Novelist Sigrid Nunez captures well this facet of getting older with relation to time. It passes. We lose things. There is some brain science around the idea that nostalgia is seductive because it reminds us of our sense of self or our identity over time. So if you’re very old, you might see change (the future) as threatening while the past appears more stable, even though that past no longer exists.

A couple of years ago I reconnected with an old friend who eventually found this picture he had taken of me at nineteen. I’d never seen it before. It startled me to see this young version of myself as I have only one other photo from this period of my life. One. Contrast that with the modern mania of capturing every experience on a phone. No one took photos in those days of course, unless you were a serious photographer with a heavy piece of equipment around your neck. Photos evoke memories. When we look at ourselves in old photos, the memories that come up are usually around where we were and with whom? What was I doing? Not how was I feeling? Who did I think I was at that age? Can a photograph evoke that? This photograph was taken in one of the most formative years of my life. Despite constantly forgetting these days where I put down my glasses, my long term memory remains relatively intact. I remember this nineteen year old well. She felt on the verge of everything.

Most of the young people I know (including my own son) are already a decade beyond this youngster that from my vantage point now, seems like a mere child, even though in my heart I felt nothing like a child then. Or was trying hard not to. I was newly navigating adulthood, courting and experiencing all the things one needs to form a life on that shaky road: love, friendships, adventure, education, heartbreak and even danger.

A few years before college and armed with mostly defiance and a sense of adventure, at age 18 I left home with two childhood friends carrying an excitement I can still feel viscerally, just as clearly as I can see my mother standing in the doorway of my childhood home. She was waving goodbye and looking about as bewildered and concerned as any mother in those days who didn’t understand her teenage daughter would.

Living on my own with a revolving door of roommates on the York River in Virginia with thousands of acres of state park behind our house and animals that ran wild, in 1977 we didn’t even have a house phone. Friends would show up, winding down that tree-lined roller-coaster road, often annoyed that they’d driven fifteen miles out of town to find no one home. We were unapologetic. We felt lucky. An old man neighbor when I saw him, used to comment that we lived in “God’s country”. Whenever he said it I would momentarily become a believer. That river was a steady friend and I discovered the intimacy that a river affords that is different from other bodies of water. I spent many contemplative hours on the cliffs there, watching the river run from that very high perch, the loons diving like darts into the sunlit ripples. Our rent for this idyllic setting was a cool $85 for a three bedroom house that we paid for monthly in cash.

I felt in charge of my life then; self-possessed in the face of all the uncertainty and craziness of youth. It occurs to me that those of us from my generation who ventured into the world in order to find it—and thereby ourselves— did so without much information. In the dark ages of the 60’ s and 70’s, most of us had little access to it outside of three television stations, (which we didn’t have either) a National Geographic subscription and possession of a library card. Unlike current teenagers, not much actually came to us in the passive way it does today through social media. We had to go and find it. Usually in a book. Or by the seat of our pants. There was no marketing outside of newspapers and magazines. We had handbills and word of mouth to learn about band performances and various happenings. I think the by-product of this “lack” was that my tribe and I developed fearlessness. We leapt into our lives. What we didn’t know couldn’t hurt us (even though it sometimes did). I didn’t have a plan, but barrelled through my young life accumulating experiences and putting out fires along the way.

On the cusp of becoming an artist, I worked flexible restaurant and bar hours, slinging drinks and Greek food in a university town that suited my temperament at the time. The staff consisted of students, artists, writers, musicians, and self-styled philosophers. It was a meeting place of cerebral, but wild and irreverent characters. This mixture of interesting creative and academic types contrasted nicely with the quirkier personalities of the locals. I felt like I’d landed on another planet from where I’d grown up. The south felt friendlier than the north. There was a slowness, time to amble through lots of gorgeous nature, people with whom to bounce ideas around, discussion and debate. And no Google to muddy the waters. No thought police.

Instead, there was a serious intellectual crowd that lined my path then that I considered part of my education. The air was thick with deep talk, poetry, dreams and drugs. I must have certainly been going through an existential phase when I recall my reading list in those days: Colette, Flaubert, Anais Nin, Sartre, Emerson, Henry Miller, D.H.Lawrence, along with various Buddhist and eastern philosophy texts. Are there any 19 year olds that willingly tackle such sober authors these days? In any case, I’m sure most of these would now be considered irrelevant but at the time opened up many doorways of thinking for me. I have no idea what young people are reading, or if they are. I hope so. But screens have long taken over; yet another world (the one with books) goes missing.

My “bohemian” life didn’t feel bohemian at the time. I certainly didn’t label it as that and my experience was not that much different from many people I know from my generation. I was just out in the real world, collecting experiences—both euphoric and horrific—as fodder for art. By contrast, younger generations seem saddled with a lot of college debt and anxiety about their lives and professions, amplified by cyber-bullies, world violence, climate fears, identity and mental health navigation. I ache for them. Even with the major cultural shifts of the time, my peers and I had little of that. Quite the opposite. I felt a profound sense of freedom. Of course, not being on constant news alert from the internet helped our cause. For myself, I had a certain naiveté —that would be virtually impossible now— about the world that I think served me. It taught me to trust. In books. In art. In wonder. That was the way to find a life. And to trust in that as well.

The world of my young adulthood doesn’t exist any longer. And it’s not sad. It’s simply the way things are; the way life moves. Every generation has its own experience. In any case, labeling the past as “better days” is inherently dangerous and misguided.

I am currently in the middle of Miranda July’s deeply layered (and hilarious) novel, All Fours ,where I keep finding relatable insights. July’s character notes that when we are young, so much of what you thought was you was maybe really, other people. How do we become? Growing up, I was labelled a sad child early on, always being prompted to smile. I don’t remember feeling particularly sad, but I was always thinking deeply about stuff so maybe that showed on my resting-lost-in-thought-face. I think that label imprinted on me in a way and shaped my outlook as I got older though. In other words, I learned about myself (accurate or not) through other people, as July implies.

We expose ourselves to the world. We spend our lives saying yes to this, no to that, weeding out our joys and revulsions along the way to form the basis of who we are. We become ourselves by absorption of what is in our particular air and to what degree. I’m grateful for coming of age in the pre-digital era when the world felt a little quieter; the characters and experiences that led me to becoming. Even though that world is gone, my past will always belong to me. I know the pieces of that nineteen year old I still keep.

Photo Credit

Photo by Steven Taylor courtesy of Linda Laino
Bio picture by Regula Franz

Guest Author Bio
Linda Laino

Linda Laino is a visual artist and writer who has been making art in one form or another for over 45 years. With an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she received two years of fellowship awards from the Virginia Museum, Laino was influenced by language from a young age, and moves between painting and writing in search of the connections and the crossover. She has shown work regularly in solo and group exhibitions since 1988, when she was awarded a prize from The American Craft Museum in New York. Her work is included in major collections including the McDonough Museum in Ohio, and Fundación Valparaíso in Spain. In recent years, she has been making art around the world at residencies in New Mexico 2015, France 2016, Spain 2018, and Maine in 2023. In June 2024, she traveled to Greece where she was awarded a grant for a month-long stay to paint on the island of Skopelos. Her poems and prose have been published with distinction in many small presses and anthologies, most recently in “La Presa” out of Guanajuato City. Her poem, Poem at Sixty was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. Originally from Philadelphia and Richmond, Virginia, since 2012, she has lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where the color and flavor allow for endless inspiration.

Visit her website: www.lindalaino.com

My mother was a music aficionado.

She was a woman of many talents.

She was a woman who lived through many horrors during her lifetime.

Prelude

When my mother was a very young girl, her appendix ruptured. It was a life and death situation. Back then, there was no such thing as antibiotics. And so, when peritonitis set in, her family prepared for the worst. But she survived, though the next three years would prove extremely challenging. She was sick and confined to her bed, unable to do any of the things her friends were doing.

When she finally became well, her mother was diagnosed with cancer. My mother looked after her through her illness until she died. My mother was just sixteen. She never complained, just did what needed to be done, which now was to look after her father and siblings. Her father then took to the bottle, so my mother was again left to manage things at home. This was during the depression. He had his own business but it quickly dissolved due to the drinking and gambling that he and his brothers were involved in. In time, the family was evicted from their home in Toronto, left out on the street with only what they could carry. As fate would have it, my mother’s aunts, who were all spinsters and lived together, took the family in. And so, they were saved yet again from another disaster. At least they wouldn’t starve. (The aunts were always a part of my mother’s life – several years later, one of them would move in with my mother and father in Montreal.)

Largo

So this woman, my mother, eventually married my father Arthur and they had six children. Two of them died – one of spina bifida, the other was a stillbirth. Another child, my older brother Paul, was intellectually handicapped.

My mom had many hobbies and talents. Apart from being a wonderful cook, she was a fabulous entertainer and would throw the best parties in town. She could sew and knit, and could grow anything, anywhere. She could also run a business. She was what many would call a woman of courage and determination and was, in so many ways, ahead of her time. She was a woman whose strength helped build many essential services in the West Island community of Montreal. She was given several awards over the duration of her lengthy career, including the distinguished Order of Canada.

She could also be stubborn and opinionated.

Adagio

At 85 my mother fell into the dreadful hands of a very subtle enemy. That enemy was dementia. Or was it Alzheimer’s? It doesn’t matter what you call it, it has the same impact. She was no longer the woman she used to be. And it all seemed to happen so fast, almost like it happened overnight. It didn’t though, it was a slow process over several years. We, the family, (my mother included) just didn’t want to see it.

Because she was afflicted with dementia, my mother could no longer speak to me the way she used to. I cried more often than not when I left their apartment. My father looked sad and lonely though he never left my mother’s side. She was in a world all her own. She believed there were several apartment buildings that she lived in. They all had the same furniture, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how they got the furniture from one apartment to the other. This was her mind playing tricks on her.
She had supper with her dead father as well, who she feared, though he’d been dead for fifty years or more. She was often visited by those that were long dead. She carried on, telling amazing stories about their demise, stories of suicide and train wrecks. Sometimes she spent her days just thinking, wondering about things like butter tarts and how to make them. She hadn’t cooked a meal in a long time and at this point, wouldn’t know where to find the stove or how to turn it on.

My mother was always running away a lot. She would leave the apartment when my father was resting, and would be brought back home in the dead of night. My father took to putting furniture in front of the door so she couldn’t escape. She would leave the building and go looking for people and things and places that no longer existed. She wandered in the night looking for something, agitated and suffering, her mind playing tricks on her as she walked like a zombie in the night, shuffling along, looking for peace. My father didn’t want to place her in a home, he wanted to look after her. I called, though, and talked to the social worker about getting things in motion, against my father’s wishes. I was depressed, anxious and worried about them both, about what they were going to do. How could they find some peace? This was not how you should live out the end your life. This was not the way it should go.

My father, at 88, continued to take care of my mother, as she was unable to do the things she should’ve been able to do on a daily basis. Without him, my mom would be lost. She would forget to eat or shower or take her pills. She would be lonely without him around, a ship lost at sea. My father would be lost without her too, as she was his life. He knew that he had to get up every day and start all over again because he knew if he didn’t my mother would not be able to handle the day-to-day tasks. My father lived with a woman who repeated things over and over. She confused him and often thought he was someone else. She ran away from him thinking he was a stranger. Yet he comforted her even in her confusion.

We had to bring my mom to the hospital one night because she was up wandering around again. My dad followed her until six in the morning. He couldn’t do it anymore, so he called me. My husband and I went over and took my mom to the hospital but there was nothing wrong with her, just that she was no longer my mother. She was another woman who I didn’t really know very well. She was repetitive, and spoke in low tones about odd things. My mother was gone somewhere. I got glimpses of her; snippets of her personality.

Where would it end? Well, for my parents it ended on July 31st, 2006 when, after a very long and difficult day with my mom, my father had a shower at midnight and fell asleep on his bed. Exhaustion had overtaken him and he crashed, literally, that night onto the floor. It all happened in seconds, and as he lay on the floor in pain he asked my mother to call the ambulance. When he told her to dial 911 she went to phone but then forgot the number. Finally she managed to get help.

Within days their lives changed drastically. My father had broken his hip and underwent surgery. He then had to go to rehab. My mother spiralled further down the rabbit hole as the stress of the situation took its toll on her mental health. We waited for social services to find a bed for her in a nursing home. Sometime later a place became available and my sister and I took her. It was a difficult and emotional ride to that nursing home, one I won’t soon forget. My mom had no idea where she was going, and probably didn’t really know where she was. It was hard to figure out what she understood or knew.

My father did well in rehabilitation and was released six weeks later, back to the apartment he used to shared with his wife. He tried to come to terms with her illness. He felt guilty for falling and for putting the whole placement process in motion. My father was a man who never forgave himself for anything, even though it would no doubt have come to placement eventually. He wouldn’t have been able to look after her for much longer. The stress alone would have done him in.

So they were separated now, emotionally and physically. He visited my mother as often as he could, but it wasn’t the same. It’s not like having your loved one with you ’til death do you part. He missed her. He worried about her. How my mother felt, who could tell. She talked less, and when she did, she asked questions like “how did you cross the ocean? “ She couldn’t put sentences together.

Grave

My mom’s life changed dramatically that night on July 31, 2006. Since that time, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away a year later on April 27, 2007, after a valiant fight on his part. I was told by the nurses that my mother wept that afternoon at 3:15pm, as though she knew on some level that he was gone. But she never asked about my father. She fell deeper into her own world and spent all her time in a wheelchair.

Where did my mother go? I knew she was there, some part of her, frustrated that she couldn’t get the words right. She would look at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers, searching my face for some sort of recognition as I searched hers, hoping for her to give me one last piece of advice, one last gem of wisdom, one last gift of  “I love you”.

Many are struck with this disease, one that takes your loved one away from you and leaves you with the shell. How do you deal with that? It’s a disease that affects the family and has such an emotional impact. How does the person feel who has the disease I wonder? I guess we’ll never know. But I wish I knew where my mom went. It would be nice to call her and ask her if I can freeze lemon tarts, or is it alright to use a bundt pan instead of a cake pan to make a raisin cake.

My mother lived until July 2011. She was 90-years-old. The last years of her life were not what you would call quality, but she had a good life.

My mother was not one to give up easily!

Photo Credit
Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

We decided to finally build a broody house because we also have guinea fowl. Now guineas are about as dumb as a bag of fertilizer, but one hen can keep an acre of land almost completely free of ticks. Usually the flock will wander around grazing all day, but when they spot something unusual they freak the hell out. Then, in terror, they run toward it. Something unusual can be anything –  a stick, a dandelion, a flapping leaf, a garbage bag, someone trying to feed them, other guineas, dogs, large moles, etc.

Guineas begin laying eggs in earnest in early spring. Once there are enough eggs (anywhere from four to forty-four or more), they go broody. Guineas are great brooders. However, they absolutely suck as mothers. When the chicks hatch, the mother takes up her wandering ways and acts like the tiny parade of exhausted, cheeping fluffies behind her do not exist. The babies can either keep up or they can’t. On the keep-up side, the kids win the prize of having the warm protection from Mom when she beds down for the night, only to go through the entire ordeal again the next day. On the can’t side, they die. Most of the tiny flock almost always die. If I don’t want that to happen I must find the nest, estimate how long a guinea hen has been missing, then keep track of the days. Their eggs usually hatch 28 days after Mom starts sitting. Once I spot the herd, I scoop as many chicks as I can catch, put them under a heat lamp and hand-raise them. I’m very tired of raising chicks. I’d much rather it was done au natural, hopefully by something covered in feathers.

So this year we decided to build a broody house, so when mom guinea hatches her clutch she’s already in confined quarters and can’t abandon her beloved children until they have a fighting chance. But it didn’t turn out that way. Neither resident of Kitpu Estates could have guessed that Cordelia Brown (a real live chicken) would pick this exact moment to go broody. I’m actually not sorry this happened. In response to this unexpected miracle, I picked six random guinea eggs and as many chicken eggs as possible and moved Cordelia Brown and the eggs into the newly-built brooding house. There’s no way of knowing if any of the eggs are fertilized (even though we have both male guineas and roosters for exactly this very thing).

In my experience, chickens are a million times better mothers than guineas. Once, around five years ago, Gloria Black was able to hatch thirty-two chicks. We sold all but four, of which she did a bang-up job raising. Three are still thriving today. Last year we adopted three weird chickens: Scooby, Scooby Two and Doo. Doo turned out to be the only lady. Early this spring she went broody, then sat and sat and sat and sat for many more days than required to hatch either chicken eggs (21 days) or guinea eggs (28 days). Finally, admitting defeat, I had a heart-to-heart with Doo and convinced her that sitting any longer would be fruitless. After candling each egg, unsurprisingly, every single one was unfertilized. There was no joy in Mudsville.

Now, once more, we’ve been granted the boon of a broody hen by the agrarian gods, so the denizens of Kitpu Estates have their fingers and toes crossed.

Photo Credits
Photos by Gab Halasz – all rights reserved

Had that happened today, I’m sure I would’ve been told exactly what was wrong with my brother and perhaps even given some tips from some expert as to how to respond in a situation like that. And I most likely would’ve had some decompression time with either my mom or my dad. But back in the days of ignorance, illnesses like Paul’s were never spoken about. They were a taboo subject. My parents probably presumed it wasn’t my problem and did their best to handle a very difficult and mentally challenged son, all the while trying to keep some normalcy in the household. That, as it turned out, was easier said than done.

As I recall, I didn’t really get what was going on with Paul. It never dawned on me that there was anything really wrong with him, he was just my older brother. I never really thought about how the world saw him. As a teenager, it was difficult to live with Paul. There was always a trauma, it seemed, when it came to him. And he would often say embarrassing things like “Hey Mom, Martha’s growing boobs.” It made me very uncomfortable. I used to wonder what it would be like to have a normal older brother, not one who blurted out stupid things in front of everyone. ‘Retarded’ was a word I became all too familiar with growing up. The neighborhood kids made fun of my brother with comments like “Hey, where’s the retard” and to me they’d say “Yeah, you’re a retard just like your brother.” Kids are cruel, no question about that. Paul suffered years of ridicule from so many people. We all tried so hard to protect him. But I often wondered why, why did my brother have to be ‘retarded’?  Why couldn’t he be normal like everyone else’s brother?

Eventually, as I grew up, I became more aware that Paul was different. Living with an obsessive-compulsive person who was intellectually handicapped was not an easy thing, like the times I’d have friends over. It was embarrassing. But once my friends got used to Paul it became easier for them to visit. I can imagine it must have been a bit scary for them, he could be downright nasty if he wanted to be.

My mother was very involved in several projects in our community in order to help Paul and others like him. Both my parents worked diligently to attain services for their son. My mother was instrumental in organizing the first special education class in a nearby school. I vividly remember going with her and Paul in our little Volkswagen to pick up Paul’s classmates and deliver them to the school, as the school board was not offering a bus service. My mom and I did that for an entire year. I used to ride on the hand brake, as there were at least four other kids, aside from my brother, in the back and front seat. So my brother has enjoyed many privileges and has had a lot of opportunity that other children born like him back in the day may not have had.

I don’t know why Paul is who he is. I’m somewhat positive some of his traits were inherited and others certainly are due to his handicap. He pursued his hobbies, his airplane models, his art work. He enjoyed music and loved to dance. He made friends and walked everywhere and he knew just about everyone in our community. What he lacked in several areas intellectually and socially he sure made up for in spunk. 

Paul was never really diagnosed with any syndrome in particular over the years. Now, it’s presumed he’s autistic, as he has several traits of an autistic person. He loves organization; things have to be in just the right spot. He washes everything twice. He has certain clothes he wears for certain events. He repeats everything, and would say things like, “Life is like hell on earth, eh Marth? Like hell on earth.” And then he’d laugh. I’m not sure what he’d be laughing at but I guess he thought hell was funny. He’s an absolutely wonderful artist. As a young man he used to draw money. I’m not lying, you couldn’t tell the difference if you looked quickly at his drawing of a twenty dollar bill and a real bill, he was that good, that detailed in his work. He doesn’t bother anyone, he just enjoys the simple things in life and manages to do what he likes to do without a problem. 

Paul is older now. He’s sixty years old and lives on his own. He’s mentally challenged, or intellectually handicapped, and he’s a real character. A straight shooter is what you’d probably call him if he were ‘normal’. But I don’t make that distinction anymore. He is who he is and you gotta love him for being that – for just being Paul.

Photo Credits
Photos by Martha Farley – all rights reserved

My husband has been dead now for almost a year. He had lung cancer, which eventually went to his brain. He had been so ill for so long; five years, in fact. He fought the good fight. A soldier, a warrior of death and dying. But it took him in the end, and along with him, a part of me too.

In the beginning, at the first meeting with the surgeon, I thought it would be a piece of cake for Brian. He was strong. We’ll just remove that little sucker, it’s so small, and that will be that. But five years of clinical trials and chemo and immunotherapy did nothing but steal my husband away from me, from his family and friends. He was no longer the man he used to be. I would find myself sobbing, knowing that recovery was not something that would be a part of our future, that our love for one another was not going to save him. It would not save us. Life would forever change. How naïve we were back then.

With each passing day, with each phase of the moon, we fought on. Days became nights and still my husband crawled, pushed and inched his way into the next day, to the next treatment, to the next appointment. This went on for five years. Can you imagine that? I still can’t believe what we went through. The waiting and waiting to see the oncologist. The waiting for results. It was enough to break anyone. It was enough to crush anyone’s soul. And yet he kept going back, and little by little both of us lost our souls in the fight. My husband, in pain and sick and tired, sleeping for hours on end, the endless side effects crippling him. The drugs, the radiation on his brain, killing cells that would never fire up again. A nightmare is what it was. A very sad and dangerous nightmare. He was living his and I was living mine. How will we live, what will happen to both of us? How can I keep doing this? How can he?

Last March, several events led to his being rushed to the hospital. In emergency, the oncologist on-call informed my son and me that my husband had two weeks to two months to live. His cancer was in the brain. Of course, to me it explained everything – his behavior, his loss of words, his balance, his blank stares into space. His own oncologist kept telling me there was no cancer in his brain. Well Doc, go back to medical school because your colleague disagrees and you were so very wrong. My son broke down that night, having heard the words we all hate to hear, that our loved one has little or no time left. There was shock and panic and despair. I had my friend, my lover, my everything, taken from me. I was alone. Yes, I had my children, sure, and wonderful and sympathetic friends. I’m grateful for them and for my children, but they couldn’t fill the void that was left, the loneliness that engulfs you and swallows you whole. Your soul is left in the dark and is unable to see the light. The tears and the screams of pain, the pain that rips your heart open, that leaves you shattered like broken glass. There is no other pain like the loss of the person you loved forever and ever.

And so, after several months of grief and sorrow, I thought I’d go to a medium. That way I could talk to Bri again and we could connect. I found a woman who was recommended to me by a friend. She was lovely, and told me Brian was happy on the other side, that he was fishing and had no pain. I felt a sense of relief, a sense that he was still with me. He is living his best life on the other side. But in some ways it made me sadder because I wanted him to be with me, to really be with me, by my side, home when I got home from work with a kiss and a hug. I wanted him to dance with me again in the kitchen and hold my hand and make jokes and laugh and for us to just be together. And sure, mediums can say all they want that he’s with me, and it’s a comfort, but is he? No, he’s not. He’s dead. I hope his soul lives on. I know he lives on in my heart. I whispered in his ear on his deathbed, a line from It’s a Wonderful Life: “I’ll love you ’til the day I die!” I just wish he could be here with me right now, beside me.

So I cling to what the medium said to me, that my loved one is happy and is with his relatives that have gone before him. I pray that his soul is happy, that his energy is free-floating in the universe and giving positive energy to me and to his kids and to those he loved. Mediums and tarot card readers tell me he’s doing all that. The mystics would say he lives on, and of course he does in my memories and in the memories of my children. He lives on in their dreams.

Perhaps one day I’ll find a medium that will really blow my mind and make me feel like Brian is in the room again. Until then, I have my memories, and that’s enough right now for me to keep him alive in my heart.

Photo Credit

Photo by Martha Farley – all rights reserved

Your death has been the worst thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life. Not that I’ve had the most disturbing life on earth but I’ve had some ups and downs. But nothing compares to this, this emptiness inside me. For so many years we were one, one unit it seemed. And we worked well together, my ying to your yang. We fought, sure, like most couples. But our love and respect for one another was always paramount.

Our children miss you every day. I sometimes feel their pain when they’re with me. Sometimes it’s hard to know if that pain is for me or for the fact that you’ve passed on. They do worry about me, I know that. They do their best to lift me up and help me deal with such a huge loss, with you leaving this earth.

So, we’re coming up to Christmas, your favorite time of year. How you loved getting the best tree and hanging the lights on that tree as though you were a designer dressing your favorite model. You always took your time to make the most of those lights. And then you’d spend hours in the dark with them on, just relaxing and admiring your handiwork. That was such a precious moment. That and Christmas morning. How I loved our Christmases together, getting up before the children on Christmas day and sitting by the tree, having our coffee, anticipating our children’s glee as they discovered the pile of toys and gifts left by Santa. I loved the smell of you cooking up a feast in the kitchen – bacon, sausages, hash browns, eggs and toast and pots of coffee – while they played quietly with their new toys. Even as teenagers we would wake them up and gather around the tree to share in the joys. I wish I could go back and soak it all in again.

And then as adults, to have had our infant grandson with us was the icing on the cake. How that little boy took in all of the glory of Christmas morning. And as he grew it became more and more about tradition. Each Christmas would follow the other. To be honest, there wasn’t anything too special about them, not to someone maybe looking in. But to us, Christmas was the most wonderful and glorious day we shared together. You’ll no longer be stringing the lights or making the coffee or playing with your grandson. This year we’ll think of you, think of all the love you gave us, how you loved your family with all your heart and soul. This year you’ll be the angel on top of the tree.

Not long after you died I took it upon myself to plan a Christmas that wouldn’t be in our home. I knew for me it would be too hard, too many memories that would pop up again and again and I’d be brought to my knees with grief. So I rented two rooms at a hotel downtown so the children and I could feel like we were away somewhere. Anywhere but home, where those memories are so sharp and clear. We’ll walk around the city looking for Christmas, we’ll make new traditions and of course integrate our old ones too. But you’ll be gone, and it’ll be tough. I pray I’ll be able to get through it without feeling too sad or too angry or too alone.

I never imagined I’d be in this position, this place where I’m the maker of my own life, where I don’t rely on anyone to discuss what I’m going to do or be. I’m just here, still ever so slightly attached to you but also learning how to be on my own. So far it’s been difficult but I only hope you’ll guide me to new beginnings, like this special Christmas in the city. We’ll hope for some snow and lots of laughter. And you, the angel on the tree, will be in our hearts.

Your love will see us through.

Photo Credits
Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

When I was a kid, I hated school. I just didn’t want to be there; I wanted to be at home with my mom. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to be sent off every morning in rain, snow, sleet or heat. I went to a Catholic school just down the street from where I lived. It was a pleasant enough place, I suppose. The church was right across the street and back then it was a big part of our education.

In 1963 I was in kindergarten. At the time, it was run out of the church basement, and really wasn’t much of a learning centre. It was a small room with some toys, books and a few puzzles. But I felt a more urgent need to be outside. I’d often ride my tricycle, a honking big green trike, to kindergarten. I’d then spend most of my time on it, outside on those beautiful days riding around the church parking lot. That is until the teacher, who was an elderly woman, would come out and tell me to put my bike away and come and learn some letters. I didn’t enjoy being told to put my bike away. In fact, feeling part of the whole school experience was few and far between for me. School, from my perspective, was a place where freedom didn’t exist. And it was hard to listen to this woman who, it seemed to me, should have been at home knitting baby sweaters for her grown children. I’m sure I didn’t think that back then, but I think that now. And perhaps she wasn’t as old as I remember. She may have been my age now for all I know, but at the time she seemed really, really old.

One thing I do remember about those kindergarten days was the day President Kennedy was shot. I remember being there playing, then all of a sudden there seemed to be this huge commotion going on, with adults running in and out of the room. Someone, I recall, found a television and proceeded to turn it on. I remember my teacher crying. Then all of a sudden my mother showed up, which was really odd because my mother would never take me home unless there was some sort of emergency. She did try to tell me what was happening but all I remember is the sadness of the adults, and the tears. Also, it seemed to me they were fearful. That day, like others that would follow, would ultimately become embedded in my mind. The feeling of loss and sadness still resonates with me today.

One cold, blustery winter morning, when I was a year older and in grade one, I spent several hours playing on a snow hill just down the street from my house. It must have been just after one of those great big snow storms, as I was having a wonderful time making angels in the snow. The street was so quiet, the sounds muffled by all the snow that had just fallen. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining. I was quite happy playing out in that snow bank. Unfortunately the woman who lived across the street from that snow bank felt differently.

I remember her coming up to me. “Hello, are you Martha?”

“Yes,”  I responded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Martha?”

“I think so.” Now I was feeling like I was being interrogated.

“Ok, well why don’t I take you home?”

“Okay,” I said, not thinking it was going to turn out so wrong once we got to our front door.

“Hello, Joan,” the woman said to my mother at the door. “I found something that I think belongs to you. She was playing outside our house. She’d been there for quite some time and was sure she must be bitterly cold so I thought I’d bring her home to you.” 

“Well, thank you,” my mom replied.

Once the woman left, my mom’s demeanor completely changed. “Martha, what were you thinking? Why aren’t you in school? You have to go to school!” she yelled. She yelled a bit more, then grabbed her coat and hauled me off by the scruff of the neck all the way to school. That was one of the most embarrassing events of my life. It was awful arriving to class, when all the other kids were seated properly at their desks, being dragged into the room by my mother. Me crying, her crying; it was not a pleasant scene. And then after my mother left I got yelled at some more by the nun who was my teacher. I tuned out most of her yelling and looked out the window at the beautiful day I was missing.

From then on, school was just not the place I wanted to be. And even though I never went to university, I did, at the tender age of forty-nine, receive my diploma from Vanier, Quebec’s CEGEP (General and Vocational College) in Early Childhood Education.

Ironic the way life works, isn’t it?

Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

It’s been over two months now, over two months that you’ve been gone, your ashes buried beneath the earth. I haven’t been back to the cemetery. It’s too hard. One day I will. But not today.

Today I’m somewhat in denial. Somewhat lost, still, in a world that’s not mine because you’re not here with me. And you’re always with me. Or you used to always be with me. I’m in that space that has room for one. I want you to join me. Where are you? I’m in this void, this empty space. There’s no laughter here. You took that with you too. Oh, one day I may laugh again, I mean really laugh and feel it. But not today.

You were sick for so long. Five long years of chemo, radiation and immunotherapy. So many promises. Oh, the doctor said the cancer is gone. No cancer, yay. We all shout out with joy, only to find months later the cancer is back. The cancer touches you and it never lets you go. It’s my enemy, my nemesis. It, that shitty cancer, kept me from you. It took your spirit, your strength and your desire to do anything but sleep. Some of those days were good, when you didn’t feel too sick or too tired or too depressed. Right up until the end you fought that cancer, even though you were so far gone I’m sure you didn’t even know what was going on with your mind or your body. But you never let go of life, of those small things that turn into big things. Those smiles when your children and grandson would arrive. Those spontaneous dances in the kitchen. The kisses you gave me and the hugs that felt like you’d never let go. You fought like hell to hold on to the life you had and the people you loved. You didn’t back down, ever. One day at a time. I, on the other hand, worried. That was my job. I worried about you, I worried about our future, I worried about my own health. I worried you would fall or have a stroke, or that you’d die without anyone by your side, without someone to hold your hand and help you to be calm. I spent several hours a day, I’m sure, in a constant state of worry. A lot of good it did us. The worrying, I mean. All that energy spent. It filled my days.

Yet in the end, it played out as it should have. Or sort of. You fell and I couldn’t get you up. With all my heart and soul I wanted you to get up and get back into bed. I wanted you to stand up and feel your strength, but you couldn’t. You were too sick, too far gone for a miracle. I only had to make the call and I knew it would be the end. I didn’t want you to go to a nursing home. The doctor said you had no cancer so it must be dementia. Oh, how little these doctors know or how little they want to share with their patients. Dementia, my ass. I knew all along. Even though it was told to me a hundred times the cancer was gone, I didn’t believe it. I wanted to, and I was happy you believed it. Why wouldn’t you? You’re young, were young, we still had so many years of life together that we could’ve embraced and enjoyed. But it was brain cancer, and it wasn’t long before we had to say goodbye to you, the children and I. Thankfully you weren’t in a hospital but in a beautiful palliative care centre near our home. It made such a difference for you, and for us. You were so well looked after and so peaceful. No more falling, no more pain, no more running to hospitals anymore. Just like that, it was over.

Just a little over two months now you’ve been gone. But I saw you in my dream. You looked so handsome and healthy. We hugged, you asked how the children were. My beautiful blue-eyed boy. I miss you every day, every hour, every minute.

I went to see a medium, a spiritual guide. I had to know if you were okay, if you weren’t too shocked to find yourself on the other side. You weren’t really aware of how sick you were and I worried you would be afraid. I had to know if you were safe and happy. She said you were aware of what was going on but on another level. She said you were thankful and grateful for all I did for you. Those were our vows. In sickness and in health. She said you were fishing (I smiled when she told me that) and she said you felt bad we didn’t get one more trip on the books. You also said you felt like your duties as a Dad hadn’t been finished. You were the best Dad ever, my love. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.

I just wish you could’ve held off on the whole dying thing until maybe we were in our eighties. I was told by the medium that our fate is pre-destined, that we choose it. All that talk about dying young. I guess on some level you always knew, didn’t you. Sixty-four isn’t young but it’s young when you’re sixty-four.

I watched a video today of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party. That was such a magical night. Shannon and George sang “We’ve Only Just Begun” as you and I danced in our back yard surrounded by our children and our family and friends. I cried. I do a lot of that. And then there were videos of the cottage, of you pushing our son Ryan off the dock and into the lake. It was funny and made me laugh. So many memories, so many wonderful times together. I’m grateful for those memories every day. 

I’m still in a void, but one day, just not today, I hope I can close up the hole that has ravaged my heart and really laugh again.

I hope we meet again, my love. When we do, I’ll know it’s you from the way the butterflies in my tummy will flutter. Your smile and your touch will fill that void, and we will begin anew.

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

He used to bring me coffee in bed
we would lie there and talk
starting our weekend mornings with a cup of java
was always the best
he used to squeeze my hand so tight
as we would take our walks here and there
holding hands like teenagers
he used to surprise me with special gifts on special days
flowers and jewelry and fabulous trips
he used to love me so tenderly
full of passion and joy, our love always so strong
he used to make me laugh
so much laughter, his humor infectious
the things he came up with would make me roar
he used to share his secrets with me and I with him
my best friend, my confidant
I always knew he was there
he used to look after me
when I was sick or tired or both
he would pick up and carry on
ever so quietly, things got done
he used to say things that I was thinking
we could say the same thing at the same time
our minds working together
he used to smile at me from across a room
that gave me shivers, and made me smile too
he used to spend so much time with our babies
tending to them, loving them
helping them grow, nurturing
he used to make my lunches, he would cut off the crust
and cut the sandwich in triangles
he used to watch sentimental movies with me and we’d cry
and then we would make fun of each other for crying
he used to lose sleep while going to our children’s events
hockey and plays, graduations and birthday parties
he used to work nights and so our car was always clean in the winter
driveways were shovelled before we all left
he used to always love dogs
from Kimmy to Trinity, our barking dog
whom he loved like one of his kids
he used to love to scare me
popping out of dark corners and yelling
was one of the things that had him in stitches
he used to laugh and joke
and find the humor in most things
he loved to laugh
he used to be
my husband
my friend
my lover
he is gone now
I miss him terribly
already 
he used to be…

Brian Alexander Page 
July 15th, 1958 – April 1st, 2023

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

On this particular day, Mom needed a ride to the bank. She loved going to the bank. Everyone there knew Joan Farley. They knew her because she had run a business for many years and had spent a lot of time there. She prided herself on being a customer for over fifty years.

That day, the bank was having a bake sale as a fundraiser for a local charity. Mom, of course, wanted to look at the baking after she finished her banking. So when she finished up with the teller, we wandered over to the baking table where we ran into Mary, one of Mom’s past employees. There we were, minding our own business, talking shop as they say, when Mary gave me a look. I tried to read her lips but to no avail. I got closer and she whispered, “The bank is being robbed!”

My heart skipped a beat or two. Surely, Mary, you’re wrong about this! I thought to myself.

I then said to her, “Well, nice to see you Mary. Come on Mom, we’d better get going!”

I turned my mom toward the door. She grabbed my arm and we walked toward the exit, but there was someone standing there and he wasn’t a security guard. I looked at him and he shook his head ‘no’, then opened his coat to reveal a shotgun. Okayyy then!

I turned Mom around and said, “Well, maybe I’ll go back and look at the goodies again, Mom.”

“All right, dear,” she replied.

The last time I’d been in a robbery with my mother was when we went to Frontier Town when we were kids. We were on a train and the cowboys got on and asked for our money. I think my mom hit one of them with her purse on that particular day. She was a lot younger then.

On this day, everything happened so fast. There was a flash of someone running through the bank, jumping up over the counter and asking the tellers to empty their cash. At this point I had my mom sitting in a chair next to a wall. She, at the time, was showing signs of Alzheimer’s and I was terrified she would say something to these two guys. Stuff only my mother would say to strangers robbing a bank. Things like, “Now you two boys, what are you doing this for?” Or, “ You know it’s a sin to steal.” Or, “If your mother knew what you were doing today!” Mom was not shy about speaking her mind, that we all knew, and Mary kept looking over at me, probably thinking the same thing: I hope your mother doesn’t say anything! Mom was in the helping business, so I was sure she was going to suggest something for them to do other than rob banks.

The inside of the bank was so quiet. All you could hear was the money going into the guy’s bag. Thankfully they didn’t ask us to lie on the floor and they didn’t take any of our personal belongings or money. Knowing my mom, she probably withdrew at least a couple of hundred dollars. I was quietly holding my breath, hoping we’d get out of the whole thing alive. We had no idea what these two guys were capable of.

As quickly as they came in, they were gone. We were all very quiet when they first left. I guess everyone was in shock. Eventually there was a collective sigh of relief, and then the police showed up. I was a complete wreck, crying and shaking. I was so worried about my mom, and worried she would do something due to her Alzheimer’s. When it was over I was just so relieved, like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

At one point, one of the police officers came over to my mom and me and asked how we were. My mom, in her usual fashion, looked at the officer and said, “Well I’m fine, but my daughter here is a mess!”

Thanks Mom!

Photo Credit

Photo by Martha Farley – all rights reserved