and family.  We talked about his being brave and kind and good.  Then the summer ended and I went back to my other job.  I never got a chance to say good bye to him and that chokes me up to this day.  Another man who was crotchety and cranky watched me walk down the hallway after I'd been gone from that floor for almost a year.  He stood with his hands on his hips and looked me straight in the eye and said, "where on earth have you been?"

Nurses are also employed as entrepreneurs.  They own and operate their own businesses or franchises.  They work for governments, public and separate schools, jails, industry, including mines, plants and mills, etc.  Nurses are employed in many more sectors of society so don't think my  list is exhaustive. Nurses are researchers and policy writers and developers.  Nurses work in public health and home care...so it seems you don't have to go too far to find a nurse.  They'll do everything from provide you with foot care and toenail trimming to washing your hair and brushing your dentures to everything elese that falls in between!   The Medicine Wheel is taught by those in the Aboriginal community and is all encompassing of mind, body and spirit.  There is no denying that holistic medicine is the most inclusive and nurses understand this and have their basis in not only caring, but in practising using holistic ideologies.  Western medicine, although evolved over the years into separate specialties that struggle to communicate, is thankfully made up of individuals.  As individuals, the majority largely accept the facts that every person requires a continuum of care, a hand off from one area to the other, a not allowing anyone to 'fall between the cracks' mentality. Care is patient and family centred.  As individual health care practitioners, we instinctively take responsibility for other human beings, knowing they deserve compassion on every level and rely on a strong systems framework that won't let anyone down. At least this is what we strive for, because sometimes the system or the individual does let the person down.  If we are any kind of human being, we will do our level best to investigate what went wrong and try to make sure it doesn't happen again.  We after all, are only human just like you and no one is perfect, even if we strive to be.
 
The responsibilities that come with being a nurse are hard to imagine, especially if you've never thought about or been exposed to what goes on in a hospital or other places where nurses practice.  There is no denying that the accountability for all health care workers is stark, and nurses are front and centre in that department.  Someone has to take the reins to orchestrate the twenty-four hour a day care...and that role includes nurses.  Hospital services operate seven days a week, 365 days a year..., year after year after year.  The type of care that all patients receive comes directly from a team of professionals that includes nurses.  Patients, clients, their situations and symptoms must be assessed, treatment planned, interventions carried out and evaluations observed and recorded.  Everything that is associated with every individual patient must be taken into account.  The work is onerous and never-ending until the patient is discharged, only to have him or her possibly return sometime again in the future.  At that point, you start over with charting and admission records, not just picking up where you left off.  The patient's physican relies on the nurse to report assessments and treatment results promptly and concisely.  Record-keeping and documentation must demonstrate what happened because some time down the road, that might be the only proof available in a court of law that you actually did what you said you did, because you signed for it.  So, everything good and bad about what happened to and for your patient, but especially those things that might have adversely affected him or her has to be written down. Potential nursing students, stop and think...can you spell?  Can you read?  Are you able to understand what people say to you?  Can you speak English?  If you have difficulties learning and you already suffer from any of these communication issues, maybe nursing is not really appropriate for you until you do.  It's not enough to simply have the ability to love and care for others.

Receiving nurse's training at an older age has its advantages as well as its disadvantages.  The pluses are that you are a mature student and have already had important life experiences such as taking on the responsibilities of raising a family.  You may have been around someone who had to be hospitalized for surgery or for treatment of a medical condition.  You probably already know a whole lot about certain illnesses, because you or a family member may already have had one or more.  Looking after others is generally built into your life fairly early on, meaning that you know how to  do things that others without the experience are not so comfortable with...Like wiping and washing brows and bottoms, feeding people with bottles or spoons, nurturing someone to rest and sleep.  The disadvantage of being an older student nurse is that many people you meet assume because of your age that you have been nursing forever.  You look for all the world like the seasoned package, yet little do they know that you are actually of the unmarinated variety and green as grass.  This can lead to safety issues....believe me, so watch out for that one.  By the later age, you may be used to calling the shots, making important decisions all because you are the mom or the dad...but remember, this is not home life, this is dealing with human lives.  You have to cultivate the ability to admit that you don't know and will have to consult with others who know more than you.  You have to swallow your pride and admit to being new and to not knowing everything.  You will be respected much more for that than if you try to bluff your way through.  Absolutely nobody wants to see that happening, so if you have the urge....just stop it.  Another disadvantage is that many of the other professionals you will work with look to be about twelve.  Don't let their youth confuse you....most of them know exactly what they are doing.

Knowing what you're getting yourself into before you get into a nursing program is probably a pretty wise thing to find out up front.  For instance, if you don't like alot of physical activity, math, people in general, people with problems, people who have chronic diseases or contagious diseases, people who are smelly, or who emit odours in general, then nursing may not be the profession for you.  If you don't like the sight of blood, or the sound of someone coughing up sputum, people crying, people angry, people hallucinating...then nursing may not be for you.  If you don't like chaos, stay away from the hospital...you can still be a nurse even with all these dislikes, but you may have to be a little choosier about where you work.  The reason I'm telling you this is that I have had experiences on several occasions when half way through the first day of the first time a student had a patient and was providing personal care like giving a bed bath, the tears began to flow.  "I didn't know there was going to be a smell."  These students really wanted to be nurses and tried all sorts of things like Vicks up the nostrils.  Some made it, but some had to slowly back away. As a nurse you will encounter all sorts of dementia and mental illness and you have to learn to find the irony and the funny side of it all.  For instance, there's nothing funnier than coming across someone in the middle of the night that's wearing only their bib like a superman cape with nothing else on.  You have to learn to laugh because if you don't you will see how sad some of these conditions are and you will be crying all the time, which is no good.  Wearing two pairs of glasses with an adult diaper on backwards in the middle of the night is also right up there with things that make you laugh. 

The life of a student nurse is no picnic either, but it seems once a person makes the decision to become a nurse, there's no stopping them.  I could tell you anything and you really wouldn't listen because you have already decided this is what's right for you.  This is your goal and you will move Heaven and earth to get to it.  I respect your motivation and your drive and I don't want to discourage you in any way.  I do want you to prepare yourself though because it's hard work to sit in a class all day long.  Then you really do have to go home and read all your notes again in order to sync the work deep into your long-term memory reserves.  I'm not kidding, because there's really no other way.  If you're anal retentive like me you likely reorganize and rewrite the notes you took that day during the evening.   This re-writing and syncing turns out to be an excellent study strategy, especially if you have a hard time remembering things.  Incidentally, what I discovered is that you can't possibly remember everything.  You have to learn to know where to look and to digest and synthesize concepts.  You read material, or look at the results of studies that include numbers and graphs.  You begin to learn how to watch for themes and patterns and interactions that might explain why something happens and how it affects people.  If you can attach a story to boring readings, you can make sense of it for yourself.  How that helps is so that you can remember your story and not try to recall the million details you heard in the classroom.  Nursing classes are mostly held in the daytime, but some are offered by distance - print based, evening, or online classes.  If you are already working full-time because you need to make ends meet, then night school or online classes may be for you.

The theory portion of the program is called the didactic and occurs in the classroom.  The hands-on learning occurs in both the  nursing and anatomy & physiology (A&P) labs.  A hospital experience that happens three or four days a week and is combined with one or two days of classroom teaching  is called a clinical.  Practicums are the ones where there is no classroom time, just five days of each week out on the wards.  These clinical experiences are where you get to learn the ropes of your profession.  In my day, we had to wear caps and they were lovely when on straight, but all you had to do was catch them on a hospital curtain that separated the patient beds and you would look ridiculous.  Add sweating because you are doing manual labour and glasses that keep sliding down your nose and now you can never get across to another human being that you actually know what you're doing.  Throw in your clumsiness with metal bath basins, bedpans and kidney basins and you have the recipe for a comedy worse than the Three Stooges when one clangs against the other or as you drop a full basin of water on the floor.  Patients must get a real kick out of nervous student nurses trying to do what they're supposed to.  Mature nurses shake their heads at your disorganization as you run around like a chicken with your head cut off.  Back and forth to get fresh linens...back and forth as you try to set yourself up for things like dressing changes or catheterizations, back and forth, back and forth until you start to play out and that's just the first three hours.  You still have to go for a minimum of eight hours and God forbid, twelve.  After a twelve hour shift, you can be almost certain that your legs will feel numb from the knees down.  The positive to all this is that you didn't have to go home and make supper for the family....they got to fend for themselves!