Erin's Journals

Sometimes you make it into your forties, fifties, sixties, even beyond, and you see something that makes you wonder: now, why the heck didn’t I think of that? I’m not talking the internet or virtual currency or even a pop machine that gives you about a hundred different drink choices with the push of a button. No, what I mean is much simpler. So obvious that you wonder how on earth it never occurred to you. In a moment, I’ll share a few examples with you.
 
I’ve stayed in more hotels and motels than I can count and two things they almost all share: the bathroom sink plunger doesn’t work properly and the sink drains and there’s never, ever ice in the fridge’s ice cube tray, whether it’s a full-size in a rental condo or a little dorm-sized one. Never. Those two things I know for sure.
 
Now here’s something I have never seen. Can you tell what this is?
 

 
It’s a dark face cloth with eyes embroidered into it. What for? I bet if you’re a woman you know: for taking off makeup without staining or possibly even ruining a hotel’s light-coloured cloths and towels. Brilliant!
 
A motel we stayed at a night later had a plain brown washcloth, I’m guessing – or, um hoping – for the same reason, but come on, those embroidered eyes? That is above and beyond. Yes, I’m talking to YOU, Harrison House in Friday Harbor! (Special kudos to any other place that stocks packaged makeup removal wipes. I’ve seen about four of those and, no, I do not flush them.)
 
Then we noticed something in the delightful lakeside town of Chelan, Washington that I have never seen before: crossing flags.
 

 
On poles on opposite sides of a busy street, sticking out like branches on a really cheap Christmas tree, are flags. You take one out, you hold or wave it aloft and you cross that busy four-lane street – a highway really – that links two towns. And, hopefully, you do it safely.
 
The only downside to the flag system is once everyone has crossed one direction – say, to the beach in Chelan’s case – then all of the flags are on that side of the road. That needs a Good Samaritan to take a few extras when she or he crosses in the other direction. What a great idea! There’s no way of knowing how many lives have been saved, but I’d have to guess there have been a few, wouldn’t you think?
 
Anyway – a couple of little bits of brilliance I thought you might find as fascinating as I did. Join me here tomorrow and we’ll wrap up this week together!
 

For some folks, there’s no place like home. Mike Cooper, my former radio partner, says that even as a kid, he’d be on vacation with his folks and the moment they arrived he wanted to know “when are we going home?” Not me. I love hotels, motels, the adventure of booking them and, of course, checking reviews (and having my say as roberin on Trip Advisor).
 
As glad as we are to have done it, having Molly with us this time has had its challenges: they charge $15-$25 a night for a pet and, as we learned last year in Tacoma, Washington, some places won’t let you leave them in the room. But this trip has been great so far. “Pet friendly” isn’t merely “pet tolerant.” They’re welcome and as long as everyone plays by the rules, it all works out.
 

 
If you’re like me, you have a sense of feeling at “home” in different places you’ve visited, even if they only know your name because it’s on your Visa card. Maybe it’s in a cabin near a lake or at a beach somewhere that palm trees sway in the breeze. One of the places that has always felt like home for us is a little town just minutes from the US border called Osoyoos, BC.
 
I’ve mentioned this place before (having last visited in July 2015). It’s Canada’s warmest town and, as such, attracts snowbirds from the rest of the country during the cold months. Pronounced (oh-SOY-yoos), it has a mild dry winter climate with only five centimetres’ accumulation of snow. At this time of year it’s quiet, although the place is busy and vibrant after the upcoming May long weekend. We were lucky to get into our favourite spot, the Watermark Beach Resort, with Molly for two nights. Not a bad sight as you wake up, is it?
 

 
The hotel’s name, however, has taken on a whole new meaning, as waters have risen to 916′ above sea level to the point where ducks have been spotted swimming in streets where children usually play; high waters due to warm temperatures and a fast melt are due to peak this Friday.
 
While our place was fine, at the nearby Holiday Inn, the volleyball nets were in water up to their bottom hems. Just down the way, the Coast Hotel was evacuated and plenty of places, whose aged signs boast of beach, are lamenting their proximity today, I’m betting.
 
Water from Osoyoos Lake rose high enough to cause a need for people to fill sand bags. And it looks like they had an audience: see the pair in the forefront, with a bird’s – or duck’s – eye view of the whole thing. 
 

 
But that may not help these homeowners who – at least for now – have a water feature they didn’t plan on.
 

 
Hard as it was to drive away from this homey spot, we had to leave our pretty little desert town and hope for the best for its residents and visitors. BC flood watches have intensified with the heat this week (it was 32C on our dog walk yesterday) – exactly the same bad news residents faced here last year at this time. Once again, welcome to the “new normal.” 
 
Today, we’ll catch up with Dad and his gal pal in Kelowna and continue catching up with my three sisters, all of whom live within about an hour’s drive. I hope you’re enjoying this week of travel with us and we’ll share more pictures tomorrow. I saw a couple of pretty neat ideas I wanted to run by you…take care.
 

 
I hope this day finds you in good spirits. Come on along as we continue our road trip, won’t you? 
 
Rob and I are on our way to the beautiful Okanagan in central BC, coming up from Osoyoos today to check in to a Kelowna hotel. It’s here that on Thursday morning I’ll give my Transformation speech to the BC Association of Broadcasters. I’m so lucky to have a chance to share our stories, and that includes here, too! Because I experienced two things that we’ve never had happen before and I couldn’t wait to share them with you.
 
First of all, this: click the photo below and see an amazing video of more deer than we could count on a quiet country road. And then watch how close one came to Rob. Had it been me, I don’t know if I could have resisted the temptation to reach out and touch its forehead, but Rob, being smarter and a little fonder of his fingers than I am, obviously, decided not to. Just watch and see.
 

 
But the most heartwarming moment came (appropriately on the Mother’s Day weekend) with a mother and baby. As we passed a yard that was clearly fenced to keep deer out, we saw on the lawn, inside that fencing, two deer: a mama doe and a fawn that was so young it was smaller than our little dog. I have never seen a baby deer so tiny; it had to have been born that day or the few days preceding. Anyway, we pulled over and I tried to get close to the fence so that I could take a picture without scaring the beautiful duo. 
 

 
Having spotted us, the mother nudged her fawn away from its efforts to get some nourishment and made it lie down in the tall grass. We could only see two big ears, both almost fixed horizontally, as the fawn did what Lauren would say was “acting small.” (At about age four she was curled up in a chair one day and we asked what she was doing…that was her response.)
 
What happened next truly surprised us. As the fawn hid in the tall grass, its mother slowly walked away towards the stand of trees – and other deer – about forty feet away. Exactly what you would not expect: she didn’t stay with her baby, but instead she tried to lead us – possible predators – away from her hidden treasure. We quietly hurried back to the car and hoped she returned to her little one equally quickly. 
 

 
But imagine: she walked away to save her offspring. She was ready to sacrifice herself for that little sweetie who knew just to stay there like he or she was told until it was safe and mama returned. Isn’t nature miraculous? We will be back with you here tomorrow.
 

 
Welcome to a brand new week and let me start by saying I hope that you had a lovely Mother’s Day. If you were without a child or children, I was thinking of you; not for a moment in my writing last week did I forget that there are so many others who walk this path with me as a bereaved mom.
 
I also want to thank you for indulging me with the kindness that you did last week, expressed on Facebook, Twitter and in emails. I wrote from the heart and I know that sometimes that can probably be a bit exhausting to read and take in. But since this is a place where I can sort of let things spill, I am grateful to you for sharing the days that are light – and not so light. Fortunately, the latter are becoming less and less frequent and, in many ways, we have you to thank for that.
 
Today, we return to the light. In fact, even though it’s Monday, my gift to you is a true Friday feeling! Late last week, Rob and I hopped on the ferry (well, we actually drove on, but you get my meaning) and decided to embark on the longest way we could find to get to the Okanagan, where my family and a speaking engagement, later this week, await. To do that, we took a 32 km ferry trip to San Juan Island in Washington State. 
 

 
With a population of just under 3,000, the entire island is a lovely drive. We took in the sights near the harbor and then the three of us (yes, Molly came along) enjoyed a leisurely look around while we waited for our hotel check-in time at 4:00. 
 
I saw something unforgettable out in the wild and I’ll tell you about it here tomorrow. But today, I had to share something else with you.
 
You know I’m a believer in signs and I had hoped that maybe on Friday we’d see something so that we could know that Lauren was with us on the anniversary of her passing. I tried not to set my hopes too high, however, and vowed I wouldn’t look too hard. But she made sure they were right in front of our faces. In one case, literally.
 
I wore a fuchsia-coloured yoga top, as I wasn’t going to be in mourning-dark colours on Friday, I’d decided. Perhaps that was the attraction; perhaps it was something else.
 
But as I stood outside the car waiting for Rob, a hummingbird – not ruby-throated like the ones we see at our feeders near Victoria, but a stunning deep pink like my top – zipped over and hovered right in front of my nose. It was about a foot in front of my face for what I imagine was three seconds before it moved up and down and then flew away as quickly as it had shown up. I couldn’t believe what I saw: this symbol of joy came right up to me as if to say, “Good morning!”
 
I told Rob about the visit as we climbed into the car to take a drive up the side of the island that we hadn’t explored the day before. From this part of beautiful San Juan Island we could clearly see the part of the Saanich Peninsula that we call home. In fact, I had to tell Rob that his constant reminders of how close our house was were really taking the excitement out of a road trip; kind of like pitching a tent in your backyard as a kid and then continuing to look out to see what your folks are doing through the rec room curtains. You know? 
 
The skies were blue as we listened to the Beatles’ White Album on our quiet, drive. While “Martha My Dear” (about Paul’s sheepdog) played, we looked to the right of the roadside and couldn’t quite believe our eyes: there, about eight feet in length, sat a big, whimsical yellow submarine. (Our daughter was raised on Beatles and loved them as we do.) 
 
Don’t believe us? Here.
 

 
Maybe you still don’t believe in signs; maybe you do. But at the end of the day, as Rob and I were getting ready to call it a night, I leaned over and turned on the car radio one last time and we heard one more Beatles song. What made it remarkable to us was that neither of us – crazy fans that we are – had ever heard the song. Recorded on Rob’s ninth birthday, it’s called “I’ll Be on My Way.” The lyrics aren’t perfect, but they’re close enough:

The sun is fading away
That’s the end of the day
As the June light turns to moonlight
I’ll be on my way 

Just one kiss and I’ll go
Don’t hide the tears that don’t show
As the June light turns to moonlight
I’ll be on my way

And then later there’s another verse….

To where the winds don’t blow 
And golden rivers flow
This way I will go

Maybe it’s just a bit of delusion – the things we believe to give us hope along the way. But I sure don’t have a problem with that. A song, a bird of joy and a yellow submarine? Yes, please.
 
Tomorrow, a moment in nature that I can’t wait to share with you.
 

 
A Letter to Lauren ~
 
Our dear girl. It’s been three years today – an eternity and a moment – since you left us, slipping off in the early morning darkness to a place where your soul dances and you shine with a light that we cannot even fathom. There is not a day that passes that I don’t wonder why you had to leave us, but deep in my heart I am somehow certain that we agreed upon your leaving before you even joined us on that chilly spring morning of 1991.
 
You hurried through your life with your eye steady on a finish line that none of us could see, rushing to accomplish so much before you were through. And somehow you did: you were a wonderful and happy child and adolescent, a kind and giving adult who loved generously and was so loved in return; you were a kind wife and a devoted mother so focused on the wellness of your child that we believe it may have cost you your own life.
 
We will continue to spread the word of possible dangers to breastfeeding mothers of taking too-readily-written prescriptions to augment their milk supply (such as domperidone). We will not forget you, Lauren, and we will make your death as much of a message of caution as your life was an illustration of determination.
 
You and your husband Phil gave us a beautiful grandson, whose smile and curls and eyes and spirit remind us of you everytime we see and speak to him. Thank you for sharing such an astounding gift with us before you left and for helping to choose such a wonderful young woman to partner in guiding your boy through childhood. She’s doing a great job – she and Phil both – and we are so glad to have built a loving relationship with her. You’d be so proud of all of us. 
 
Okay…I know you are proud. But I still can’t help but miss you so completely; you know how we sigh for you and hold you close in our hearts all the time. I do love receiving your signs: last year on this day you brought us rainbows. We’ll be watching today. No pressure, though!
 
This past year, Loo, we have worked so hard on a book that we hope will help people to realize that there is life after a loss like the one that we’ve suffered, and we’ve felt guided by you through every page of every chapter. Your message of positivity, strength, laughter, compassion and generosity will be one that will be shared. The story of our love for you and your love for your family will be a gift that we hope your son will continue to unwrap for years to come.
 
Thank you for making me a mom – I know that I was never as good as I could have been, but you turned out so beautifully anyway – and for the closeness we were sharing and enjoying when you took on the role of Mother as well. Those seven months before you left were among the sweetest of my life, too, you know, as we had even more in common.
 
I only offered advice when you asked for it, as I know that’s how you wanted things to be. But I always told you to believe in yourself, just as I had when you were little. It’s a message we’ll make sure Colin gets every day of his life that we’re around to share it.
 
As we mark this day and Mother’s Day Sunday, your daddy and I promise to always dream a little dream of you, to hold you close in our hearts and instead of tending to the cracks that open on days like this, we’ll vow to focus instead on how full you’ve made our hearts of memories and love for you, for each other and for the family you had to leave. And we’ll always be grateful to you, our Lauren – our Pure Joy. 
 
Thank you for letting me share this with you today. I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day and I’ll be back with you on Monday.