Rob's dad is out of the hospital, but he's not out of the woods.
None of us are.
He is grieving, we are all grieving, struggling not just to put in the days and the weeks, but to possibly wrestle from them just a little bit of happiness and contentment.
It is tough going, but we are trying.
And in the spirit of focusing on the positive, I'd like to present, from last weekend at my parents' house, my own little moment of zen.
I apologize for the silence, but I don't know what to say other than thank you, thank you, thank you for all your heartfelt comments and e-mails expressing your concern for my family.
My father-in-law remains in hospital with a bleeding ulcer and perhaps more. He is undergoing a battery of tests and right now we have more questions than answers.
We did stay in Quebec for a few days and attempted to enjoy our time with Graham. Despite the fact that he decided he didn't like poutine (!) he had the time of his life.
And that?
That was enough. That is enough right now.
How could it not be?
Rob's dad is in the hospital.
We aren't certain exactly what is wrong, but he isn't doing so well. Rob's brother and sister-in-law are with him. He is undergoing a series of tests and we are vacillating between whether to stay in Quebec and try to maintain some sense of normalcy for Graham or to make the almost eight-hour drive home the day after our arrival.
Needless to say Rob and I are finding it difficult to eat or sleep, let alone relax.
Universe, God, Karma, whoever or whatever you are?
Uncle.
Just uncle.
You're probably thinking that I didn't have the heart to read it.
But I did.
I read every word of Knocked Off My Knees, the book that my former university roommate and dear friend Grace wrote about coping with chronic illness.
I read every word of the book that I didn't even know existed until I attempted to respond to Grace several weeks ago, more than two years too late, and learned she had succumbed to lupus-related complications.
And while I felt my heart breaking just a little more with every page I turned, I have since carried Grace's words and her attitude with me as a kind of talisman against the fear and uncertainty that the spectre of cancer has recently visited upon me and my family.
Grace was my dormitory roommate in my first year at university. I met her just moments after parking the big beat-up, pickup truck I had driven, alone, to school in a big city several hours distant from my tiny home town.
It was 1989 and I was the stereotypical small town girl on the loose - big hair, tight jeans and too much makeup. I was there to party, make no mistake, so I hope I can be forgiven for admitting that my heart sank just a little when I met my roommate Grace.
Grace had sensible clothes, thick unruly hair and a face devoid of makeup. She was sweet and soft spoken, not loud and flashy. She had a way of pausing before she spoke, of really thinking about what she was going to say, that seemed awkward to me - someone who was accustomed to judging a person by the speed at which they could deliver snappy one liners.
Grace was, I soon learned, one of those rare sorts: a deeply committed Christian who actually weighed her every word and act to be sure they would do justice to her beliefs.
Grace lived her faith, truly lived her faith, and once I got over my shock - "You've never been to second base with a boy?! You can't remember the last time you saw a movie?!" - I came to deeply, deeply admire her.
I admired Grace because, although she chose to love God, there was nothing in her manner to suggest that she considered herself above the dozens of girls in the dorm, myself included, who chose instead to recklessly demonstrate a love of alcohol and parties and football players.
Grace didn't judge and she didn't preach: she didn't have to. There was a thoughtful confidence and calm about her, an inner peace - if you can forgive the cliche - that spoke volumes about the quiet rewards of unshakable faith.
After our first year as roommates I moved off campus, but remained friends with Grace. She visited my parents' home with me and I was a guest at her wedding, just half a year after graduation. But we didn't stay in touch much after that.
If I am honest, I will admit that there was a bit of a reluctance on my part to reconnect with Grace over the years. As time passed I put her on a bit of a pedestal. Throughout my lonely, single years as I struggled to find someone to love, I imagined her with a house full of beautiful and pious children and expected that she might pity me and my foolish choices.
Imagine my surprise, and my regret, when I learned in the book that she and her husband struggled with infertility for years and that lupus first struck, and left her a quadriplegic, when her first and only adopted child - a son - was less than a year old.
Grace sounds in the book just like I remember her: incredibly centred and pragmatic with regards to the injustice of her lot. Incredibly strong and full of faith. Knocked Off My Knees is not a philosophic rumination on living and dying, but rather a clear-eyed view of what patients endure and how they and their family members should conduct themselves, must conduct themselves, if they want to maximize the benefits of our medical system.
I think of Grace a lot these days. I wonder if her faith ever wavered after she fought back to recovery and published her book, only to see the disease return. I even wonder if she ever railed against God for not allowing her to live to see her son grow to manhood.
But I do not think that she did.
I also don't think she intended the book to make people feel sorry for her, but I am nonetheless overwhelmed with sadness at what she endured. Given that I was not able to offer any comfort to her during her time of need, I feel compelled to take away from her words some sense of meaning: I feel that I owe at least that much to her memory.
My life has not been easy these past few months. My beloved mother-in-law is fighting cancer and I am struggling to help both my husband and my son cope. There has been darkness these past few years that I have only hinted at here - sickness and stress and worry that has tested my strength and my marriage.
But I wonder if there was a reason why I decided, after all these years, to finally reconnect with Grace, the person who personified her name like no one else I have ever known. I wonder if I was meant, at this time in my life, to read her words and remember her strength and her faith and her calm.
And when I read this passage, at the closing of her book, I wonder if she isn't speaking directly to me.
"I don't know how healthy I'll be tomorrow or next week, or next month. But today I feel quite strong and well and am so thankful for that. All I can do is accept the unalterable, and wonderful, truth - it's in God's hands."
I like to think that she is.
As we left his baby sitter's last night Graham begged to go and see his Oma on the way home.
I hesitated because he is recovering from a cold and she is ill.
But when he began to chant, "I want to see Oma! I want to see Oma!", I relented in the hopes that a quick visit from him would lift her spirits and break up the excruciating wait for further tests she is being forced to endure.
We only stayed for 15 minutes and Graham was a nightmare the entire time we were there.
He refused to give her a hug and then shouted and slapped at me when I tried to implore him to behave. When I decided to ignore him and just visit with her myself, Graham stomped on the floor and tried to pull me away.
When I scolded him and put him in a time out in another room, his chants of "NO!" were so loud that we could barely conduct a conversation. When, exasperated, I rose to scold him yet again, I saw he had tossed my boots, her bag and an area rug down the basement stairs.
"It's okay," my mother-in-law said. "He's tired."
And he was. But I was pissed. And irritated. Graham had begged me to come. She needed a lift. All he had to do was show up and act cute.
I put his coat on and brusquely shuttled him back out to the car.
"I'm very disappointed with the way you acted Graham," I admonished as I buckled him into his car seat. "You were not very nice to Oma."
"NO!" he shouted.
I sighed and slammed the car door harder than I should have.
The ride home was silent. I caught his eye once, deliberately, in the rear view mirror and frowned to convey my continuing anger and disappointment. Graham glared at me and defiantly looked away.
By the time we pulled into the driveway I didn't feel like fighting anymore: I just felt tired.
I unbuckled him solemnly.
"I'm sorry mommy." The words burst from him like water from a dam. "I'm sorry I wasn't very nice to Oma and I want a huggy."
And so I hugged him there in the car in the freezing dark evening.
And he clung to me so tightly and for so long that I finally just carried him into our house like that, with his damp face buried in my shoulder and his little arms wrapped around my neck like he never wanted to let go.
Yesterday was my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary and I almost ruined it.
I almost ruined it because for a few hours yesterday my mom and dad were too consumed with worry that I had crashed my father’s float plane to actually enjoy themselves.
The day started out innocuously enough. Rob, Graham and I had arrived on Saturday and spent the better part of Sunday morning lounging around the lake. My parents had plans to go to concert featuring Irish folk music at 2 p.m. in a town about a half hour away and I was planning on tagging along with Graham.
Rob was heading up to his brother’s cottage further north for a few days and we decided I would fly, rather than drive, him up. My parents stayed with Graham.
“If I’m not back by 1:30 p.m. or so just take Graham in my car to the concert and I’ll take your car and meet you there,” I advised blithely. “I should be back, but if not I’ll just be 10 or 15 minutes behind you.”
Rob and I took off about 12:30 p.m. for the half hour flight. The winds were strong. Although staying straight and level and maintaining altitude was a struggle, both the plane and I were capable of handling the conditions.
Until we landed.
Because minutes, seconds really, after we landed the winds at our destination lake started to howl and whip the water into frothy waves.
A float plane is a graceful bird in the sky but a heavy, sluggish chunk of metal on the water. Virtually powerless, I spent 15 minutes alternately driving and sailing the plane just a few hundred metres to the dock where we tied up and waited for the winds to die.
And waited.
I called my parents but they had already left. I left a message but they have an old-fashioned answering machine from which you can’t retrieve messages. They weren’t carrying a cell phone. I called my brother but he wasn’t home.
I was left to sit and wait out the winds with a churning stomach and a heavy heart, knowing that my parents would be growing more and more worried as time ticked by and I failed to arrive.
I knew they had been looking forward to the concert for some time and would now spend it running after a toddler and worrying about me. But I also know that 90 per cent of flying is decision making and it is far better to worry than to grieve.
I thought about our friend who succumbed to the skies just a few months ago and about how all parents worry about their children. I thought about how I sometimes lie awake at night plagued by nightmares about the dangers that lie ahead for Graham. I am 38 years old: I wondered how many times my parents had been forced to fight the creeping fear that their worst fear might be coming true.
Finally by 3 o’clock, the winds settled down. I kissed Rob goodbye and took off, fighting the plane’s instinct to jump like a spirited, wild horse into the still lively air. By the time I landed at my parents’ place a half hour later all four of my limbs were aching with exertion. I docked as quickly as possible, jumped into the car and headed to the concert.
It was 4:05 p.m. when I spotted my ashen-faced parents in my car, pulling out of the concert area, just as I was pulling in. I beeped the horn and they started. As if in slow motion, I watched their faces lift and their eyes brighten. We exchanged waves.
“I’m proud of your decision-making,” my dad said later. “A good pilot doesn’t try and take on Mother Nature. Today was a good experience for you.”
But it wasn’t a good experience for him, of course. It was a stressful and scary experience, one of many he and my mother have endured in 45 years of marriage and 42 years of parenting.
“I’m proud of you too Dad,” I said. “Happy anniversary.”
