Sunday, January 26, 2025

“Prayer is Love” John 17:20-26

And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, thank you, Lord.

Even though it’s Sunday, I woke up at 5:30 a.m. I went to bed before 10 p.m. last night to get up early this morning. I love early mornings and my one cup of latte in the morning. I worked on my GKPA project all morning and will work on it until it’s done. Today is the deadline.

I was going to let the family take care of breakfast so I could work, but M had already cooked breakfast and asked if I would share her breakfast when I went upstairs to turn the fan on because of the smell of grilling fish. So, I started cooking a full English breakfast, including blood sausage, for D and P, and they both enjoyed it very much. I love how our household works.

I’m back in my office. Working. It’s going to be a fabulous Sunday.

I spent as much time as I could give to the GKPA document today except for taking the dogs for a walk and cooking dinner and cleaning up. We had a chicken D got from B’s ranch and it was like cooking a goose. A wild chicken. A lot of red meat and a little stringy. I couldn’t eat it. I have a high tolerance for different foods but not this wild chicken. And for some unknown reason I decided to cook the chicken on the roast mode. And for the first time in a long time, I stuffed the chicken because P asked for stuffing. The chicken took almost three hours to cook. I normally use a recipe that roasts a whole chicken in an hour.

It is after 9 p.m., and I just got down to my office. Back to the document, I go.

This was the view from our kitchen this afternoon.

November 20, 2024

Secrets will destroy you.
People will bring you success.

Growing Grey Gracefully

July 24, 2024

I decided to let it go at last. I stopped colouring my grey hair after thirty years of doing it every two weeks or so. Six months in, I still feel like it is the most rebellious thing I’ve done since sneaking a cigarette at fifteen.

Each time I see the grey-haired me with a bleached blend of once dark brown hair in the mirror, it jolts me anew. It has made me wonder why I decided to do this now, at the age of 57.

Though timely, I can’t exactly say it’s because of the Covid-home stay, a run on the colour supply or the hair salons being closed as many other women have done. I’ve always coloured my hair at home, and I could have easily carried on. I believed I would till the end, as would my 87-year-old mother with her ever present shiny dark brown coloured hair. We come from a culture where keeping our hair and skin look young is considered a woman’s sacred duty.

Thanks to the genes from our father’s side, both my younger sister, Kathy and I started seeing grey hair in our mid 20’s. My sister chose to stop colouring her hair two years ago. Looking at her silver-haired photos at 52, I was pretty sure that was not for me.

Two years into Covid did make me rethink of priorities in life. I started wondering why I was colouring my hair. I had begun to tire of caring about the grey roots showing through as though I was trying to hide something. I started reading articles about women letting their hair go grey. And in February, I stopped colouring my hair.

I love the freedom of not colouring and not worrying about the roots showing up. But the hair full of silver makes me look old, or it makes me look at least 57, and I suppose that is the point.

I want to look my age, whatever that age might be. I want to age gracefully. I want to celebrate my natural ageing process. To certain extent.

I believe we all have our stage of age in our heads. Mine is 36. I felt like I was 36 when I was 13, and I still feel like I am 36 at 57. I will never forget the sense of synchronicity I felt when I turned 36. But I don’t have to try to look like that.

Our mother thinks my sister and I have gone bonkers. But my husband loves my silver. I am lucky to be surrounded by my silver sisters in my Ladies and Seniors Clubs. It takes a resolve to go against the grain of the cultural norms, but I like the feeling of authenticity I’ve gained. I will keep my silver as long as I can.

July 13, 2024

Material Things:

How would you react if you had to evacuate your home on short notice due to natural disasters like wildfire or flood? It’s hard to know until it happens.

Our family had to evacuate within hours of notice due to an aggressive wildfire that became unpredictable in June of 1997. My reaction to the situation was a revelation —the complete opposite of what I had imagined.

I am a collector of everything that touches my life (Yes, I save menus and napkins from special event dinners). I put them in scrapbooks chronologically organized, dating back over forty years.

Being an immigrant and the daughter of a war refugee, I have felt the need to hold onto the family history since we moved to Canada in 1978.

I have the diary from when I was 12 years old and years since, dozens of photo albums until 2000 (when the photo world thankfully went digital), and most of the letters and cards I’ve received when we used to exchange those things.

All of them pales in comparison to my attachment to books. I keep every book I read or want to read. Once in my possession, they become a part of me. I don’t lend books. When I want to share a book with a friend, I buy another copy to give.

The love of my retirement is the enjoyment of my library. It’s not big, but it contains all of my collections in chronological and alphabetical order, against the red walls decorated by framed prints and mementos through the years of adventure.

Faced with the potential that they could all disappear, I could not choose what to take. Instead, I took photos of every section of every room, including every drawer in our 3200 square feet house and walked out. A sense of peace and grief came over me simultaneously, and I knew I would be ok no matter what happened.

We were back home after 19 days with everything intact. I don’t know if I’d still feel the same had we lost everything in the fire, but I feel strengthened by the total freedom and the sense of tranquillity that came over me when faced with the reality that I could lose all of my material things.

In the end, my husband and I realized we did not need much, though we truly love everything we have—we took essential papers, medications and clothing to last a couple of weeks.

The health and well-being of our family, including our dogs, were all that mattered. Everything else already lives in my memory and my heart.

I quit coffee cold turkey last month after 40 years of daily consumption, and I am surprised at what I’ve discovered.

The first time I tasted coffee was when I was about 13.  My mother gave me a half bottle of instant Nescafe to help me stay up all night so I could study. It was a substitute for a private tutor my impoverished family couldn’t afford.   

After my family moved to Yellowknife Canada when I was 14, I was assigned a volunteer tutor to help me read and pronounce English two mornings a week.  I would watch Mrs. White’s lips intently so I could mimic the sounds of her words, but the thing I remember fondly of this beautiful woman is the delicious smell of her coffee she would drink every morning.  

My coffee drinking took full flight when I landed a government summer job in high school, thanks to winning the territorial typing contest.  When I went to university and started working full time, I was a certified coffeeholic. But, like an alcoholic who drank to get drunk, I drank coffee for the constant kick I needed throughout the day.  

Before the 3-hour open-book exams in law school, I would chew on chocolate-covered coffee beans to avoid the washroom breaks.  

When I discovered that the office I was working in Korea for the summer in law school did not have a drip coffee machine, I bought one and installed it for my unit, which they promptly uninstalled when I left.  

By the time I went back in 2003, Korea had more Starbucks per capita than any other country in the world. People skipped lunch to fork out $8 US for a latte.  My regular morning stop was the one at the corner of where I was staying.

Since I quit coffee, I feel more energetic and alert throughout the day instead of the highs and lows from coffee injection and withdrawal—a real surprise.

Severe migraines are a common withdrawal symptom because caffeine constricts blood vessels. Without coffee, more oxygen flows into the brain. How do I wish I knew of this in my working and schooling life?

I may drink coffee again, but when I do, I will enjoy the flavour and aroma of every drop, not as a drug to help me get through the day. After 40 years, I feel foolish to discover I don’t need coffee for that.  

Revised from A boomer in the woods column in Our Lakes

Bosom Buddies

Maybe because I am now retired, getting older, and more and more people I know are being diagnosed with it, my fear of cancer has grown in recent years.  

Then I hear about my friends from the local Golf Club.  A same-sex common-law couple, both of them being diagnosed with breast cancer on the same day.  Just before the pandemic hit to boot.  

Teresa and Georgie have been together for 34 years.  They bought their rural property on a lake 27 years ago, which became their full-time home when they retired 5 years ago.  

Georgie was the head nurse at the emergency department of a large urban hospital for 20 years.  A therapist for 36 years, Teresa led the physiotherapy department of the same hospital.  

In January of 2020, they went for a routine mammogram at the local mobile unit.  Incredible as it was, their doctor called, shortly thereafter, to say both of their tests came back positive.

Further tests at a hospital confirmed they both had breast cancer, though of a different kind. George’s was considered less severe.  Teresa’s was more invasive.  It felt surreal to them at first.  Then they got on with it.  

They could have had their cancer removing surgeries on the same day, but didn’t. “One of us had to drive us home,” joked Teresa.  They had them a week apart. The hospital staff nicknamed them “bosom buddies.”

Radiation treatments followed, which they received together at another regional hospital.  They moved into the city during the weekdays and drove home on weekends for four and a half weeks.  

Georgie admits to being scared when she first heard the word “cancer” but tried to stay positive. “Knowing that we were both fine after the radiation boosted us,” she says.  

The only time Theresa was scared and prayed to God was when waiting for the result of the stereognosis.  She used to chair the Breast Cancer Pathway at her hospital.   She knows the treatment challenges depend on where the disease is located.  The test showed no cancer in the lymph nodes.  

Going through the ordeal during the pandemic had its upside.  Georgie received radiation treatment she probably would not have during the regular “higher demand” times.  

A year later, they both received a clean bill of health, and Teresa is still on top of the ladies leader board at our Golf Club. Georgie started weed-wacking while Teresa and I were talking on the phone.  They are always on the go. 

The advice they have for all women is to get mammograms done regularly.  After that, to stay positive.  I am happy to take both of their advice to heart.   

Revised from Boomer in the Woods column