Erin's Journals

Oh, I’ve missed being in Toronto this week. I’ve missed being with you, feeling connected, listening to your thoughts and hearing your grief and stories of hope. I’ve missed seeing for myself in real time the outpouring of kindness and commemoration, of steely determination and softened sadness. Yes, of course, I’m online (probably too much) and can watch Toronto television from out here on the west coast. But it’s not the same. I am there with you, though. 
 
The city’s two faces – of sorrow and of celebration – were on full display last night as not one, not two, but three sporting events were cheered on from outside the ACC. The sounds of joyous celebrations echoed in the streets of Toronto – a city stilled by shock and disbelief this same week.
 
This dichotomy is one of the many things that you’re just not prepared for when sudden death hits; life goes on. I was talking with my new friend Lu, a newly bereaved mother in Brampton, about this very thing the other night. You walk into a store to choose a little boy’s outfit for a memorial and see young parents going about their business, chiding their children, sorting through racks, picking just the right onesie for a baby soon to arrive.
 
It all happens as though in slow motion; you’re the static display at the aquarium and they’re on the moving sidewalk. How does life go on when your whole world has come to a screeching halt? It simply does. And that’s the secret to it all: sooner or later those souls in mourning, who have been sidelined and stopped in their tracks, will find an opening in the passing stream and step in to join the flow again. 
 
There will be breaks in the sadness and silence until, eventually, the sounds of laughter will come. There will be moments when you wonder how you can laugh, but you do. And that’s a good thing: it means that the healing beneath that Band-Aid has begun. Just as last night in our city, the distraction of the games of grown men proved welcome once more.
 
Life – if we are lucky – is long and there will always be time for sorrow; it has a way of finding moments when you don’t expect it to visit and uninvited it comes to sit on your shoulder for a while. But we must grasp joy and laughter and celebration when we can, too: it is how we go on. As individuals and as a community. #TorontoStrong
 

Like you, I have a lot to try to sort through as we learn more about the motive and the madness that went into Monday’s devastation and horror. While we all try to do that, I’ll share with you a journal I had prepared to run yesterday. Like so much of the conversation surrounding Toronto’s horror, it is a reminder of connection and of the things that matter most in this life: love and kindness. E.
 
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Two blue suitcases.
 
They just sat there, zipped and locked tight by the front door, just as far as we’d had the energy to wheel them into the house after a long wait for an airport taxi we thought might never pick us up and take them home, in those wee, small hours of Tuesday last week.
 
For over two days – 57 hours to be precise – those year-old but already scarred hard-bodied suitcases sat there, a reminder of our fatigue and our journey, our loosened rules and heightened freedom.
 
When, at last on Thursday, we needed something that we hadn’t just thrown into our carry-on when we fled for a flight that turned out to be on time instead of two hours delayed, we rolled the two heavy suitcases into our bedroom and began to unpack. Birthday cards and gifts for Rob, including a framed photo that read “Grandpa & Me” from Colin. Chocolates and a clipboard, as well as a makeshift acoustic foam studio set-up that got us a voice job while we travelled. 
 
Silently we separated laundry from things to be put away or hung up, setting aside a neat stack of recycling made up of envelopes and shopping receipts. As we unpacked, putting away glue-on lashes and packages of contact lenses until next month, pantyhose until I absolutely have to wear them and hanging a dress I said a silent “thank you” to for letting me fit into it again, I could feel my heart starting to sink.
 
It plummeted when plans for a long walk in springtime fresh air evaporated as Rob reminded me that he had taxes to work on. Molly’s enthusiasm to go outside was dampened by a sick tummy she’d had since we’d gotten home (or perhaps before). As we walked our neighbourhood out of necessity instead of celebration of the beauty of the day, I found myself fighting and ultimately giving in to tears. 
 
I stopped to blow my nose on a paper towel that I’d tucked into my pocket in case Molly’s tummy necessitated a bit of extra cleanup. As I paused, I looked down to see a beautiful large hibiscus-like blossom on the curb. Nowhere around me could I see where this crimson flower might have grown, but there it was. I picked it up and carried it for the remainder of the silent walk, punctuated only by my quiet sniffles and the sounds of the end notes of “Strawberry Fields” coming from someone’s house as we passed by. 
 
I remembered seeing how Colin would begin to cry when his parents would leave, and it felt familiar: pursed lips, moist eyes and then just a few silent tears. And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t the unpacking that had made me sad, or the derailed plans for an enthusiastically enjoyed spring day.
 
It was that the trip had ended: the one we’d anticipated for months, the time with a little boy we’ll love forever, and the laughter and hugs that we’ve missed so much. Those twin monoliths at the front door served as reminders that it wasn’t over yet, but opening them up and emptying their contents most definitely signalled an end.
 
Oh yes, the bags will be put to use in May when Rob and I make the trek across to Kelowna for work and to see family. The studio will be unfolded and propped on a chair or bed. The miniature toiletries and carefully-counted-out vitamins and supplements will once again find their sandwich bags, and be tucked safely into freezer bags for travel. 
 
But there will be no trips, no visits ever that we look forward to with as much love, anticipation and full-on joy as those that end at an Ottawa address. Until next time, sweet boy.
 
~ Love, Grama and Granddad Banana.
 

Ever since that perfect late summer day of 2001 was shattered by a spate of evil like North America had never seen before, I have wondered. I wondered how Toronto would fare in the aftermath of an attack – domestic or foreign, terrorist or otherwise – and what we, whose job it was to talk with those who suffered in fear and sadness, would say. 
 
Time has taught me this: there are no words to ease the pain. I know this from years of living with it and from running over and over in my head just what words would bring comfort in the aftermath of such a senseless loss as we experienced yesterday on a flawless spring day. I say “we” because Toronto will always own a huge part of my heart and my life.
 
As I mentioned here yesterday, I know that most of the visitors to this journal are from southern Ontario. I felt the jolt of pain and shock, just as you did, with news of a van on a busy Yonge Street sidewalk taking out pedestrians and people just out doing their business, enjoying such long-awaited blue skies and warmer temperatures. A spring awakening that turned into a nightmare.
 
When I retweeted Steve Roberts from 680 News with the number of fatalities at nine and another 16 injured (at that time; sadly, the death toll reached 10 last night), a woman tweeted back: “I’m 54 and I’m not sure I want to live in a world like this anymore.” 
 
I responded quickly: “It has always been like this. And the human spirit prevails.”
 
She thanked me and said she needed to get off social media for a while. 
 
I understand how exhausting it can be: all of the details (not all of them true), the speculation, the useless finger-pointing, the rampant jumping to conclusion. Someone tweeted to me, “This doesn’t happen here.” But, oh, it does: in January of 2017, six people who were worshipping were gunned down in a Quebec City mosque. But we keep going. We don’t let hate win.
 
Like our sisters and brothers in Paris, London, Quebec City, Nice, New York City – anywhere that a terrifying incident (no matter in whose name) has struck – we keep living our lives. We stop to mourn, to learn the names and stories of those we have lost; we hear their families’ memories and the legacies that have been cut short. And then, as though pulling grace from the flowers sure to be laid to rest on city sidewalks, we strengthen our resolve to keep going. Unlike those bouquets, we will not wilt and blow away. Because the human spirit is indomitable and no amount of evil, no matter how close to home, will prevail. 
 
To you, to people of the city that was our home for so very long, and to those who suffer today and live in fear at the thought of such horror as that visited upon us yesterday by one man with darkness in his heart and utter destruction on his mind, I say this: the pain subsides. 
 
And you, too, will be all right. Toronto will not be the same again, but Toronto will always be strong – made that way by the many different and wonderful threads that we have so long and so carefully woven as one. Be good to one another. 
 
I’ll be back with you tomorrow.
 

I’ll call today’s journal the Great Canadian Guilt Trip. And I think I might have been on it the past month or so. Here’s what I mean: I realize, thanks to stats from my journal website that deal with times that it is read and listened to, that a majority of the people who come here every week are visiting from the eastern time zones.
 
That makes sense. That’s where we used to share mornings for so many years. In fact, in the past few days, I’ve been wading through that sea of emails I told you had been forwarded to me from work when my Rogers account officially shut down, and in the responses I’ve sent, I’ve included reminders that I do a journal, as well as post at Twitter, on Facebook and occasionally on Instagram, too. So there’s some reconnecting going on, and I am grateful!
 
But here’s the thing. If it wasn’t for weather, what would Canadians talk about, right? (Of course, right now we have the Leafs, the Raptors, the Jays and TFC, but the weather trumps all, right?) Trust me, I experienced first-hand just how brutal the weather in Southern Ontario has been, right into April, during our visit: from harsh winds that made our landing very tricky, to sideways snow while we were signing out our rental car, and freezing rain and downed lines that made turning in that car again 12 days later equally precarious.
 
All in all, it wasn’t a trip we made for the weather – obviously – and although we’re expecting a few more trips in non-peak weather months, we remind ourselves that we’re travelling for three reasons: family – especially Colin, Phil and Brooke – friends and work. No doubt about it! Imagine when a book tour brings us to Ontario in February of next year; that’s going to be a challenge. But at least it’ll be nasty weather that we expect and mentally prepare for. This time we had some crazy notions of blossoms and springtime – you know, being APRIL and all – and although we did bring our winter gear, it didn’t make that weather any easier to digest.
 
But today it’s supposed to be sunny and 18 in Ottawa. Partly sunny and perhaps 15 in Toronto. And here where we live, near Victoria International Airport, we’re settling in for a gorgeous sunny and 17 today, with sunshine and 21 by Wednesday. The bicycles are coming out, the sunscreen will be in full force and we’re ready to embrace spring with the same enthusiasm that so much of the country is doing today as well.
 
And now, with LESS GUILT! I have been so careful not to post pictures of the blossoms that have come out and dropped since January….
 

 

 
…or the magnolia buds that hang on trees like some fuschia-coloured Christmas ornaments in early April…
 

 
….or the deer that nestled peacefully beneath a cherry blossom tree in the midst of fallen petals this week. 
 

 
Do you know how much it has killed me not to share those with you? But, I get it, your responses (some of them probably not family friendly) might have hurt just a little bit more. I tested the waters via Instagram and got what I deserved. After all, I remember the February pics my auntie, who lives near us now, would post of flowers and how it would make us green with anger – er, I mean envy. 😉 But it’s hard for us not to share the beauty, with the best intentions.
 
Let us all be on this same, green and sun-splashed page from here on in until you start telling me of the colours of autumn. Here’s to spring – let ‘er fling – and thank you for letting me share, at long last, a little of the beauty of this island and spot we call home, in this gorgeous nation of Canada. Tomorrow: it turned out those two suitcases packed a lot of emotions.
 

Well, I think we’re finally back on BC time. This is one big beautiful country, but these time zones are a killer. I’m already thinking that when we fly out to Amsterdam next April for the Tulip Time AMA river cruise with the Coopers, we’ll do our visiting in Ontario – especially Ottawa – first. Just let the body clock adjust a bit so I’m not facedown in the soup for the first day or two!
 
There are a lot of things we have to adjust to in our lives. One of them is time zones, of course; another I’ve discovered is the transition from being “on” every day to just having a quiet, more normal kind of life. For example, I got rid of – passed on – a lot of clothes when we left Toronto. Suits and dresses that I’d bought or had been kindly given to me by event sponsors (like the late Jones New York) and that I knew I’d probably never need again. I mean, dresses? For my new life, it’s a big deal if I put on socks that aren’t of the athletic variety. 
 
So it was a bit of a shock when I was laying out my clothes for this recent trip, including a favourite Lida Baday black and white dress for the Canadian Real Estate Association gathering on the weekend. I have high heels that I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear for more than two minutes, but that would have looked great.
 
Hey – didn’t Oprah get someone to put her shoes on her while she sat? If I could have, I’d have done that. But hobbling to the stage to take the podium wouldn’t have been very pretty, so that was a no go. I opted for low patent pumps that I had to grip with my toes like grim death, because they weren’t laced up like my hiking sneakers or my Skechers! 
 
I got a pedicure on my spa day with Brooke and smooshed the heck out of it within five minutes, as we hobbled to a nearby Starbucks in the snow and rain. Yes, winter footwear and pedicures do not go together. But the worst of the whole footwear fiasco came on Sunday afternoon when I realized partway through my half-hour speech that a brand new pair of stockings had already given up the ghost.
 
Ah yes, stockings. Pantyhose. Whatever you want to call them. I had brought an older pair and two new ones just in case, but the older pair seemed to have shrunk since the last wearing. I swore as I contorted myself like a Cirque du Soleil wannabe while trying to get these black control tops on. It wasn’t that there was more to control; I’ve dropped about 15 pounds since I last put them on. Nope – they just didn’t want to cooperate. So on Sunday morning, I tugged on a new pair instead, slid into my pointy pumps and my dress, and grabbed my clipboard to start the day.
 
How did it end? 
 

 
A good old toe-out blow-out. Considering we leapt in and did that speech along with emcee duties, and the fact that I managed to stay upright in heels for some seven hours and everybody seemed as happy with the day as Rob and I were, I’d say that’s not too high a price to pay. Back into the time capsule for the rest of the stockings in the package until the next time. I have not missed them even one bit!
 
Have a great weekend and we’ll talk to you here on Monday.