"Hard Things & Humour", Chapter Two, Excerpt Two

The mother is sitting alone in her tiny apartment. The rhythmic sigh of her oxygen machine is white noise behind the blare of the local news channel on her outdated box of a television set. It is a deep freeze outside her window, and she has not left her apartment but once for weeks, or has it been months, she queries. She cannot quite remember. Time has become shapeless now. Minutes pass into hours, which pass into days, with nothing to define them. What she does know is that Leah is in Mexico. She worries over her, just as she has every year that she’s gone away. She hates that Leah travels far away to this intangible place she has never seen. A place that holds all sorts of dangers that she hears about relentlessly on the news. She also rues the fact that her daughter is so hard to get a hold of when she is away. No phone service and spotty internet connection make it impossible to reach Leah and quell her own fears. When she tells Leah of all the dangers in Mexico, Leah smiles and tells her everything will be fine. She says they are smart and safe. She explains that they have travelled to this same place many times before. It does not comfort her, and Leah’s mother still worries and imagines every awful thing that could happen to her daughter and grandchildren for the week or two they are away. Her worries become like hand-worn rosary beads inside her weary mind.

Leah's mother is still in her housecoat and nightgown, though it is afternoon. Usually, she makes a point of bathing, dressing, and doing her hair. Sometimes it takes her the entire day to get through her routine. Today she cannot seem to muster the energy to begin. Her body hurts right down to each cell. Her mind is foggy also, so much so that she has even lost comprehension of how blurred it has become. Her consciousness cannot hold onto the words the newscaster is saying. It wanders and floats away, fragments of the past hovering before her and then shifting into something else, like tendrils of smoke. She used to notice it happening and try to compensate for it. She would hide it in front of others or make herself eat to help sharpen her senses. But now, the deterioration of her faculties has moved beyond her. Her body has been failing her for so long, slowly and steadily. She has lived just as long with a vague sense of betrayal. She is too frail to feel anger anymore. What once was what propelled her, has now waned to surrender.

When the illness had first shown signs, Leah’s mother had done what she had always done. She faced it with a combination of denial and determination. She went to doctor after doctor for answers. She did research and tried every avenue of which she could think. She refused to listen to them when they told her to quit smoking and that her lungs were damaged. She refused to believe them and looked for another answer. An easier fix. She tried a multitude of holistic and natural remedies, acupuncture, and spent hundreds of dollars at the homeopathic doctor. She held on to a conspiracy-theory-like belief that no one wanted to help her. Though nothing she tried seemed to slow the steady deterioration happening within her, and outside her control. She would grasp onto every self-diagnosis, obsess over it, and never gain relief. For years she told her daughter that she must have an intestinal worm due to her steady weight loss and exhaustion after eating. Her daughter suggested all the anti-worm remedies she could find and mailed her vitamins and tinctures, but nothing seemed to help. In Mexico, Lydia found a de-wormer that Mexican travellers take, highly recommended by an aunt on Joe’s side, and she sent them to her mother. They are still sitting atop her fridge, untouched.

If you had asked her, which her daughter did many times, why she never tried them, or why the doctors never had an answer, Leah’s mother would always have a quick response ready; The doctors did not care about her; she was nothing, nobody. They were idiots, she said, and would not listen to her symptoms. She was treated like a second-class citizen because of the deep olive colour of her skin. Her dark year-round tan was Black Scottish in the bloodline, as she told people. She was certain people believed she was native and mistreated her for it. Leah never understood her mother’s skewed self-image, so what if she was native? But her mother grew up in a time in Calgary when appearing as a visible minority closed many doors in her face. Leah saw a beautiful woman when she looked at her mother and wished her mother would see the same. Then her daughter stopped asking particular questions, knowing what her mom’s answer would be.

The truth begins with two things. Leah’s mother secretly enjoyed pity and was much more comfortable being a victim than accepting reality. The other, she was diagnosed with COPD years before but refused to believe that was the cause of her suffering. She never told anyone. Leah finally decided to see her mother’s doctor herself after she had ended up in the hospital for the fourth time in a year and had to go on oxygen. He told her as he absentmindedly shuffled and looked at papers on his desk that her mother’s lungs ‘were shot.’ He told Leah that her mother had COPD, and it was quite advanced. He gave her two years to live at the very most. She was devastated as she stumbled out of the indifferent doctor's office in tears. She brokenheartedly sat her mother down and told her the news but was confused when she showed no surprise. Leah discovered that her mother had already known and had not told her. She had decided, plain and simple, not to believe it, and Leah’s mother was not one to change her mind.

Here she was, nearly three years after that diagnosis, sheer will compelling her to unfold herself painfully from her bed every morning and live another day and another. She was not someone to tell you how she felt or to be mushy. Genuinely, she did not want to miss out on seeing her grown daughter be the beautiful and happy woman she had become. She did not want to miss out on her grandchildren, even though she couldn’t play with them the way their other grandparents could. She liked to watch them play and hear their little voices fill her tiny apartment when they visited.

There was a shift happening inside her. A life lived with bitterness and anger and never knowing the right way to be in this world, was giving way to a delicious peace. It surprised her when she noticed it blooming inside her heart. It was nothing she had experienced before, or had any notion she ever would. But there it was, quiet and forgiving. All her secrets and regrets seemed to soften in its light, and self-forgiveness began to warm inside her. She began to forgive other people too, which was not something she had ever put into practice. Her perception shifted, and with that shifting, she proceeded to see without ego. Her mind, body and spirit were separating to make the journey to the other side. She became capable of seeing herself and her experiences from afar, like God might. All this miraculously happening, while she sat alone and silent in her small apartment.

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Thursday, January 9, 2014

I worry about my mom when I’m here, in Mexico. I also have an amazing time free from the encumbrances of caring for an ill parent. It’s a double-edged sword. I worry, but with slightly less frenzy, as I know I am here, and she is there. If anything happens, there’s nothing I can do. Please don’t judge me. My relationship with my mother has always been tumultuous. I would describe it as somewhat of a cycle of tentative, insecure love, followed by deep hurt, and back around again. I have hungered for my mother’s love as though it were oxygen, and I was deep beneath the sea. I have begged, prayed, and performed for it. I have grieved for, mourned, and rediscovered it, surprised by its quiet presence. It has always been there in forms intrinsically foreign to me, and I was blind to it. Perhaps, she may say the same. I cannot speak for her. What I can say, is that I did not treat her the way I now want to be treated as a mother. I feel shame for my failings as a daughter.

I wake up each morning and go to sleep every night in Mexico, worried about her health, wondering if she will pass to the next world while I’m gone. I also consciously release the worry like a Monarch butterfly from my palm every time it comes to visit. Before I leave Canada, I ask her to promise to email Gord and Sandy’s email so that I know that she’s okay. She promises but never does. My email never works here, I forget the password, and I’m logging in from a foreign place. It locks me out, and I can’t reach her. Or I do, and she doesn’t respond. I can’t help but think that she savours my obvious worry because she does not do the things one would do to dispel it. She encourages it with her sullen silence and her stubborn refusal to answer the emails or Skype calls I attempt. I have terrible thoughts that maybe she will finally go, and save me more of this worry. I feel awfully selfish and ugly for this notion.

I used to have this dog, my sister named him Tito after a famous boxer before my time, and I loved him beyond words. He was a German-Shepherd Border Collie mix, and he was regal. Tito was only a few months older than me, and was my best friend. The thing I remember the most about him is the hardest thing to put into words, but it’s that he was wise. I know dogs are intelligent, but to say one is wise? I know how it sounds. Even though he couldn’t speak, I am resolute that we communicated frequently and with ease. With such ease, I only realized as a young adult that he did not actually talk. He couldn’t possibly have. It’s my heart that tells me he imparted his wisdom upon me. He guided me and encouraged me, and he loved me beyond words. I could feel it from him. He had the spirit of a wise old grandfather, and I looked up to him and loved him infinitely. I can see what a gift his presence in my life was when I think about how my childhood was lonely and harsh. He made me feel safe and loved, and it was priceless. My mom would tell stories of our bond. How he never left my side from the day I was born. She would explain, to my delight, how when I was a baby in the crib, Tito would sleep next to me unfailingly. If I cried, he would run to my mother and bark until she checked on me. I remember his nose pushed through the slats of my crib, his constant presence, and the generous softness of fur on his kingly chest. Before our yard had a fence, he would herd me like a sheepdog and not allow me to step foot out of the invisible bounds of our yard.

One day when Tito and I were about nine, we took him to the vet for his shots, and mom mentioned to the vet that he was becoming clumsier and tripping over his paws. After his exam, they told us that his vertebrate was slipping and was slowly crushing his spinal nerves. The vet showed us how when she pricked his foot in certain spots with a pin, he didn’t react. She explained that it could take years before he would be unable to walk, but it was inevitable. The next summer, he began tripping up and down the deck stairs, scraping his knuckles on each step and falling repeatedly. My parents built a ramp from our upper-story deck to the yard below. He seemed grateful. I think this allowed him to live a relatively normal life, longer than he would have had without it. When we were nearly twelve, he had become so numb on his back end that he pooped on the floor. He had never in all his time since he was a puppy, had an accident. My parents looked at each other gravely, with the realization of what this meant for him unspoken. He was oblivious that he had done it at first, but they didn’t give him trouble. When he realized that he’d messed on the carpet he looked ashamed. He lay down in the living room, and four days later, he hadn’t moved or eaten. He seemed to have given up. When I returned home from school on the fifth day, I called his name as I opened the door in a flurry of childish excitement, as I did every day, but he didn’t come. My mom told me he took a turn for the worst and died on the way to the vet’s office. I was heartbroken. I didn’t get to say goodbye to him, and that thought still stings. It was the same summer I got my period. I sensed my childhood had died with him.

One of the ways in which Tito showed me his love is that he always forgave me. As a baby and a toddler, I would pull his tail, yard on his legs, poke at his mouth and eyes, and he never got angry with me. He would slowly get up and move out of reach. He would pretend to ignore me, and I would do it all over again. He was gentle, kind and unconditionally loving. I repaid him by giving him a haircut with stolen scissors, accidentally nipping off the end of his ear and smearing blood from one end of the duplex to the other. He forgave me.

Sometime later, I saw a card in the mail from the vet’s office sitting atop the unopened pile on the kitchen table. As was a standing rule in our house, I got to open anything that looked interesting. Birthday and Christmas cards that came in the mail were mine to open. I ripped the envelope, pulled out the pretty card, and read the handwritten note inside. Then I reread it. And again. The vet’s office had sent a sympathy card, and inside they commended my mother for doing the right thing and choosing to put Tito down. I couldn’t believe the ugly lie I had discovered. I confronted my mom when she got home from work. She was immediately angry. She said she had to lie to me and tell me he passed away on his own, otherwise, I would blame her for his death. I never knew what was truth after that. I imagine I could have forgiven her if she had included me in the discussion. If only she had explained that it was merciful to let him go. If only I’d had a chance to cry my goodbye into his soft fur.

Forgiveness. I have known a hardened heart, and I have known forgiveness. I am acquainted with the moment of despair that comes when a hardened heart softens to forgiveness and all the lost moments are revealed. To forgive unequivocally is also to take responsibility for one’s actions. This can open the floodgates of regret. Drowning in the past is a real threat, inundated with all the things you should have done, the words that should have been spoken. The sorrow of all that is lost and never will come again; can be a weight like the sum of the ocean bearing down and suffocating our ability to ground ourselves in the present moment. Accepting that we are not the worst thing we’ve ever done or the worst version of ourselves, is where forgiveness is invoked. We must put our feet into the earth and know we are here, now. That there is something much greater than us that placed us here. Our mere existence is proof that we are significant. It seems idiotically simple but remains one of the unequalled challenges I have ever faced in this incarnation. To be. Without the past running its movie reel, the emotions experienced along with it. To be without constant expectation and disappointment running its laps through our souls. To be at peace even when my heart is in full bloom isn’t always attainable. While I feel connected to something so infinite and pure that I can only call life, I find peace an elusive prey. To be okey-dokey with our lives as it is and as it will be, is a tall order.

I think of the Dalai Llama and the times I’ve seen him speak in interviews. He is a man that emanates peace, of being totally copacetic with everything, and I envy him for that. I wonder if he has known true sorrow and loss, and I believe that to be where he is spiritually, he must have. Generally, in my experience, those who have never had hardship might be happy, or not at all, but they aren’t usually enlightened. It is the people I’ve known who have been knocked down and spit on by the circumstances of their lives that are the ones that get the hell back up and decide to do it right. They are the ones who get it, who put their intent into achieving happiness. Not all people that are challenged respond this way. In my humble opinion, they are the ones more apt to. Sometimes I ask, why have I been so challenged in my life? Why have I experienced so much in the way of disappointment, hurt, loss, and sorrow? Maybe it’s a fool’s wish, but I hope I am on some great spiritual path. I hope that someday peace will reside within me, taking the place of the sorrow that beds there now.