Erin's Journals

What a weekend. Just when you think the insanity is going to take a breather after they find a suspect in a rash of bombings, we learn Saturday of the shooting tragedy at a synagogue that claims 11 women and men aged 54 to 97 years old. The sadness out of Pittsburgh is palpable, even though the anger and rhetoric just keep building, despite brief and unkept promises by a so-called leader that he’d “tone it down.”
 
It’s eight days until the US mid-terms and there’s just no saying how this is going to go, or where it ends. It’s heartbreaking. As we’ve seen, Canada is not immune to this kind of hatred either. But all we can do is hope that, somehow, something changes for the better and that people go to the polls in eight days and have their voices heard and their votes legitimately tallied. Please, make it stop.
 
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Today – probably as you read this – Rob and I are up and buckling in for the crazy, early, non-stop from Victoria, BC to Toronto. Yes, I do wonder how I did this for all of those years (as I’m sure Roger Ashby will be asking himself after a few solid months of sleeping in, if he can) but you gear your body up for that 3 am alarm. You get used to it when it’s your living and a job that you love. But, oh, these one-offs are a challenge to the body. Of course, I’m not complaining. We would make this trip if it meant taking 14 connections over two days.
 
All going well, our flight boards at 5:25 am local time, we land early this afternoon in TO and get our rental car. Then we head to the funeral chapel and see what we need in order to help make Mike’s Mac computer work properly for the visual aspects of the day tomorrow, and then check into a little boutique hotel downtown.
 
We’ll have dinner with Mike and get ready for one of the heaviest days a person can have: publicly saying good-bye to someone you love. Not so long ago we were in the same sad state. So we’re here to offer our dear friend whatever he needs.
 
Three years ago this month, Debbie and Mike were honoured with the Markham Stouffville Hospital Hope Award. It took place at the Celebration of Hope, which I’ll have the honour of hosting again this year on November 11th in Markham. (There’s a link to ticket info in the ‘What’s Up’ section of my homepage. If you’re reading this on Monday, just scroll up.)
 
That year, Deb and Mike were honoured for going public and talking about colon cancer, which is still the biggest cancer killer there is, and one that’s preventable with early testing and diagnosis. Debbie wasn’t that lucky; although she’d had a clear colonoscopy, it was a fecal test that detected her colon cancer just a year later. Again, I’ll repeat her urging to you that you get tested, too. It’s never too soon…but it can be too late.
 

 
Mike, if I understood him correctly, says that Debbie was at Stage 4 in her colon cancer fight for the five years that we knew she was sick. Yet she fought and she did so with such incredible spirit and an absolute certainty that she was going to beat it, until everyone was just out of options. And so tomorrow, at a private event for family and close friends, we will salute that love of some 50 years, that fight and the incredible woman who mounted it, with the help and support of so many, but especially her loving husband and son and daughter.
 
I sincerely hope that you haven’t tired of me writing about my dear friend. I have so few who are or were as close as Debbie and she truly meant the world to me (as she did to so many). I’ve been dreading this past week for a long time and just trying hard to keep writing about other things for you and for me, finding ways to stay connected without telling you what we knew was coming. Damn.
 
But here we are, you and I, and here we’ll be. I’ll have more for you tomorrow.
 

Well, we come to the end of a week that is just so filled with emotions that it’s difficult to put them into words: vast sadness, deep gratitude and so much in between. I know that it’s Friday and you’d undoubtedly like to start off your weekend on a happy note. I hope that this week’s remembrances of Debbie have also given you reasons to smile. 
 
I mentioned her affinity for ducks earlier this week, and Debbie truly had a wonderful relationship with animals of all kinds. Three years ago she, along with Anita MacArthur (Ian’s wife) and I spent a memorable weekend at a farm together northwest of Toronto.
 
It was September and my first birthday since Lauren left our world. I had decided to treat the three of us to a girls’ getaway. We ate too much marvelous food, stayed up until all hours and talked, laughed and cried by a fire and Debbie and Anita even rode the Deerfield Estates’ unique Gypsy Vanner horses. Here’s a picture from when Debbie’s horse decided it was going to have a drink and maybe a swim in the pond. If she could have, she’d have ridden that beauty right in, reminscent as it was of her beach rides on warm vacations.
 
Debbie was in her element!
 

 
As you can imagine, there are many, many memories of this dear friend to keep us warm in the days to come, even as Rob and I pack up to fly to Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax and beyond. The first leg begins on Monday.
 
But another of the warm thoughts of Debbie comes thanks to her talents in the kitchen. Every summer and fall she’d be up to her elbows in home-grown tomatoes, making salsa, chili sauce and stewed tomatoes. Her dill pickles were epic and she had a flair for making elaborate family dinners look effortless. Between her dishes and Mike’s barbecue prowess, a guest never ever went home hungry.
 
Journal visitor Linda Strome sent me a note this week saying that she would think of Debbie every time she made the lasagne soup that Mike famously shared with listeners. So I thought with the last weekend of October upon us, why not give you a great reason to think warm and loving, nurturing and nourishing thoughts, too? Here it is. I always top mine with some freshly grated parmesan, but you enjoy it however you want. Maybe with warm bread? Just Mmmmm…. 
 

 

Oh, my…. I have to thank you for your overwhelming support of Mike, Christopher and Sarah Cooper over the passing of dear wife and mom Deborah. They have thanked me – and you – for that journal and the responses yesterday. I know from personal experience just how far support like this can go; the quiet hugs and thoughts from people we’ve maybe never even met can mean so very much at a desperately sad time.
 

 
Thanks to the CHFI link, it was wonderful to be reconnected with people who were unaware I continue this journal. There’s no email list to sign up for; just come here Monday through Friday or go to my Facebook page for a daily link. It’s that easy. And I’ll be here as long as you are. The journals won’t always be this long, but my heart is so full….
 
The response many people who knew the Coopers personally have given to me and to their family is that they had no idea how sick Debbie was. That’s because, as Mike told me yesterday, Debbie could get news from her doctor that her lungs were so riddled with cancerous tumours that her x-rays looked like a snowstorm, but if she heard that a growth in her liver had shrunk, she’d tell everyone, not about her lungs, but about the fantastic news that a tumour was getting smaller! That is so Debbie. A glass half-full woman right to the end.
 
If anyone ever had a pocketful of sunshine, like the song goes, it was Debbie Cooper. I don’t just mean that metaphorically. She literally kept sunny messages in her pockets.
 
Earlier this year, Rob and I had a couple of opportunities to visit with and spend an evening and overnight with the Coopers. It always felt like family time with them and Debbie and I would make a point of doing something special together, whether it was visiting a spa for pedicures or going for a numerology reading and reiki or shopping then a bite at a sweet French bistro in Lakefield. They were always memorable outings, mostly because we just enjoyed each other’s company and would have laughs and catch up.
 
Debbie, as I’ve told you, loved her angels. She had angel cards, angel pins and angel readings; she always felt as if she was protected and guided by them. I know that she’s sent an army of them to help protect Mike, Sarah and Christopher during the weeks, months and years ahead. They’ll need each and every one of them without Debbie at their side.
 
When Debbie was transitioning out of her winter wear and into spring she’d write a little note and tuck it into the pocket of that coat or sweater that she wouldn’t be wearing until the seasons began to change again. The note would say “See you in the Fall” or whatever season would be fitting. It was her way of saying that cancer wasn’t going to be taking her – not yet, anyway – and that she fully expected she was going to be donning her cool weather coat again.
 
I love that memory of Debbie. She set her mind to beating cancer and that’s why I say that she did. She survived another five years after a diagnosis that was not good; she couldn’t take full chemotherapy (it gave her a heart attack) so she and her incredible team of doctors – starting with our own Rogers-based physician and friend Dr. David Satok – worked every angle they could to make sure she got to see the next season, and the one after that.
 
She had a wonderful trip-of-a-lifetime to stay in castles and wear her fascinators to dinner in the UK with Mike. She visited Christopher in Mexico and watched pastel sunsets. She’d take her paints and try to capture their beauty. She had every intention of joining us next April on our AMA Waterways Tulip Time river cruise from Amsterdam to Belgium. 
 
Our prayers for Debbie’s good health didn’t come to fruition. She will only be with us in spirit on that cruise, while Mike plans to stay home and try to imagine a life without her. Those of you – those of us – who have lost loved ones know the impossible darkness of this time. I wish for Mike that he had a job like I did to return to every day; something that made an escape from the sadness possible, even if just for a few hours. I can’t say what’s happening with his Coop’s Classics (soon to be replaced with Christmas music on Saturdays anyway) and even if I did know, that’s not my news to tell.
 
I can tell you, though, that if Debbie had a wish for you, it would be that you would get your colon checked (as she did via colonoscopy, having gotten a clean bill of health just the year before her diagnosis) and for heaven’s sake don’t shy away from fecal testing. Take good care of your body – it’s never too late to change our ways – and always make plans for the future, no matter how uncertain it may be. Even if it’s just to make it to the next time you need to wear a beloved warm coat, its pockets filled with promises.
 
Not all of Debbie Cooper’s dreams could come true, but I know for a fact she’d want yours to. 
 
Tomorrow, a comforting recipe that Debbie shared and is a hit with everyone who makes it.
 

 

Ah, dear friends. It is with the heaviest of hearts that I pass on the sad news that my radio partner Mike Cooper’s wife Debbie has died from complications of colon cancer. She was only 66. I can’t believe I just used the word “was.” In the past few weeks we have known that treatment for this sweet, caring woman was, at best, trying to manage pain. As Mike asked in desperation last week, “What did she ever do to deserve an end like this?” 
 
The answer: absolutely nothing. No one deserves to leave this world in pain, to face the ravages of disease; no one could have led a kinder, gentler and more joy-filled life than Deborah Cooper.
 
After enduring a difficult childhood, Debbie met her true love. She and Mike found each other in high school: she of the flaxen hair, he of the sparkling blue eyes that wandered only when it came to her test and exam papers. Amidst a sea of radio marriages that foundered and ended in divorce, theirs was one that famously withstood plenty of would-be tests: Mike’s boy band good looks were catnip to young radio fans, but he never strayed from Debbie’s side. She has always been his anchor, his home, his mischievously nicknamed “Tender Morsel of Passion Fruit.” 
 

 

 
CHFI listeners – and those in the decades before – came to know Debbie through Mike’s stories of them as a couple, and through her joyful companionship to us all on listener trips. Nearly everyone who met her was touched by her kindness and an innocent streak that one might wrongly call naïve. She just chose to see the good, to hear the positive and always to look on the bright side. 
 
Her fight against cancer would prove this in spades. From the moment of her stunning and dire diagnosis over five years ago, Debbie began to tackle cancer head-on. Living a sober and healthy life already, she dove in to juicing, eating only the foods that would not only help her with her post-surgery physical limitations but with her overall wellbeing. And you never, ever saw a healthier cancer patient in your life.
 
Here she is exuberantly hitting the gong, a tradition after her final chemo treatment. (Debbie’s were exceedingly careful treatments because of the heart attack her initial one brought on.)
 

 
The Coopers fought cancer with everything they had as a couple and a family. Stylish and active, Debbie cherished her workouts, her yoga classes, her painting in the special studio Mike built among her glorious flowers, her hours spent on Buckhorn Lake alone in her kayak and especially her ducks – the greedy ducks who came to her like their momma – and her time spent with her adoring husband, son and daughter. I can honestly say that I have never seen a tighter knit family. 
 

 
That closeness is a tribute to Debbie as a mother and a legacy that will last for decades. Doubtless her family is the reason Debbie’s fight lasted so long and was so valiantly carried out. I will never say that she “lost” or that cancer “won”; I won’t use the popular wording of defeat for Deborah Cooper and colon cancer.
 
She won. She leaves a legacy of love, of laughter, of memories that will never fade. I could write about her for days – and may in the days to come – but for now, let me just say that our hearts are broken and we mourn for the joy she brought us. 
 
After a valiant fight and a life too short but so well-lived, she’s among the angels with whom she felt such a closeness and affinity. She gets to romp with their beloved family Labs again and to play among the stars with a welcoming full moon for her arrival.
 
Please hold Mike, Sarah and Christopher in your thoughts today. I wish that Rob and I were closer in terms of geography, but can only hope that Mike will let his friends hold him close in their arms as well as their hearts. We’ll be with them soon.
 
If you want to leave a message on my Facebook page, I’ll be sure to tell Mike, Sarah and Chris that it’s there for them, when they’re ready. Today, they feel they never will be, I’m sure. But I can also assure them that these dreadfully dark clouds will part, ever so slowly. And they’ll feel the warmth of the sun again as Debbie’s spirit guides them through the next days, months and years of their lives.
 
How very much brighter our world was with her in it. Tomorrow in this journal: Debbie’s own pocketful of sunshine and more pictures on Friday.
 
We are so sad. 
 

Welcome in to this Tuesday. Do you ever have something happen to you that makes you wonder just what it is you have encountered and what, if anything, it means? I have two examples to share with you of incidents that made me shake my head and think, Who are these people and how is it that I just had a friendly exchange with them?
 
I’ll tell you one that happened about two months ago. We were in our local grocery store and I got overly excited about seeing a flavour of ice cream that was new to me. 
 
“Rob!” I called to my husband, who was standing about thirty feet away looking at expiry dates on milk cartons. (See? Someone in our house cares about them.) “It’s watermelon flavoured ice cream! Should we get this?”
 

 
The brand is Western Family and if you find it, the “pits” are little chocolate chunks, the green part tastes like lime sorbet and the pink tastes just like watermelon.
 
A man who was walking by and heard my excitement laughed and said, “You’d better grab it; it’s just a limited time thing.” I asked if he’d had it and he nodded and said it was good. I thanked him with a smile, apologized for my exuberance, and made some small talk kind of good-bye as I reached into the freezer compartment and pulled out a container of the treat. Then I saw his hat. It wasn’t MAGA red, but this is what it said.
 

 
Huh. I guess that’s…funny? Then, this past Saturday we were at the ferry terminal in North Vancouver, awaiting our crossing to Nanaimo. We walked Molly over to a grassy area to do her business before we boarded and there was a big burly man with a long curly beard and an almost comically small and pudgy little dog. The pup, off its leash, waddled over to Molly and they did their wag-and-sniff routine.
 
We asked the man in a sleeveless t-shirt and leather vest what kind of dog it was. He told us it was a shih-tzu/chihuahua combination and joked about how chunky the little one-year-old was. We noted that, just like our Molly, his little guy probably owned him, too. He admitted that he does and sleeps right up on his pillow next to him (as Molly does with us). So much in common we seemed to have with this tough-looking biker-type and his petite pooch. The surprise would come two hours later.
 
After a foggy crossing and smooth debarkation, we merged with a pickup truck on the busy roads leading away from the Nanaimo ferry terminal. I recognized the driver as that man with the small dog.
 
As he passed us, I saw something on his bumper that made me do a double-take: a decal of a US Confederate flag. I wondered why a Canadian man, whose pickup had a Nanaimo, BC dealership’s tag on it, would be a supporter of a divisive symbol associated with, at worst, white supremacy and, at least, racial bias. I know that groups like the Proud Boys are in Canada and the spread of the poison that saturates US politics is not contained by their own borders. Faith Goldy, anyone?
 
I can’t answer questions like why someone sports a Trump-style hat calling for the ouster of the PM or why someone who lives in Canada would put a Confederate flag on the bumper of his truck. The answers don’t concern me.
 
What I wonder about is just how closed my mind is that I wouldn’t have considered having a conversation with either of these people had someone said to me, “There’s a man in the next room or on a website you just need to click through to who, a) is wearing an anti-Trudeau hat reminiscent of a MAGA hat, or b) has a symbol of racist oppression on his bumper. Do you want to talk to him?”
 
My answer would be, “Absolutely not, thanks.” 
 
I guess what surprises me is that neither man, to the best of my knowledge, had horns coming out of his head. The first guy, I can surmise, just has political views that he’s not afraid to raise and defend – or he doesn’t give a darn what anyone else thinks where his opinions of Trudeau are concerned. 
 
The second guy? He seemed nice enough in our brief exchange, he had a cute dog and…maybe it wasn’t his truck. Yes. That’s it. He hadn’t had time to take off that hateful sticker. Maybe? Yeah, probably not. There was a ferry ride in there, after all.
 
Some questions don’t have answers and, fortunately, nobody expects me to have them all. Or any, on days like this. Maybe you have some; feel free to leave them on my Facebook page. I’ll be back here with you tomorrow.