Erin's Journals

Just a thought… The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy. [Kalu Ndukwe Kalu]

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

I didn’t know what to talk about with you here today. I mean, this week has really taken me down in ways that I didn’t expect. Unfortunately, a lot of it had to do with the truly nasty comments people were making in response to a Facebook post I put up on Tuesday that said:

Now, I’m not going to get into the whole Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah; you’ve either seen it and formed your own opinion – which I’m sure not going to bother trying to change – or you haven’t seen it, which tells me you don’t care.

I will say this: when the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh finally leaves this world, which could be in a week or ten years – who knows – Meghan Markle will be blamed by the press and a lot of the people who read or believe it. That’s where we are today and it depresses the hell out of me. But enough about that. Not my chickens, not my farm.

I want to talk about some older folks – just plain folks like us – who have come into my heart in the last several months. Since Rob and I started delivering hot and frozen meals, through a local community centre, to seniors who didn’t want to or couldn’t go out during Covid, I’ve begun to make connections that even I didn’t know were there. And until last month, I didn’t realize how strong they had become.

It started with Anne, one part of a couple, Anne and John, to whom I’d deliver a big paper bag each week, opening a tiny gate and walking the few steps to their row house. Every Thursday we’d exchange a few words. Anne was unfailingly grateful and would tell me every week, her eyes so expressive as she told me what these deliveries meant to her. I could only put my hand to my heart and say it was our pleasure.

Sometimes when we’d call ahead to let them know just exactly when we were coming, Rob would talk to Anne and John’s son who would be visiting – from where, we never learned. When I met him, I did tease the son that with his shiny bald pate, he surely shared his father’s hair stylist and he laughed. How alike they looked! (My own dad, who’s had very little hair since his late teens, would have laughed too.)

And then, a few weeks ago, we got an email with our delivery list and Anne’s name wasn’t on it. Feeling worried, Rob wrote to our community centre contact and asked if she was okay. They told us that Anne had been moved into a care facility.

When we made that solo delivery to John the next day, their son told us that Anne was in great hands. John, his eyes watery, said that she was doing really well. He gratefully accepted the food package, plus the card that we’d written in and sealed to tell him our hearts were with him and to give his dear Anne our love when next he saw her, which I realize now with Covid, was probably not at all.

Those same hearts, Rob’s and mine, sank only two weeks later, when John’s name wasn’t on our delivery list. This time, the news was what we’d dreaded: sweet John, with his walker and his soft British accent, had died. A broken heart perhaps? We can only guess. But now this couple with whom we’d really only had the briefest of exchanges, but had formed what we felt was a connection, was gone.

We reminded ourselves that in plain demographics, it can only be logical and natural, really, that some of the people to whom we deliver won’t be at their door, the longer we continue to do this.

It is logical, but that doesn’t make it easier. One woman with gorgeous blue-green eyes shared with me last week that her cancer had returned, and then, as I took in that news, asked for my hairdresser’s name. She did make the appointment and I’ll find out later today how she liked my gal.

Another recipient now has a caregiver answer the door, as she recently suffered a broken shoulder. When I was let in to put the package on her kitchen counter, I asked the dear tiny lady how she was feeling and she asked, “Who are you?” So perhaps there’s a connection that was only ever one-sided, but I’m okay with that.

I never expect more than a “hello” and even though I’ve been given a bottle of wine and some chocolates at Christmas from a few of the folks to whom we deliver, the real gifts have been knowing that we’re doing even the smallest thing to remind these people – seniors and valued contributors to and members of our society – that they matter, that they’re cared for. That we remember they’re there and we notice when they’re not. And so, each time we get our delivery list emailed to us, we check to see whose name is missing and wonder if they’re okay.

They may never know what they mean to us, these 14 or so seniors that Rob and I encounter every Thursday, but I can assure you, it’s more than we mean to them. And that’s an imbalance I am more than happy to encourage.

Have a gentle weekend, my friend, remember that your clocks go ahead this Saturday night and we’ll be back with you here on Monday. You pick the time!

Just a thought… They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel. [Maya Angelou]

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

This is International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is #ChoosetoChallenge. To me, that means shaking up the status quo, asking “Why not?” instead of accepting anything less. And as Brené Brown put it, no longer sacrificing your authenticity for acceptance.

My hero in 2020 and 2021 is Doctor Bonnie Henry. The Provincial Health Officer and voice of the Covid response in BC for the past year, she has done her absolute best, I believe, to keep us as safe as we can be, informed and advised. Dr. Henry has been not only saluted in song and on signs (as well as with a designer Fluevog shoe!), but of course she’s been vilified in our “shoot the messenger” and “I believe Facebook” society. Anytime she’s made a decision that’s made me go, “Okay, but…” her move has soon been followed in other provinces. Has she always been right? I can’t say that for sure, but I believe in her and I would trust her with my life. I already have.

I am also bowing in deep gratitude to every woman – and yes, I know there are men in health care, of course, but on this International Women’s Day, I’m going to focus on the females, okay? The ones who have worked so hard, and I don’t say “tirelessly” because I know you’ve been exhausted, to bring us back to health and/or keep us going during this past year.

Last week as Rob and I were giving blood – and yes, Canadian Blood Services always needs donations – I met a nurse named Ronna. Her grey hair pulled back in a ponytail, she had kind and smiling eyes. She’s a nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at one of our local hospitals, but had recently begun working with Canadian Blood Services too. As we chatted during my lengthy intake interview, Ronna said that she had “hung a lot of blood bags” in her life, but she’d never really stopped to think of where that blood came from. And that she loved meeting the people who were giving this precious gift to help save patients.

I was moved almost beyond words by what she said, and was actually teary sharing that conversation with Rob later. And then I told her why we were there to give blood: in memory of our very avid donor daughter, Lauren. So I said, our reasons were many, but that we were just grateful to have a chance to do so. Meeting Ronna made this latest donation more meaningful than ever.

To her and everyone who’s saved a life, held a hand, made our arrivals into or departures out of this world a little easier, or in the case of my own sisters and me, been a great mother, thank you. Thanks, Mom.

We’ll never be able to repay the sacrifices you’ve made in the past year, but you deserve every accolade: today on International Women’s Day and always. Take good care and we’ll talk to you again on Thursday.

Just a thought… We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.]

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

March fourth. “March forth!” It’s as corny as I am, but this is a day that I always loved for telling us what to do – and what we have to do.

I don’t know if you feel this way, but let me share something that we’ve been talking about here in our house. There’s this feeling of hope – this beautiful sensation of knowing that we are over the hump, and although you could say “it’s all downhill from here,” that can be taken two ways: we’re heading downward and not in a good way, or we can put it in neutral and let it coast, pumping the brakes occasionally to make sure we stay within the speed limit (and, yes, I do this in our neighbourhood all the time).

The vaccine rollout timeline is getting clearer by the day, at least here in BC. In fact, today, my dad in a residence in Kelowna is getting his and he can’t wait. He’s had to be patient, like everyone else, but he’s excited. Of course, this means that he and his gal pal will soon ramp up lamenting about not having his car, but we’ll take that obstacle as it comes.

Here on the home front, our son-in-law is working in a job he loves and this means that we’re picking up our Colin from school more days, so that’s an added bonus. Fantastic – more boy time. And if you’re a pining grandparent, I wish the same for you, very soon.

The weather’s getting better, the daffodils are up (I’ll duck now), the cherry blossoms are out and the days are definitely getting longer. In ten days we put our clocks ahead.

But this feeling – this hope – is something that a lot of people are unfamiliar with and, if you’re like me, you’re reluctant to get too excited. If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that indeed when there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes it is a train.

But hear me out. This is actual hope. I’m starting to dream about travel again – in fact our Ama Waterways Rhine and Swiss Alps river cruise is a go for late next spring and we’ve already had two more couples sign up to join Mike Cooper, Rob and me, in addition to those who were coming before the cancellations. You can drop our friend Gerry Koolhof a line for more info.

Honestly, I just can’t wait to pack a suitcase and go somewhere again. I fantasize about hotel rooms. I see a murder in a motel on one of the ancient Law and Order episodes we tape daily and I go, “Yeah, I’d stay there.” So that’s where my head is at.

All signs are pointing to hope and to letting ourselves feel that again: to make plans, in pencil so far, or somewhere in our electronic calendars that can easily be moved or deleted. But once we all feel healthy and safe again, the doors will swing wide open and we’re going to start to climb back. There are signs the economy will explode – in a good way – and we’ll see what they are calling echoes of the last century’s “Roaring Twenties.” (Let’s not concentrate on the memory that the “Dirty Thirties” followed, but we can use it as a cautionary tale.)

Life will never be the same as it was before one year ago, but hopefully and full of hope, we look ahead. We embrace this feeling: one that allows us to take a deep breath and actually let it out, too. We’ve been waiting to exhale for an awfully long time.

So, we March fo(u)rth. Have a great weekend and I’ll be back with you on Monday. And thank you, always, for coming by.

Just a thought… Don’t look back, you’re not going that way. [Author unknown]

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

Well, here it is: March. A time to look ahead. A lot of people are talking about one year ago, because it was in this month that we all began to hear about this coronavirus. Yeah, remember when jokes abounded with Corona beer and Lyme disease? Not funny then, and really not funny now.

We heard about what was happening in Asia and thought: Wow, that’s awful – those poor people. We’d been through SARS not even 20 years earlier; we could relate. And then, because we live in, as Marshall McLuhan so aptly put it, a “global village,” the disease spread faster than you could book a flight. And then it became alarmingly real. It hit home.

You’ll remember that for most kids, Friday, March 13^th took on a different kind of meaning: it wasn’t just a day for superstitions, it was the last day of school for a very long time. For some, that was lucky, I suppose. But for most, not at all. A lot of kids missed out on a whole lot of experiences that they’ll never get a chance to relive, and it’s taken a toll on them, as this whole pandemic has on us all.

For Rob and me, that sinking feeling occurred earlier than the 13^th, when we had friends visiting us in California who had gone to lunch with a pal who lived a few hours’ drive away. They heard that she had gotten tested for Covid and we were all awaiting word. Had they inadvertently brought the virus back to our house with them? Turns out they had not. But we were on alert, just the same.

With these same friends, we went out in a maskless crowd for the last time. And here’s where it gets kind of embarrassing. In an attempt to show them a fun night out after pal Charles’s birthday dinner, we had bought tickets to see a ventriloquist at a nearby casino resort.

Now, this guy, who had apparently won America’s Got Talent or something, had his name atop every cab in Las Vegas. I’d seen that name a million times but didn’t know how to say it. I thought he was Terry faTOR. Apparently, though, it rhymes with “tater” which is exactly what I thought of myself after seeing the show.

There’s no doubt he was a man of many voices, but some of his act was just…cringeworthy. The one part that sticks out most was his Michael Jackson puppet. Yes, complete with possible child abuse jokes and lots of other alleged humour that made me glance around and see who was laughing. Turns out, our foursome might have been some of the few who might be labelled “woke” when it comes to jokes about molestation. Who knew?

I held onto the ticket stubs for I don’t know how long and for reasons I haven’t figured out. My last link to the “before times,” it also marked our last time in a casino. And we didn’t even gamble, even though our tickets provided free points or something. We didn’t want to put Charles and Nancy through that.

It has made me think so often during these past 12 months of the things we didn’t do when we had a chance. We never made the trip from Palm Springs to LA; we never did that trip to the San Diego Zoo. Yes, we’d seen other parts of California before and we had always thought we’d have time for those side trips…next time. Next time.

Now, there isn’t going to be a next time.

The night that the one-term president took to the oval office desk and began to riff about the virus, about a travel ban and so on, I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. March 10^th it was, ’cause, boy, it made me “tenth” all right! I told Rob about the jumble of an address that I’d just seen and said, “I think we’d better book a flight home.” (Up to that point, we’d been free-wheeling and were going to decide at a later date when to return to Victoria International Airport).

It took us days to get a flight that would accommodate Molly – WestJet had a limit on the number of pets per flight – and we finally booked our tickets for March 17^th. In that time, Rob had an exchange with an auto mechanic; the guy, who also ran a gun store (because, of course he did) said that they couldn’t keep up with the demand for ammunition. Whatever this was a sign of, it wasn’t good. And it added to that sick feeling.

We got out, we got home. And as you may know by now, we’re never going back to that house. If we’d known that, when we were packing up to come back, we’d have brought a lot more personal stuff with us – things that eventually had to be shipped to us back in Canada. But I had this feeling – I didn’t know if it would be destruction from riots or what – that when I closed that front door for the last time, I wouldn’t be returning.

Do I find myself California Dreamin’ these days? Of course I do. But the trade off has been being here in a house that’s visited by grandchildren now and is our one and only home base. Could we have imagined how this would all turn out? Well, let me remind you how, when some said that the lockdowns beginning in March “might last all summer,” we were filled with dread and disbelief.

We can wish all we want, but this is the reality until we all get vaccinated and our society begins to heal. We’ve gotten a pretty clear look at who we are: we banded together with telethons and evening pot clanging until we got sick of it. As we await our turns in line for the vaccine, we’ll do what we have to do. Plenty of people have it worse – in every way – than we do.

All we’re being asked to do is wait, stay distanced. We can do this. With this new month comes not just looking back at March of 2020, but looking ahead at March of 2021 – with the hope that accompanies spring. Baseball is back. Days are longer. And as in all things, we can do this.

Stay safe and stay smooth and I’ll be back with you Thursday.

Just a thought… Pink: Positive, Inclusive, Nurturing and Kind. [Noa Daniel @Noasbobs on Twitter]

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

This is Pink Shirt Day – an anti-bullying initiative that began in Canada and is now marked in 170 countries. I guess when you put red and white together, it really does come out pink in the wash. Or it does in mine.

What IS bullying? To put it in black and white terms, it’s someone who’s simply bigger: whether as a kid, someone bigger than you, tougher than you, in a bigger number than you…or as an adult, someone who has a bigger platform or just a louder voice, able to reach out and target you or people of your gender, colour, beliefs, clothes choices – whatever – using their size to make someone else feel smaller.

You could feel me duck when I shared news of having to let Rosie go here Monday because of what I’ve seen on the internet. Our Brooke said, “Uh-oh, here it comes” as she’s seen Facebook posts where people have begged someone to take their dog and the pile-ons that ensued. Maybe people who wanted to say something harsh to me about Rosie didn’t, because they knew that my social media are places that are generally supportive in a reciprocal way. So I know full well how lucky I am.

I also ducked, though, because in my life I’ve been wounded by the shots that have come my way. Being a seemingly strong woman in the public eye, people will criticize or judge you for your words, your appearance, your actions, without having a clue who you are or even caring to know that before they do.

But as a child, I was so often the new kid that I became a very easy target, whether for icy snow in my face from a girl who was much bigger than I, day after day…or the Yank (actually from “CanadER” thank you) in England who was called “cookie face” because I didn’t say “biscuits.” Stuff like that.

Is it like being beaten up for wearing a pink shirt, for being disabled, for having dark skin, for different beliefs or for being born gay? No. Not even a little. But it is about the imbalance of power.

And we CAN reclaim that power, eventually, if not in forgiveness, then at least perspective. I have looked back at the girl with what seemed like huge hands and endless anger, and wondered what she must have gone through at home before coming to school and seeing this new girl every day who needed her face washed out with snow. I figure kids in England saw someone different, and that made me fair game. Imagine if I’d had dark skin in that lily-white middle school.

Last year I got an email from a girl with whom I went to high school, apologizing for being mean to me. Honestly, I had let that go; knowing my name is on the wall at the school is probably that “revenge served cold” of which they speak. I didn’t know how to respond and haven’t yet.

The meanness shaped me, but fortunately not in ways it could have. I was always what people who didn’t understand my hurt called “overly sensitive” but it’s what makes me who I am. And it’s why today, and always, I will stand up for the victims.

On Pink Shirt Day we focus on teaching children a lesson that we adults need to remember. Because in 2021, the victims are also the elderly: people who are living out what could be their last days in loneliness and isolation, because others, who have their loud voices on social media, are choosing to ignore science and just live their lives as they want – to hell with the most vulnerable.

Stand up to bullies. You may not see it in the outside world, but it’s very real right here, where we are. You have a voice. And when you see anyone trying to make someone feel “less than,” remember that you could be next. Or think back: maybe you already were.

Take good care and I’ll have another vlog and journal for you on Monday.