Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Later in life, children are often reluctant for a host of reasons to assume responsibility over their parents, a reversal of roles that symbolizes mortality. [Caroline Fraser]

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

Good morning – and welcome in. Today Rob and I are on the road again (and the water) as we board a ferry to the mainland and make the five-hour trip over to the interior to visit my dad.

Before I tell you more, let me give you some insight into what airline tickets are here these days: a one-hour flight to Kelowna, or three hours with a stop in Calgary or Vancouver, was going to cost us 900 dollars. One way. Per person. So since it may be early where you’re watching this, I’ll do the math: add in a rental car and before hotel and we’re talking at least $4000. To get from here to Kelowna.

So, yeah, it made the ferry costs, hotels and even gas at $2.40 a litre for the SUV (albeit hybrid) a heck of a lot cheaper than flying. Yes, there are cheaper flights if you have the weeks in advance to book. In this case, we didn’t, but we’ll make a point of it in future if we decide we’d rather not drive. And we’ll hopefully be avoiding many of the parts of the Trans Canada that were washed out in last year’s horrific floods in the BC interior.

So, after 12 days in hospital, Dad is back in his own bed in his retirement residence – a bed to which we’ve added rails for safety at the hospital’s insistence. Dad likens it to being in a rodeo just to get around the gates, or to his days of calling square dances where you had to “swing around the promenade.” But he’s adjusting.

Dad is far from recovered in terms of his mental state after a wicked infection and then Covid on top of that. But I’ll join the team of Davis daughters in sussing things out, and seeing what we think the future might look like. I’ve brought paper and markers and tape to put signs up to remind him of things, and we’ll see just what else we can do while we wait and learn just how much of his mind returns, and deal with the possibilities if it does not.

Dad has not lost his sense of humour, thank goodness: he’s getting a little concerned about the frequency of these visits and asked sister Les the other day, “Is there something terminal I should be worried about?” Yep – that’s Dad.

I’m so grateful to be seeing him again; to have a week that’s open enough that we can go. Of course, as he turns 89 in less than a month, every visit is more meaningful than the last.

As we are reminded by news from around the world, as in Ukraine, and closer to home, amidst the devastation and heartbreak in Buffalo, no sunrise – no loved one – is to be taken for granted.

I’ll sign off for today and promise you that on Thursday there will be a journal of the scenic variety. And, of course, because we all have trouble sleeping some nights, there WILL be a new Drift story for you tomorrow, one that has a royal taste to it, since it’s the Victoria Day weekend ahead and it’s called Son of Seven Queens. You’ll find it here after 6 pm ET Tuesday.

Be well and we’ll talk to you here on Thursday, hotel internet permitting.

With your gentle permission and understanding, I’m going to take the rest of this week as one to rest my mind and be back with a new journal and video journal for you on Monday.

Some good news though: my father’s nurses Wednesday night said he was doing well, making jokes and a “total sweetheart” so it sounds like dear ol’ Dad is on the mend and possibly on his way home.

Take good care and I’ll be back here after the weekend. In the meantime, I post daily at www.facebook.com/erindavispage.

And thank you.

Hugs, E.

Just a thought… Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you. [H. Jackson Brown Jr.]

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

And it’s Monday; we made it through another Mother’s Day, but it’s my Dad who’s on my mind these days.

If you visit my Facebook or Instagram page (and thank you for that) you may have seen that I mentioned in connection with Nurses’ Day and Week that I’m grateful to the nurses at Kelowna General Hospital, especially Taylor, with whom I spoke briefly the other night.

My dad has been in there, first in a corner of the trauma ward and then in the Covid ward, for 10 days now. That’s a long time to be hospitalized in these days of scarce beds, which tells you what level of severity we’re talking. While Dad’s still on “room air,” as they call breathing without oxygen mask or intubation, his problem stems from a wicked infection that coincided with his Covid diagnosis. And so he’s become delusional. He thought it was 2013. And as much as I’d be happy to go back there myself, that’s not a good sign.

So we wait. My two sisters in the BC interior aren’t able to visit Dad because of Covid; does he know we want to visit or why we’re not there? Cindy and I are afar and awaiting any kind of news, like what happens next? He was living happily, mostly independently, until now, but if this infection double-whammy leaves deeper dementia in its wake, we’re talking about a whole new level of care.

The rumour mill has not a few, but dozens of cases of Covid in my dad’s residence. Of course, we’ll never know how or where he got it, but his lady friend also has it, and she’s missing my dad something fierce.

As I say, we all wait. Every morning I awaken to the dread of a message or a call with news I don’t want to hear, but am honestly expecting. Or, they are discharging him and we have to figure out what steps to take next in our father’s care.

All of this is so unfair. Not that Covid has hit our family; millions of children and loved ones have been through exactly what we’re experiencing right now. But that we’re being told to get on with our lives, and people are choosing not to mask, when the virus and its variants are still flexing their muscles. I know we can’t put life on hold forever, but when you weigh that against a life gone forever, it makes wearing a mask just such a small price to pay for someone else’s health.

I don’t know. Sorry not to be cheerier today. It’s just that kind – this kind – of week. I hope to be back with you Thursday.

Just a thought… I don’t regret the things I’ve done; I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance. [Author unknown]

I’m calling this one “Buy the Damned Card” and you will know why once you’ve read or watched. I say ‘watched’ because you can see a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Mother’s Day is a few days off. Maybe you’re expecting a card, maybe you’re sending one. Maybe you feel like you have more than one mom so you’re buying that other person a card; we picked up one for Mira to give her today.

Maybe you’re talented like my sister and you make cards. She made this…

…and it was so pretty that I cut the front off so I can use it on a gift for someone else. I have such trouble throwing away gorgeous cards.

Maybe your mom has died and you wish she was here so you could buy or make her a card. That would be me.

And maybe you’re like me in that you aren’t expecting a Mother’s Day card because the person who would have sent you one is no longer here. There is no Happy Mother’s Day; it’s just a Sunday that happens to be a special one for a lot of women. And I honour all mothers for that, including our daughter-in-law Brooke on her special day as mother to Colin and Jane.

But let me tell you about the one card I regret not sending: it was to the same person I regret not getting one from. Stay with me here.

When Lauren was celebrating her first Mother’s Day, I thought: Well, she’s not my mom, and my mother never sent cards to her daughters who were moms – she’ll get one from Colin through Phil. So I didn’t send one. Now, 7 years on, I regret not sending that card with a depth of feelings that really isn’t logical. But feelings so rarely are.

Lauren didn’t send me one that year either. Wrapped in difficulties trying to feed Colin – a problem that led her to take a prescription that we believe stopped her heart (Domperidone or Motilium if you’re not familiar with our story; please get your heart checked if this drug is prescribed for you) – I’m sure she just didn’t have a chance to get out and buy one. We did our social media thing that day and shared loving tweets.

As you likely know by now, she died in the hours after her first Mother’s Day.

For weeks, I hoped against hope that a card from her would show up in our condo mailbox, just one more bit of proof that she was here, that we shared a life, that my daughter loved me. It never came.

I am grateful to have a plastic zip-up bag, repurposed from a bedding set, that I keep those cards in – those tokens of love and creativity from childhood on.

But if you’re holding back, it’s not too late. Just buy the damned card. Someone once wisely said, “What is grief, but unexpressed love?” Don’t add another reason to grieve, ever. Buy it. Make it. Send it. Email it. Make the phone call. You will not regret it, and how often in life do you get a promise like that?

Happy Mother’s Day. I’ll be back with you on Monday.