Remember

I objected, in the heat of the summer, to a blogger who made fun of Harry Patch's name. Henry John Patch, for those of you who don't know, was one of the last surviving soldiers from World War I, and he died on July 25th. He was 111. He was our last link to trench warfare and trench foot. He was the last link to what we used to call Shell Shock, and now we call hell. He was the link to mustard gas and the Western Front.

I was excoriated by other commentors on the blog. I was called a bitch, and told I had no sense of humour. One of them turned up here and threatened to slap me. And I was bewildered and I am still. All of this for standing up and suggesting honour and respect. It's not that the name isn't strange (although, it's actually not in the UK), it's that when we reduce someone to their name, when we poke fun, we reduce and then we forget. Forgetting is dangerous. Forgetting is frantic years between WWI and WWII, dancing the Charleston while the world fell apart around us. Forgetting is not always a conscious choice, it is the mark of carelessness, a refusal to pause, a refusal to take seriously. Forgetting begins with poking fun.

Harry Patch came home from the trenches, married his sweetheart, and became a plumber. He had 2 sons, and when the next war came, he was too old to go off and fight. Death and war have always been a young man's game.

I took a course in World War II history, and if you know anything about that war, you know that you start with the war to end all wars. You start with the terms of the armistice, signed in a railway car in France, at 5:30 in the morning, before the sun came up on November 11, 1918. Like all wars, World War II was rooted in history, rooted firmly in our mistakes, in not learning the lesson, in forgetting.

I have always known peace. I have never heard air raid sirens and seen ration books and felt fear of a loved one dying far from home. And in that place of solid peace, the history prof played us the sound of an air raid in London. From BBC footage and recordings of Stuka's diving, the sounds of war. The scream of a doodle bug falling, the terrible silence and the blast. More screams. Air raid sirens, fire sirens, shouts and wails. Smashing buildings, smashing crockery, smashing lives.

I was changed that day.

It seems to me that there is not much I can do, to stop the calls that lead us off to war. I cannot rid the world of evil, and I cannot feed and clothe the broken. I cannot sign treaties, and I cannot ensure a voice for everyone. I cannot even understand what it is to live in war, all the books I read, the pictures I see leave me confused, unable to understand. I have stood in London, I have seen the damage still. I have heard the words of those who lived then. And still I know not. All that is left to me is to remember. To hold corporate memory.

Speak softly of this world's Harry Patches. Speak clearly and with care.

Sit and be Human

"How far along were you dear? Are you sure? This has happened before? Was the pregnancy confirmed? What's the longest you've carried?"

I had to go to the hospital on Friday, when suddenly I started bleeding a whole bunch more. I stood in a crowded waiting room, explaining my sorry and pathetic obstetrical history. It's not that I'm bleeding, it's that there's so much, and I don't even know if you need to see me, but I know I'm in pain and I'm frightened and I'm all alone because there was no one to go with me, and I just want to sit in the corner and cry. I don't want to be brave and grown up.

And I looked up at the last question and sighed. 26 weeks, I developed pre-eclampsia. He died shortly after he was born.

And there was this look in her eyes. This horrible, awful look. You can differentiate pity.

There is pity that lets you stay with a person. When you accept and understand that you don't know what its like to be someone, but you can imagine they might need compassion and mercy. You can sit a while with them. Abide. You don't poke and prod, question, you do what needs to be done, and you let the other person be human.

And then there's the other kind. I get a lot of the other kind. I get a lot of "I can't imagine" and "I couldn't cope" and they run away. Without ever moving their body, I can feel their mind withdraw. I can feel them flee.

The first kind of pity is what makes us so wonderfully human. It builds bridges, it is mercy and compassion. It is the bedrock of humanity. It is goodness and care and solace. It builds up, allows us to connect, expand, absorb. We become better, larger, more generous. Jesus tells me that the Kingdom of God is something like this.

The second kind makes me want to cringe. Standing at this horrible counter, with everyone around me, losing another baby, and I'm trying to explain. I don't want to be called dear, I don't want to be told to keep my chin up, and I don't want to answer questions about what is or is not being done for me. I just want to know. This blood and this pain, can you do anything for it? Is it ok? Is there a problem? Do I need tests? Can I go home?

I know I'll sit in this damn waiting room, for hours, bleeding. I know I'll be alone, knitting a sock, crying a little bit, occasionally. And you can't change that, and I don't want you to try. I know what I'm facing, I've been here before. What I need is simple. . .

Just sit with me, this place is lonely and frightening. Just sit and be human with me.

Go to Nait and be a Plumber.

Anyway, the story starts with a grumpy faculty chair and ends with a furnace dying on Easter.

As I talked about a while back, I stumbled my way through University, from start to finish. Maybe by 3rd year I had made some friends, and I knew and was known by my prof's. I had certainly established that 8 am classes were of the devil, and that existentialist philosophers had way too much time on their hands, but that was the sum total of my knowledge at the ripe old age of 21.

I wrote what must have been a thrilling essay for a poli sci class (John Stuart Mill and female circumcision) and the prof teaching the class recommended that I enter the honours program. As we have already established, I am not so much a process person as a project person. The end of the matter is better than it's beginning(1).

And I went to go and see the chair of the program, and at the end of it, I tentatively asked what one might do with a degree in poli sci, even you know, with an honours stamp on your degree.

Now, perhaps it is important that I tell you, Dr. L is now retired, but he was somewhat famous for 3 things:
1. An esoteric specialty, that should have guaranteed him lots of media time, but because of reasons 2 and 3 didn't.
2. His astonishingly bad dress sense
3. His tirades about the strangest things.

I hadn't ever taken a class from Dr. L, but his reputation, as they say, preceded him. Which leaves us back where we started, in a tiny office on the 11th floor of the Tory Building, looking out over the river valley, with me in an upright chair, and Dr. L about to blast me.

"If you want a job, go to NAIT and be a plumber"

I graduated, years after I started, with a degree in Poli Sci. Effectively a double major with economics (excepting the problems with econometrics).

And I did the only thing I could do. I got a job as a receptionist. 4 years later I was an Executive Assistant, and then a Policy Analyst.

Which takes me to the Easter weekend of 2005, in which our furnace died. Now, Mr. Spit and I are pretty well educated folk. And the furnace wasn't working. We looked at it. We phoned my uncle the plumber. We poked at it some more. Still not working. 2000 books in our house, and the furnace wasn't working. Either of us could converse earnestly and with great knowledge on the properties of structural steel or price elasticity of demand, but the only use the darn books were going to be was if we burned them to stay warm.

I was talking to someone else last week, and she remarked that after she bought her house, she looked around at her friends, friends that were doctors, lawyers, accountants, and thought that none of them were of any use.

Perhaps, perhaps just Dr. L had something.

(Yesterday was not the most spectacular day at the office, I'm just saying)

Naked Lady

I don't think I've told you the story of Naked Lady yet, which is both unfair and strange, as she made such a huge impression on me, in the throes of post Gabriel Grief.

The story goes like this: Not quite a month after Gabe died, I was on the phone with a friend, who called to see how I was doing. Suddenly Mr. Spit called out to get off the phone - that he needed me.

There was a mostly naked lady on our front porch. She was wearing a short jacket, and nothing else. Yes, I really do mean nothing else, not shoes. Not anything. It was, for the record, January in Alberta, and it was about -18Celcius (about 0F for the Americans). Which is cold. Very cold.

So in she came, and we found her some clothes and I hauled out the first aid kit, and splinted her hand (her fingers had been dislocated from their joints by an angry John.) We called someone for her, and they came to get her. I tried to ask some gentle questions about if this person was safe, when she had last eaten, if there was someone else to call. As it turns out, it was her mother we called, and things were, I guess ok.

I think I'm remembering this today, as we did the follow up from a United Way training session, and someone commented that the United Way presenter was depressing. Homelessness in Edmonton was depressing. The thought of children being homeless was "sad". They didn't like hearing about the root causes of homelessness, and they thought those addicts should just get off drugs. You could see the disquiet when one of the speakers talked about providing addicts housing, without making it contingent to get off the drugs, off the booze. You could see our middle class sensibilities offended at the thought we would house, without requiring someone to kick the addiction.

Naked Lady was on my porch because of a "bad date". A bad date, for those of you who don't spend a lot of time around street level sex trade workers, is a john that picks up a prostitute to hurt her. It's not that something goes sideways, it's that there are men, extremely violent men, who pick up women to beat them. To leave marks and scars that I have now seen, that I'm not going to discuss with you, but that I remember still, and cringe. Something small and female in me whimpers on her behalf.

I phoned a friend after this, because it occurred to me, that if she hadn't had someone to call, I didn't know where to take her. I didn't know which shelter to bring her too, what to do, who to call. She wouldn't let me call the police, and I didn't know what to do next.

My friend's answer was and is nowhere. At that time of night, in that weather, the shelter beds are all full. There are no places for her. Moreover, my friend pointed out, given the choice, between the john who hit her and the pimp who beat her, because she didn't bring in enough money, she'd take the john.

So, when I head how depressing homelessness is, I thought of Naked Lady. I thought about what it was to be stuck between two, terrible worlds.

It is not sad and depressing that there is homelessness. Naked Lady is not a sob story, she is a stunning and powerful indictment of our callousness. Our unwillingness to hear. Our desire not to be "sad".

What's depressing is thoughtlessness.

Anthropology

All good stories start at the beginning. The question, for a really deep story is to determine where the beginning actually is.

We could say that it started when I was driving home from a function last night, coming through the University of Alberta, and down a hill. I deliberately took the long way home, so that I could drive part of the route I used to take home from University every day.

We could say the story starts a few days ago, when the daughter of a colleague was attending orientation for her first year of university, and I was surprised to hear that she didn't go to the beer gardens. After all, what is the first week of university if not beero'clock?

Equally, we could say that the story starts in my first year of university.

We could say that the story does not so much start at all, but continues, and it picked up again a few months ago, when Mr. Spit and I faced some hard decisions.

I'm going to start the story with me in University, as long as we understand that it probably really doesn't start there. Or, maybe part of it starts there, and part of it starts a few months ago, and most of the words came to me as I drove home last night. The gist of the story is this: in my first year of university, I struggled to bridge the gap. I don't think this is particularly strange, I suspect many kids get to university and struggle to find their place.

And none of this would be especially remarkable, but I had never failed before. Oh, sure I wasn't such a stunning success at hiking or snowshoeing, but honestly, I had never failed anything. Academically I was a success (except for math, but we won't talk about that). I might not be Einstein, but I could learn enough to scrape a decent pass in Physics, Chemistry and Math.

In the rest of the subjects, I did more than well enough. Well enough to get early acceptance and a few scholarships. Well enough to get a great scholarship to McGill. (Which I didn't take, but that's another story)

I'm not sure what I expected, perhaps that University would be a continuation of high school, only with more people.

It wasn't.

Most of you will not be particularly surprised at this, but I hope you will be compassionate when I tell you that I was. Most of you will not be shocked when I tell you that first year calculus is brutally hard, even when you take the extra tutoring, even when you take the calculus for dummies pre-class.

I will tell you that the University of Alberta requires you to take Calculus 114 to get into the faculty of business. And that I wanted into the faculty of business. I had great plans for what I was going to do. And it wasn't going to be an arts degree (do you want fries with that?)

And the University is remarkably intransigent on the subject of Calculus and business, and unless I passed that darn calculus course, I wasn't going to get into the faculty of business. And let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I wasn't going to pass that calculus course. I tried. Twice. You can tell me that anyone can pass calculus, and I will tell you firmly that no, some of us never will. We will simply never get it.

Which left me, at the end of my first year of University, exhausted and overwhelmed, and utterly without a plan.

I didn't know what to do next. About the only course I was doing well at was anthropology. I did really well at it. Got top marks. And I met a friend, and we were at this Christian seminar, and I announced I was going to major in anthropology. (Oh, you can laugh. She did). And if this is the story of anything, it is the story of how Mrs. Spit does and does not handle failure, and change and ambiguity. The story is only a little about anthropology.

The problem, as the more observant of you will notice, is that I, like many others, do not do well when my path is unclear. When I can't see the road in front of me for miles and miles, I don't have a map, I don't have a destination, I don't do well. I'm purpose orientated.

And I can tell you all of that, at almost 31. At 31 I do not know myself perfectly (the work of an entire life time, that) but I know myself somewhat, and I know what I am good at, and what I am not good at. I know, at my core, who I am. I am self aware, I know my strengths and my weaknesses. I know what I am. I know who I am.

At 19, I do not think anyone can be held responsible for not knowing who and what they are. I do not think they can be held responsible for not handling the in-between places, the margins, the outliers well. And I don't think you can hold yourself responsible for not knowing that change is hard.

I thought about how I didn't take orientation when I talked to my co-worker. I grieved all I missed out on, while I tried to find my feet and catch up. I drove home last night, remembering a lost young woman, and I remembered what it felt like to be lost and confused, and about to major in anthropology because it's the only damn thing you are good at, and who cares if you are passionate about anthropology, you get good grades in it.

Remember when I told you I wasn't sure where the story began? I'm not sure where it ends either, except perhaps to say, 12 years later, I still don't like it when I don't have a map.

The Spits Go to the Vet

I would complain that the vet visit was $580, with the promise of another $100 in 2 weeks (ear mites).

But I won't. As I was paying the bills and Mr. Spit was hefting the expensive prescription cat food to the car, the owners came in with the lovely grey cat.

Unlike many long hairs, she was immaculately groomed. She was happy in his arms, and when I went to pet her, I saw the tumor on her face.

And she was there to be euthanized, and his eyes were liquid, and the cat's were trusting, and my heart was breaking.

And I walked back over, and when they announced the total was $580, I changed my tune and I said that will be fine, and handed over my bank card, and Mr. Spit hefted $80 worth of vet food for the boys (that will hopefully help with the peeing everywhere problem).

I made another appointment for 2 weeks, go get another set of shots for everyone, to deal with the ear mites, and I was thankful that money was all it took.

A very wise woman once told me that if it was a problem you could solve with money, it wasn't a problem at all.

And I'm thinking of a grey cat, and an age spotted hand that petted her with the familiarity of 15 or so years, and I'm thinking of a hand with nothing to pet tonight, and she's right.

The worst things in the world will never be solved by money.

If it can be solved with money, it's not a problem.

Maxims

I've opened a new blog entry window 5 times this morning, and I've closed it 4 times. I want to write about something, and yet. . .

Sometimes I write about things because I want to share them with you. Sometimes I write to make a point, because I think that something should be talked about, and because I want to talk about it in a particular way, and sometimes I write to explore what it is to be me. Very occasionally, I write to get something off my chest. To, in one way or another, hold something up to the light.

About a year ago, someone approached me and asked for help finding a new place to live. It was a complicated situation, but on the face of it, someone and their daughter needed help, and it was within my power to help.

And if there is an absolute commandment that I live by, it is this: It is a sin, a grave sin, to refuse help when it is within your power to give it. And it’s not just me, it’s Mr. Spit too. This matters to us. Not that we give help, but that we give help even when it is hard.

So anyway, help was needed and we gave it. And then more help was needed and we gave that. And we gave it willingly. Invariably, when I talk about the help I give to others, someone asks me if I’ve ever been taken advantage of. And the answer is “of course”. Mr. Spit and I have been, well, screwed, a few times. I’ve been screwed a few times more on my own. It happens.

And you can call me a fool. I don’t mind. It’s the kind of fool I’d like to be.

But, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sting when I get snowed. And I got snowed again.

And originally I had written a long post about how we got snowed and you would have gotten all the sordid details, but here’s the thing: if you asked me what I would do differently next time, I’m not sure I would have done anything differently. And even more truthfully, I’m not sure I want to subject my charitable leanings to the process of continuous improvement.

So, we got snowed. It sucks. I promised a former neighbour, who is now a landlord that someone was a good honest person and would pay the rent. And, I was wrong. And I feel badly, because he trusted someone on my word, and my word was bad. To top it off, I suspect I’m out about 3k, which hurts. And I’ve been lied to, and that really hurts. And the whole situation is an utter mess, and I can’t help anymore, which just bites. And, like I said, we’ve been snowed, and you know what? My pride is stinging.

But we obeyed our most important rule. I gave help when it was asked for. And maybe when the pride is finished stinging, that single fact will be enough. The older I get, the more I realize, it’s no good if I only hold on to my values when it’s easy, when things are fair, when I don’t have to sacrifice. Anyone can give help when you don’t have to go out of the way to do it. We went out of the way. And my maxim is still right.

It’s still a sin to not render aid, when you can.

I’ll do it again next time. I’ll probably get snowed again.

My kind of fool.

It's Not That I'm No Fun

It's just that I'm no fun.

Look, I'm a serious person. I think, a lot. An awful lot. I read philosophy for fun, and I think fruity alcohol cocktails are dumb. (Except pomtini's, which are the nectar of the gods). I tend to obey the rules, and I always wear clean underwear. Hell, I wear slips under unlined skirts. I'm a homebody. I'd rather be on my couch, in my backyard, at my dinning room table. A loud and trendy restaurant? I'd rather have you come over for dinner. It's quiet and I can hear myself think, and you talk. I read a lot and I wear glasses. I'm serious. Possibly also dull.

And yes, I do bring my knitting everywhere.

And all of this is a round about way to announce what this year's life lesson will be.

(Oh, every year around my birthday, I decide to work on another life skill. When I turned 20, it was balance. Last year, it was the concept of enough. Yes, I still haven't mastered the concept of enough, or for that matter, balance. But, I spend a year focusing on it, and I think, I hope, I pray I get a bit better at it over the year.)

Anyway.

This year?

This year is about having fun.

No really. Fun. I can be fun. As Aunt Becky would say, Shut up, I can be fun. Really.

• This year, I am going to do fun things.
• This year, I am going to say no to not fun things.
• This year I am not going to pass up fun things so that I can do un-fun things that I think I should do.
• This year I'm going to define fun things as things I like to do.

And umm, I could probably use some help at this fun things business.

Any suggestions?

When it's Time to Go

As I was walking to lunch today, it occurred to me that I had been sitting on boards of one type or another, for the last 12 years.

Now, this actually isn't a problem. Community involvement is something that really matters to me. It's deeply embedded within me, and not just within me, but it forms a part of who I want to be. Community volunteerism, leadership, participation, those are things that I aspire to be.

But.

There's always a but, isn't there?

I think it started subtly enough, and suddenly it wasn't at all subtle. I could tell that it was a problem when I started dreading meetings. When I spent entirely all too much time thinking about agenda items, and trying to ward off, well, problems.

The sudden moment - when things came to a screeching halt - happened a week ago. The truth became painfully apparent. I am the chair of a board, and this board is being held hostage by a bully.

Yes, that's right. We are 7 grown-ups, and one of us is a bully. And there's a funny thing about adult bully's. It's not as if they go about throwing sand in your face, or punching you in the side of the head.

No, it's subtle. So subtle that you find yourself asking, examining, reviewing. Trying to figure out exactly what to do, to say, trying to understand.

All of this is made further complicated in that this was my last year with the board. I haven't told them yet, but I have been Chair for 4 years now, and it's time to move on. Not actually because of the bully, but because it's time for someone else to take the reins, bring in new ideas, new blood. I had plans to resign in November, at the AGM.

But, if I leave now, I leave the rest of the board, trying to cope with a bully.

So tell me, Oh Wise Internets - what would you do?

Meh

I wouldn`t want to live there any way.

http://burbia.com/index.php?q=img_assist/popup/2668

(And really - I`d love neighbours who had that sort of a sense of humour!)

The Loyal Toast

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you would rise for the Loyal Toast

(All stand and raise glasses)

Host: The Queen - La Reine.

All: The Queen.

****

A very happy Victoria Day.

Irises in June

When I was 20, my life took a sudden turn.

I graduated high school at the age of 18, really almost 19. I went from a graduating class of 5, to my first biology class, that had 400. I went from a restrictive and demanding high school, to the freedom and unease of University.

If I had it to do over again, I probably would have spent my first year at a smaller school. The change was overwhelming, and this was my first introduction to how well I do not handle change.
By March of that year, I had ended a relationship with a man I thought I was going to marry, flunked Calculus and Statistics (this was the first time I had failed anything), determined I was not going to be able to go into the faculty of business, and said good-bye to a little girl that had been a huge part of my life.

If my hands were empty, my heart was full - of confusion, fear, trepidation and the whole black hole of unknowing. I have come to hate those who look at the young and tell them that their entire life is before them, words that have envy dripping poison from them. To be 20 and have your entire life before you is too big a responsibility. Every decision becomes paralyzed, imbued with too much power and responsibility. There is no freedom to simply be. In all things, all actions, all decisions, you must consider that terrible prospect of the future, and all too quickly, the future is sacrificed, dripping hopes and dreams and feelings, on the altar of the present.

I became almost paralyzed - struck dumb, in words and actions. My boarding school education that prepared me to do hard things had quickly turned everything into a hard thing. The weight of success weighed heavily on me, the expectations of others, of myself overwhelmed me. I needed to succeed. It seemed as if everyone else was more together, more with it, and knew where they were going. I wasn't choosing one route on the map, I had a map of Africa, and a map of Europe, and then every morning got another one. I was, to chose a single word, lost.

In the middle of this, I ran into an older lady from my church. It was pouring rain, and I stopped to give her a ride home. She brought me into her kitchen and gave me a cup of tea and a towel to dry myself off.

And she asked how I was.

Suddenly, it all spilled out, the hurt, the confusion, the heart break, the black hole of nothingness. That I didn't know where I was going, but I didn't feel like I could stay where I was. She listened and nodded. If she had done nothing else, the listening and nodding would have been enough.

She told me that I was going through a transition, and that transitions are always hard. For everyone. This was the first time a grown-up had told me that transitions were hard. That nothing in life prepared us for them, except the actual experience.

And Time.

I am a process driven person. I move from item to item on my list. And on Tuesday, we threw out the list. I'm somewhat back in that place again. Of loss and confusion, and a black hole of nothingness.

But I have Elsie's words. Her promise, that things will resolve themselves, that they always do. She told me that night that I would find, in a few years, that things had resolved themselves. Perhaps not the way I hoped or wanted or expected, but that things would settle themselves. She was right. It took less than 2 years, I was married, working, and things did not seem so lost and confusing. I think she winked at me the day I got married. Her way of saying, gently, I told you so.

That was the gift she gave me that day, of 86 years of life experience, of many, many times that she had been lost and confused, and of the way things resolved themselves. Like her irises that came up each June, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but always blooming, when they were ready. Things work out she said, patting my young hand with her much older, worn, vein-y and translucent one.

Not the way she wanted them to: a fiancee killed in the war, a baby that died, a marriage that ended too soon with a death, but that things worked out, given time. Now was not forever and the work of a life time did take an entire lifetime.

At 20 I couldn't believe, I wanted the answers before I'd asked the questions. At 30, I know: give God time to work.

Charolotte

I was looking at a cloud tonight, while standing on my front porch and trying to decide if it was a turtle with a tail or a mouse. I'll go look at it again in a few moments, and chances are it will be something else entirely.

When I was a little girl, one of my favourite summer occupations was to watch the clouds. We would lay on our backs and imagine what those clouds might be. I remember this, the feeling of summer, the buzzing of flies and mosquitoes, of lazy summer afternoons, with nothing more interesting to do than pester my father for two-bits for a Popsicle from the store. The smell of grass and roses, laying with our heads just out of the shade of the crab apple trees, so that we could see the clouds. Elizabeth, Morgan, Shelby, Adam and me.

My mother called me tonight. Her oldest childhood friend is laying in an ICU bed in Toronto tonight, the victim of a drunk driver. Tonight, one of her sons, a resident at the same hospital will sign the paper work to remove her from life support. Tonight, not far from our breath is a prayer that she will pass smoothly from this life into the next. Not far from my lips are the Anglican prayers for the dead - the same prayers that Charlotte knew as the daughter of an Anglican priest.

My mother told me all of this, and I was struck. When the friends from our childhood die, a part of us goes with them. A part of our history, the shared remembrances, who we were, what we were, where we came from, it goes with them. A part of my mother's life, a part that cannot be re-lived, it dies tonight with Charlotte. With Charlotte's death, a part of my mother's life comes to a close.

I have never met her, but the stories of her and my mother, they live on. Her mother's wedding gift to my mother sits again on my bookshelf. I fished it out of the china cupboard. It seems fitting that it has the words to Aulde Lang Syne on it.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

Fiat Lux.

Well done, Good and Faithful Servant

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. Robert Benchley

We were sitting at the emergency vet's, with Delta, the beleaguered mastiff who just will not stop eating things, when she came in with her dog.

Normally, this is a type of dog that I despise. Small and white and furry. I can just see them growling at me, lunging forward to take my hand off when I reach to pet them. I could just picture the rhinestone collar. I'm sorry, I'm sure your small, white dog is perfectly lovely, but really, I haven't had great luck with small white dogs.

But, I stopped to pet this dog, small and white, while the large, brindle mastiff looked possibly even more pathetic than ever. If looking pathetic could have cured gastro-enteritis brought on by eating a brown, fluffy lion, well, she would have been cured. (Alas the cure involves $3,500 in treatment and surgery instead)

I brought over a box of kleenex and sat petting Talia, who could not be saved. I told Talia that she had been a good friend and companion. I cried a bit, remembering those pets that have left their mark on my life, but are no longer in my life. I remembered names, and I remembered how hard it is to say good-bye. We talked a bit about the possible course of treatment, and when her owner said that she was suffering, our eyes met. I stayed to pet her, while she phoned her daughter. Scratching an ear with nothing much to say.

It is what we do, as good and responsible pet owners. We look at our dogs, and we look at the surgery estimate, and one day, we realize that they have been with us for such a long time. And while loving kindness still has us see them as they were, healthy and whole, the reality of the situation is that they are not that way, and with our hearts on our sleeves, we say good-bye. It is the last kind thing we do for our pets, to make this choice for them. We say good-bye to our tired and worn pets, we acknowledge that the world and the law and the vet bills say that they were ours, but we acknowledge in the pain of saying good-bye a far deeper and more painful truth: that we were theirs. We acknowledge that if they were our dog, then equally we were their human, we belonged, not one to another, but to each other.

When it came time to say good-bye, all of Talia's family were there. From mum to daughter to grand-daughter. Her last moments were kind, in the words of the Vet to the granddaughter, she closed her eyes, and she went to sleep. It was not hard or painful, just a last good-bye.

I heard the little girl ask, as they were leaving, as we stopped our conversation, and looked, not with pity but mercy and kindness, a remembrance that we too had been there, I heard her ask where dogs go when they die.

I do not know. But suddenly this occurs to me. I call God mine. But equally so, like Talia and Maggie and Delta and Toby and Koda, He calls me his. He says that I am his child. And I wonder, what would give me more surprise and delight than to meet the veritable menagerie of animals that have owned me. From a hamster at 5 years old, through a multitude of goldfish, to Max last September. I do not know if I will see them, I do not know if heaven is like that. But oh, I hold out some hope.

I looked at Talia, and I thought of what all dogs want, and what they teach us. To love and be kind. And I could not help but think of God's words to his son. To tell Talia that she had been a good and true dog.

Well done, Good and Faithful Talia. Well done.

*******
We anticipate the Mastiff will recover nicely from her surgery, and should be fine for a few more years yet. I miss her already.

Judy

I'm not sure what happened yesterday. I forgot it was Wednesday. I thought it was, I dunno, some weird, previously undiscovered day of the week, perhaps Tursday? Anyway, The Etiquette Lady will come back next Wednesday. (provided I don't make up another day).

*****

In November, a colleague literally dropped dead. I'm sorry, it's not the most gentle way to put it, but that's exactly what happened. She went to have a nap on a Saturday, and she didn't wake up. Today I was working on something, and I looked up at the person I was working with, and I said "I miss Judy." I said it with a fervor that surprised me. I miss her when I have to talk to another lawyer, and Judy is in the corner of the room, and we navigate around her, around her absence, around the unfinished files we are slowly picking up. I miss her for her acumen. I miss her for her gentleness, I miss her for her kindness. I simply miss walking into a conference room, and seeing her there.

I remember a meeting after I returned to work last year. No one outside my department knew what had happened. The more observant among them knew that I had been pregnant, and I now wasn't, and that I clearly hadn't been gone for a year. A few thought I came back early. Most didn't really ask - they just stared. I still don't know what's worse, the asking or the not.

But, we were in this meeting, wrapping up. Chatting, the way we do at the end of meetings. I think I was likely apologizing that whatever we had been discussing had been dropped when I left on 'medical leave'.

And there was that moment. You know it. When someone is about to say something about what happened, about to ask a question, about to express some sort of sympathy. And truthfully, I was probably fed up with talking about it. I used to joke that I was going to hand out a card. With a timeline on one side, the frequently asked questions on the other. I was tired of explaining my son's death in corridors and elevators and on the thresholds of meeting rooms. I was tired of his short and wondrous and miraculous life reduced to 2 sentences. I was tired of talking about it, of thinking about it, of re-living it, just to give someone the Cole's Notes version. I was, just tired.

But this moment, in which Judy looked as if she wanted to say something, was going to say something: I did that almost instinctive thing, where we start speaking really quickly and stop looking at the person, and change the subject, and hope the moment passes, silently.

Perhaps I was resentful, I had worked on an entire project, for months, with my belly getting slowly, and silently larger. Others commented. They laughed at my snacking and my brain dead tendencies. Judy, well, Judy said nothing, which seemed strange. She surely noticed, and she was the sort of woman who you would think would say something.

I read the obituary, those tiny words towards the end - pre-deceased by her daughter. Suddenly, with 8 months of experience at this grieving thing, suddenly I saw that look in her eyes the day she tried to, wanted to speak to me. I understood why she wouldn't say anything to me while pregnant.

I wrote her husband a letter a few days after her death. Telling her family, and especially her young daughters how wonderful it was to work with her. Telling them how much I missed Judy. And I closed my eyes, and my heart broke for her husband and son and daughters here on earth. I hurt for them, for no mother, no wife. But my heart also soared. For a tiny little girl who waited such a long time for mummy to come home.

Justice

I went to go and watch Slumdog Millionaire with my mother tonight. I've been to India. And to see the Taj on the screen, it was a reminder. Not, of the gloriousness of it, although it is glorious. It is a reminder of a night in Delhi, a few nights before. My mother had taken me to dinner with her business partners.

A few months before my arrival, a young man from Canada had come to India, and he had shut down factories employing child labourers. He had campaigned in Canada, and was able to come to India for the subsequent raids, wherein the government of India, watched by the rest of the world, closed the factories.

And as only an 18 year old can, full of smugness and knowing, sure she had all the answers, I commented that this was a good thing.

"I realize that you do not understand, cannot understand. It is not the same to be a girl child in Canada as it is here. Here, in my country, a girl child is another mouth to feed. She is a dowry to pay, and a set of hands that will marry, and go and work for her husband's family. She is another mouth to feed, and when you are the poorest of the poor, she is a burden. We are not like this, you must understand. Ranjeneen and I do not live like this, we do not believe this, but we are not hungry either."

"Where do you suppose", Veevic asked. "Where do you suppose those children went, when those factories, making shoes for the world, closed? I will tell you. The boys, perhaps they found other work, because they must work, or they will starve. The girls? Working is what kept those girls from death! The employers, at least sometimes would pay for the medications for pneumonia, the parents would not and could not. They cannot take food out the son's mouth, the son that will support them in their old age. The girls, if they could not find work, they are prostitutes, or they are dead. Perhaps not cold in their grave yet, but their days, they surely are numbered. Your young man shut down our factories, but he did no good for our children."

I am thinking about justice. I am thinking about Vincent Li, and a young man called Tim, who was brutally killed, dismembered, and cannibalised. I am thinking about Vincent, who in a psychotic episode believed that the voice of God was telling him to do these things. I am thinking about Tim's mother, who is trying to understand what has happened, who is asking for justice. She does not disagree that Vincent Li is terribly ill, but wants him to be locked up for the rest of his life. She wants someone to be accountable for her son's gruesome death.

I am thinking about a young girl named Ashley Smith, who died, broken in her mind, when she wrapped a ligature around her neck, while Corrections Canada officials watched, told not to interfere. Her family is asking the Government of Canada to release the names of those who watched their daughter die, those who gave the orders to allow her to wrap a ligature around her neck, to not intervene. They are asking for justice.

And finally, I am thinking of a soldier named Marc Diebe, that we sent to Afghanistan, so that we can all be free, and so that, please God, the Afghans can be free.

And in this all, I am wondering - what is the true nature of justice? How do we give it to others? How in the world do we give it to Tim and Ashley's families. I think of these things, I watch the movie, and I hear the words of the Ash Wednesday service.

I invite you therefore, in the name of the Lord, to observe a holy Lent by self-examination, penitence, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving,and by reading and meditating on the word of God. Let us kneel before our Creator and Redeemer.

Joe Walker had a blog entry yesterday, highlighting what it is to be teachable. He asked, compared between a faculty member and a student, if there could be equality of opinion. The student says yes, the faculty member says no.

My answer is to remember back to that night in India. To remember my terrible arrogance - shameful ignorance that just kept talking. To remember my disgusting conceit. And to remember Veevic's astonishing kindness. His patient explanation. Two people, with an equal right to their opinion.

The issue is not equality of opinion. Here, in Canada, as in all democracies, we all get to have an opinion. No, it's not about equality, rather quality.

We all have an equal right to an opinion, but it does seem to me, some 12 years after that night, that the right to an opinion is a fearsome thing, a thing of great weight. It seems to me, the right to an opinion requires us to form one of quality. It is of no use to our world when we have a great quantity of opinions on anything and everything. Rather, what might enable us to give justice is the quality of our opinions.

There are 29 days left in Lent, I am supposed to be observing a time of penitence, fasting and self-examination. A time to remind me that what I may be sure of - it is such a tiny portion of what I think my knowledge is. A time to remind me of the virtues of humility and examination.

A time to think of, to seek out, to ask for Justice.

I do not think Lent will be long enough for me.

Interview

Scientist Mother is doing this very cool thing, where she sends you 5 questions and you have to answer them in your blog. I volunteered.

She got easy questions about how her new job is going and where she lives and what her perfect day would be like. I got really freaking hard questions. So hard that I had to email back with more questions. So hard, that I had to pour myself a shot of Maker's Mark.

1. Were you always religious?
I have to ask this. Do I come off as religious? Because if I do, I'm really sorry. I like Christians. I don't like religious people. Generally they get on my nerves. Honestly, when I'm around "religious" people, I have a terrible urge to smoke and drink and swear. And if you are at all inclined to say things like "praise Jesus" or talk to me about going on dates with Jesus (he's the Messiah, not your boyfriend), I'm going to be irritated.

I think the question is have I always been a Christian? The answer is no. I became a Christian when I was about 16, in high school. I didn't like God for a long time. It seemed that the world was really unfair and unjust and people were hurting, and hungry and broken, and it didn't seem like God was doing much of anything about it. Mostly I was hurting and broken, and no one was doing anything about it. God showed up in the midst of it. He didn't heal me overnight. In fact, some 15 years later, there are still broken places in the midst of me. But he did remind me that he's bigger than I am, and that I cannot fix the world on my own, and I need him in my life. I've been a follower ever since.

As for going to church, mostly, I have gone my entire life. To an Anglican Church as a child, a Baptist Church for 3 years as a newlywed, and back to an Anglican Church. There have been times that I haven't gone. I think the thing about church is this: It's a family. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and sometimes it just hurts. The church isn't a museum of saints, it's a hospital for sinners. We aren't always going to be perfect. In fact, we aren't always going to be good. We're going to be there, and trying.

2. Have you ever questioned your faith? As in wondered if there really is a God?
Absolutely. Many times. How on earth do you prove that God exists? He's the most logical illogical thing in the world. An all knowing, all powerful being, that doesn't show himself. I see the works of his hand, I protest that even the rocks shout his name, but I can't take you to meet him. And when terrible things happen, both in our own lives, and in the world, I do ask. I do wonder. I've written about it a lot. Here, and here and here. Truthfully, I find if I stop praying, stop reading my bible, stop going to church, I find I feel further from God. All relationships have to be cultivated, even when it's just hard work.

Perhaps as my relationship with God deepens, I ask fewer questions about whether God is real, and more about where he is in the situation.

3. You're a very liberal individual, how is it living in the conservative capital of Canada?
Infuriating? Truthfully, what bothers me most is the anti-intellectualism. The idea that any old hack who can door knock and stuff envelopes can be a politician, and sit in the house representing our interests. I don't think you have to have a Ph.D. I think you have to be sober and thoughtful and have good ideas. Perhaps more than anything, you must be willing to listen. Not just take the pulse of the population and do the obvious, easy thing, but the right thing.

I think it's exemplified in something that happened during Premier Ralph Klien's time. He said that he was for "stupid cutting". Essentially, this was Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, before it was popular. And I suspect a few cuts needed to be made, but truly, why as a political leader, would you be for stupid anything? Shouldn't you be for smart everything? Providing the best solutions for Albertans?

Ed Stelmach was the last of my involvement with the provincial Tories. Mr. Spit and I worked to get him elected, because Ted Morton scared the pants off me, and Jim Dinning would sell our health care system to the highest bidder. Last time. And we don't talk about federal conservatives, affectionately known around chez spit as "the bastards who destroyed my conservative party."

4. Do you agree with all the teachings of the church?
I saw this question and gulped. Which church? What teachings? This is one of those questions that I had to ask extra questions about. Do I agree with church teachings? Well, sometimes.
The church gets stuff right, creating hospitals, orphanages, being the original social workers of the world. We also get it wrong. The Crusades, the sun orbiting around the earth, sexual abuse by priests.

God gave his people a job. We call it the great commission - go into the world and tell people about God - to make disciples, to baptize. Telling the Gospel is telling others about God. You cannot have God without the Gospel. You could have a divine being of your own belief, and that's absolutely your right, but you cannot have a Christian God without the Gospel. Everything leads to the Gospel.

So, the church has the Gospel, and the Gospel gives us a job. Mostly, I think we get it wrong. We go into the world and we tell people about us - about what we are doing for God, and how amazing our life is. We go into the world and we tell people about them - what they are doing wrong, what terrible people they are. That's not what God told us to do. He told us to go out in the world and tell people the story of him. Of God and his son. Of the cross and the Resurrection. Of what God did for us, before we even asked. And the response to that is to become God's disciple. Not for everyone. Some people hear the story of salvation and they aren't interested. I won't say I get it, but I absolutely respect their right to not believe it.

I believe, along with the great commission, that we all need salvation. I believe that God planned Christ's death on the cross to accomplish that salvation - to be the perfect sacrifice for my sins, for your sins, for every ones sins. I believe that we need to personally accept that salvation. And yes, I do believe that the only way to heaven is through Christ.

5. If you could have anyone to dinner, who would it be?
Would you believe me if I told you this was the hardest question? I have no idea. Karl Marx because I'm sure that we get his ideas wrong, all the time, and I'd like to ask him what he meant. Aristotle because I'm dying to know what he thinks about Obama. Elizabeth 1, wondering what it was like to rule Britannia, and never marry. St. Paul, because while he's always gotten just a bit on my nerves, he was so on fire and passionate about the Gospel. Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, because I have always admired what they did for my country, although the bit about activist judges on the supreme court drives me crazy.

Now, it's your turn. Do you want to be interviewed?

Of course I'll ask really hard questions!

Transitions

I have never been particularly good at transitions. Some women, some women I've met, they go from 0 to 60 with ease, and then they go from 120 to 0 with equal ease. In other words, they move from crisis mode to normal mode and back without batting an eyelash. They transition from role to role, from time to time, from speed to speed, with ease.

Me, I'm not so good at that. I shudder, lurch, trip and stumble into another speed. I am a car with a badly adjusted transmission. Stopping before the red light, but just barely. In early November, after 3 weeks of working stupid hours at work and at home, I was at a loss. There was nothing on my to do list. It seemed I had no purpose, no meaning. I spent a Saturday, doing more or less nothing, but feeling like I should, I ought, I must, be frantically busy.

Perhaps my struggle with transitions stems from a seeming inability to be kind to myself -My ridiculous expectations of myself, that I will be busy and smart and organized and kind and merciful, with a clean house, home cooked meals, 15 well behaved children and a dog that doesn't eat chocolate.

That song from Annie - "The sun will come up tomorrow", isn't it all about what we already know? The sun will come up tomorrow. How do I want to deal with it? After the decisions are made, the die is cast, what do you do next? When the next steps aren't clear, when the pace of life changes suddenly, abruptly, what do you do? How do you keep from stumbling? Adjust the cadence of your steps? How do you learn this? Who teaches it?

And life, it seems like it is all about transitions. Growing up, changing, moving, getting married, having babies, getting old, we are constantly in transition. Each day is a transition, as I accept that what's done is done, and about all I can do is try harder the next day.

But I wonder, I have lived the last year in huge transitions, not quite a mother, not quite barren, seeming too full of grief, then feeling like I should be over it - I never seem to be where I should be, when others expect me there. I never seem to be where I expect me to be.

And I am thinking about transitions as we move into the new year.

And I wonder, will transitions always be like this?

Are any of you any better?