Erin's Journals

Hello there and Merry Christmas!

Here it is: the pass-the-gift game we’ll be playing on Christmas Day. Just watch the video on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube and have fun – we sure do.  

*Just make sure there are more than two people playing and that everyone starts with a small present in hand (something that anyone taking part could appreciate). When you hear the word RIGHT, whether spelled R-I-G-H-T or only sounds like it, you pass to the right…and same with the word LEFT. Only one spelling of that one! Have fun.

The Story of the Wright Brothers’ Christmas

Once upon a time, there were two brothers. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright. They lived in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, right near Raleigh. Orville and Wilbur never left home; instead they stayed in Kitty Hawk and decided they wanted to fly.

How could that be right? No one had ever flown a plane for more than just a few seconds. And usually those flying machines were left in pieces on the ground.

But Orville and Wilbur had the right stuff. They said, “Leave it to us!” So, people left it to them. After all, what right did anyone have to say that they couldn’t fly – right?

These two Wright brothers built a little airplane. They built it with parts left over from their tractor and even used a surfboard for the right wing.

This left everyone laughing. But you know who didn’t laugh? Their mother. Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright decided to write a letter to their mother, who had left earlier that month to visit Paris and its famous Left Bank.

“Dear Mom,” they did write. “You left too soon! We are right about to take our first flight, but before we do, we wanted to tell you about it.” Orville was the one to write the letter, as Wilbur was left-handed and couldn’t write as well as Orville.

They told their mom about the flight, left it in the mailbox down the street and got ready to fly.

On a chilly December 24th, right before Christmas, Orville and Wilbur got into their plane. A priest, who worried they might not make it, came and gave them last rites. But they said, “Oh no, Father, we’ll be all right! Besides, we haven’t even left yet!”

They started their plane and it began right away. They flew a little to the left, and then a little to the left again…and then up and down and then…to the left. “Uh-oh,” said Wilbur, “this ain’t right.” So then they tried to straighten up and fly right, but instead, the plane just kept going up – up – up!

As the Wright brothers started to panic, their plane continued its ascent. Up over rooftops, up through the clouds, so far above they couldn’t see the crowds. (Not that there was anyone left; it was late and it was Christmas eve).

All of a sudden, over the whirr of the little plane’s struggling propellers, the Wright brothers could hear a sound. Wait, thought Wilbur, that can’t be right!

“Do you hear bells?” asked Orville.

They did! They did hear bells! They looked above them, they looked to the right…they looked below and they looked to the left…. And what should they see, right there beside them?

None other than Santa Claus and a magical sleigh being pulled by eight reindeer!

“Hey!” shouted Santa, “what are you doing here? It’s my turn to fly – you haven’t the gear! You land that plane right now, before you crash badly.”

“Okay,” said the Wright brothers, nodding quite sadly. “But we don’t know the way – I guess we did goof….”

And Santa said, “Follow! I’ll land on your roof!”

So that’s what they did, and they followed Santa and his reindeer, led by Rudolph’s glowing red nose. Down, down, they went. Turning left and left again…until right below them was their house.

As Santa and his reindeer landed and quickly left their presents, and then flew off into the night skies again, Orville and Wilbur Wright put that little plane down gently on a snow-covered farm field right next to their house.

“All right!” they exclaimed as they climbed from the plane and left it behind to run and see what Santa had left.

For Orville, a pair of flying goggles and a can of Right Guard deodorant. For Wilbur, a baseball glove so he could play left field with the Kitty Hawk Kittens team come spring.

And right there under the tree, the best gift of all?

Santa left them a map and a note saying “Don’t fall!”

The story is over now, hold on to your gift: no passing, no sassing…just open what you got!

Just a thought… I think as you grow older, your Christmas list gets smaller and the things you really want for the holidays can’t be bought. [Author Unknown]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Welcome, my friend, to the last journal of 2022.

I wanted first to say thank you. You come here, you follow what’s going on in our lives: the ups, like this lovely cookie baking moment on Friday…

…and the downs, like our journey with my dad, who is seemingly getting his mind back, and we’re going to be moving him into a professional caregiver’s home. And best of all, that personal support worker is my sister Leslie and her family. So that’s all happening. And it turns out to be another “up” to end the year.

You are so kind, so caring. This connection we have is the gift that I unwrap all year ’round.

So I’d like to give YOU a gift. On Friday, watch this space for a link to the video of a present-passing game that I introduced to you last year called “A Wright Brothers’ Christmas.” We’re going to play it together on Christmas night after dinner!

Let me tell you what our traditions have become, if you don’t mind. You probably know that we are a blended family of the best kind: our grandson Colin, his sister, our granddaughter Jane, and their folks, Brooke and Phil, will come here Christmas Eve for the big dinner. This is the one where I haul out my mom’s fancy no-dishwasher china, and polish up her silver. We bring in the generation before us to join us at this dinner table.

Then, the kids open gifts from us and we enjoy the excitement of the night before Christmas, while I privately reminisce about all of those years we enjoyed Christmas Eve at Erin’s with our friends from CHFI and listeners across the GTA. Forgive me if I’ve told you this, but one year, ratings measurements showed that one out of every two radios on Christmas Eve was tuned to our show. I will always appreciate the honour of being part of people’s traditions – whether they were wrapping, driving, sitting alone or celebrating with loved ones. That is the highlight of my professional life (no offense, Mike)!

It’s hard not to feel melancholy at this time of year; anyone with an empty chair – literally or figuratively – at the table during Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or New Year’s knows what I’m talking about. But we keep memories from wilting like a rose in the snow by allowing ourselves to feel the longing, the echoes of joy. Like this picture from Lauren’s first and last Christmas with Colin. There’s my dad, too, and – oh – that real tree. How lucky we are to have that precious, precious memory.

And here’s my last gift to you as we prepare to wrap up 2022 this week (I’ll be back with you January 3rd in the new year), and that is the present of appreciating the present.

A few weeks ago a family friend told Rob that he’s envious of us at this time of year.

Now, when Rob began to pass along those sentiments, I started to get my back up. I mean, who could possibly be envious of a couple who were so sad, especially at Christmas, because of Lauren being taken from us.

And then Rob continued: the reason Sam said he envies us? We have grandchildren with whom to celebrate the holidays.

Now, of course, we know that Colin and Jane are a blessing. Our grandson’s sleepovers are the reason I go to sleep with a peaceful smile (as I will with Jane, too, one day). They hold on to our hearts with sticky fingers, fill the silence with shrieks and baseball stats, pass the hours with games and hiding and seeking and colouring. In short (quite literally) they’re our reason to keep going.

As I said quite pointedly in Mourning Has Broken, no one gets to say to us, “at least.” No one tells us which blessings to stop mourning, which ones to count.

But in his way, in that moment of vulnerability and tenderness, our friend reminded us that even when the tree shines just a little dimmer, we are lucky to have family gathered around it or poking at its ornaments.

We are blessed. And the fact that we made it through another year – you and I together – is testament to that.

So thank you. Just for being here and in my heart – for the years of letting me wake you up, and now putting you to sleep with Drift. I am so grateful to you and we’ll see you in 2023, my friend.

Just a thought… To care for those who once cared for us is one of life’s highest honors. [Tia Walker]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Well…we’re finally settling in at home for the holidays. Between Toronto business travel and my not-so-friendly-skies experience in Edmonton in November, the turnaround trip to Mexico to help my sister recover from emergency hip replacement surgery (she’s doing amazingly and even performed – standing – at a Christmas concert last week) and then another journey to the BC interior last week, I haven’t been home enough to water the plants. Lucky for them, I don’t have any.

I’m here to brighten your day today, and I’ll tell you a story that perfectly sums up the yin and yang, the darkness and light of life.

We’ve all been through family struggles – whether it’s with our children, our parents, our siblings or other relatives – so when I told you about us moving Dad into assisted living, a great many people could relate.

It was a hard four days, both physically and emotionally, as my younger sister Leslie and I dug through nine decades’ worth of pictures (and some even older) deciding what to keep, what to let go. Medals and plaques and mugs and memories from a career in the armed forces, plus university honours and decades of singing and performing in community bands and choirs (and all the sheet music!); they all add up to a life that is slowly coming to its coda.

When Dad didn’t remember why we were hauling into his new suite a huge, 80-pound mostly-engraved tombstone – one which he commissioned after Mom’s passing in preparation for his own – we knew his memory was really gone. After all, he’s been so proud of the steps he’s taken to make sure that when he’s gone, his “girls” (as he calls my three sisters and me) would have no worries.

Well, the worries are happening now. Dad has been failing fast and the first night that sister Leslie didn’t stay with him on a cot in his new assisted living suite, he awoke and called 9-1-1 because he couldn’t get back to bed. Right away we were told by the people at the new place that, even though they had assessed him, he was not going to be able to stay.

In fairness to them, Dad did suffer a fall before he moved. EMT came and put him in his bed – no x-rays or anything – and he’s suffering physical pain now as well as mental distress. He’s practically talking in tongues, which to us points to a familiar bacterial infection that is blasting his brain.

Two days after we left, Dad was admitted to hospital. He’s in there now as we wait to see what the future holds.

So now let me tell you the brighter side to this story.

As our tiny plane landed on a dark, rainy Victoria runway, I got a ping from sister Heather who said that Dad remembered seeing Rob but didn’t recall me being there. That brought on more tears, having shed plenty when we said our good-byes just hours earlier. I knew his memory was failing, but it hadn’t hit me that hard before that moment.

Here he is in a gift I picked up during that long layover in Edmonton airport: a toque from his alma mater, the U of A. The same man who couldn’t tell me if he’d even had breakfast broke into three verses of his college fight song! What a moment!

And here he is Friday: same hat, same ol’ Dad, in the hospital awaiting more tests.

But the bright moment in all of this? After a very long, emotional stay in frigid Kelowna, tears on the plane and exhaustion setting in, we walked into our house and saw this.

With all of my absences since the start of November, Rob had taken it upon himself to bring the tree up from downstairs. But we’d still left it in a partial state of undress. Well, while we were in Kelowna, Brooke, Phil and the kids came over one evening and Brooke hauled out the decorations (along with a few she’d bought to add to our décor) and almost completely decked the tree.

With that, the two sides of the same family coin came shining through to me: the heartache, worry and pain of slowly letting go, and the warmth and peace, the joy even, that come from letting IN as well. With an open heart, mind and home, you might just find that, like me, even the worst hurts can be made better with some compassion and a little love. What else is there?

Take good care and please do enjoy tomorrow’s Drift Christmas story. It’s Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Listen where you download podcasts or click here and don’t forget to go to envypillow.com and use the code DRIFT to receive 10% off your selections there. Our gift to you now and through the year to come. And thank you.

Just a thought… Life is a constant becoming: all stages lead to the beginning of others. [George Bernard Shaw]

Hello and welcome to a new week. This will be a short journal; I’ve had little success in publishing this for you in the past few attempts from afar, whether Ontario or Mexico. For the third straight Monday I find myself far from home, but at least I’m in the same province!

Rob and I are in Kelowna, BC helping my sister Leslie aid my father in moving from a retirement residence to assisted living. We thought when he moved out of the house he shared with my now-late mom that we managed to purge before we packed; that has turned out to be untrue.

It’s been a very long weekend of going through photos, letters, and so many mementoes of, not only his life, but that of his parents and even his grandparents. I’ve been quietly thrilled to find some of my homemade cards and some letters I wrote to Dad over the years. Many expressed how I missed him when he was away (as an officer in the armed forces). My artwork was heinous, my rhymes were pretty good and it’s nice to know they were treasured. Still, out they went….

Dad, whose mind has been slipping with alarming alacrity over the past year (we can pinpoint two long hospital stays: one with Covid and a severe infection, the second with gall stones and nothing short of neglect that led to his physical deterioration as well over a five-week period) and now we’re holding on to faint hope that he’ll manage to make a life here at his new home where there’s a nurse on call and the possibility of a fuller existence.

He’s his cheery self despite a fall a week ago that is causing him pain and as we try to wean him from my sister’s overnight assistance, we leave tomorrow knowing that he’s in good hands and we’re doing all we can for “dear old Dad.” He’ll forget by next week that Rob and I were here, but we know. And we’ll hope that this new step in his life lasts long and brings him comfort. And that the sister who’s taken on such a heavy load in caring for Dad is able to keep carrying it – for all our sakes.

I’ll be back next week and I promise a video journal. It’s been too long!

Just a thought… A true friend sees the first tear, catches the second and stops the third. [Angelique Arnauld]

Read to the end for a 10% discount at enVypillow.com – our Drift with Erin Davis sleep stories partner.

An early alarm goes off today and I’m back to Guadalajara’s international airport this morning, where the hour-plus long wait to get out after having arrived a week ago Saturday will haunt me for a long time.

If you haven’t entered Mexico, you may not know about their unusual way of letting you in: you gather your luggage (I had none), then get in a Disney World-long snaking line to hand off your customs card and then press a button. If the light is green, off you go; if it’s red, you get to have your luggage screened, opened, etc..

I got to my sister’s about two hours after I was expected; she was still hospitalized with that fractured hip (and immediate replacement), but a friend of hers met me and my cab to takeme into the house – the one that had just been cleaned by her friends (with fresh sheets on beds, etc.) before my arrival.

As I helped Cindy get up and mobile, fed her pills at the right times (not that she and her spreadsheet needed any aid), prepared meals, and helped in the night on her trips to the loo, I was struck by a feeling that will stay with me a long time.

It is this: wherever you are, make a circle of friends and keep them close. I am a hermit by nature; many of my friends are here. Online. You and I may not have met, but you are my friend. When I was stranded in Edmonton for over seven hours back on Nov. 5th, you kept me company on social media. When I was left without luggage for a big event the next day, thanks to the same ill-fated travel experience, you (specifically my “Teri Godmother”) came to my rescue. Further back, when we were struck by the biggest blow a parent can endure, you propped up Rob and me with your kindness and your huge gestures. You have always been my circle.

But Cindy has people she sings with, plays cards with, lunches with daily, goes to theatre and dinner parties with (and sorry for all of the bad grammar there – I’m too wiped out to care right now). These women all came by with cookies, pies, meds, flowers, know-how (an RN changed bandages some days so I didn’t have to), laughter and company. I know she’s in good hands and they’ll be with her now that I’m on my way home today, and with Cindy’s fortitude (Davis Steel may sound like a law firm, but I swear to God it’s in our DNA) she’ll be on stage at that concert two weeks from now, just as she plans. Never bet against Cindy.

I have a few friends on Vancouver Island – maybe three I could hope would be there if I was alone (don’t you dare, Rob) besides Phil and Brooke, of course. But I have to try harder. I have to step outside of my hermit-like existence and crochet a comforter of friends who will be there if I need them, as I would be for them in return.

I’m sure there are many people like me, whose lives are so completely interwoven with that of their partner that they’d be lost if anything altered to remove them.

Cindy’s friends are her sisters. Am I still glad I went down? Definitely. She says she’d have been put in a care home to recover if not for my trip and whatever help I might have been to her. But will those women be there for her in the weeks to come? Again, yes. After the year she’s had, they’ve proven themselves again and again.

I’m grateful, as I know she is, and I can only hope she’ll share this journal with them. Friends in good times are wonderful and easy, but a friend in hard times is a gift whose worth can never, ever be measured. 

I HOPE to have a video journal for you next week, but I leave Friday for four days in Kelowna to help Dad move. So, it may be brief.

Meantime, there is another Christmas story on Drift with Erin Davis, free for you tomorrow (and always) thanks to enVypillow.com with a very sweet and enticing offer from them: go to their website and input the code Drift upon checkout and you’ll automatically get 10% off whatever you purchase there. I just wish they sold pillow speakers too; they’re the perfect Christmas and holiday gift to allow you to Drift off to my podcasts.

This week’s story is Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe and, appropriately, given what I’m talking about with you here today, it’s about appreciating what life brings us, even in the hardest of times.

I’ll always be grateful for this connection.