Peace Is On The Rise

It has been a crazy few weeks, to say the least. On the evening of March 10th, I found out that my grandfather was in the hospital dying. The dreaded ‘c’ word– cancer– had overtaken his body, spreading from his prostate into his lymph nodes and– tragically– his brain. Mere hours after he had been admitted into the hospital, long before Marty and I were even able to get to Calgary, he was gone. A tumor– covering close to 20% of his brain like snaking, suffocating ivy– is what officially took him away from this earth.

This is a photo my grandpa took of himself for a camera course shortly before he passed away. Spooky, no?

At least it was quick. At least he was surrounded by family when it happened. At least there was no pain.

Grandpa smoking beside the first of his many children

I spent over two weeks at my grandma’s house, first helping out with the funeral plans and later watching over my grandma and aunts like a regular Florence Nightingale. I designated myself Queen of My Grandma’s Kitchen, and for weeks I prepared my extended family nurturing soups and nourishing bowls of morning oatmeal. I’ve never cooked so much food in my life! True to my Almost Vegan self, I roasted several organic chickens for a crowd and even ventured to make my grandma’s dogs raw dog food. (A word to the wise: using a food processor to blend hamburger meat and LIVER is not for the faint of heart, and especially not for the Almost Vegan Faint Of Heart.) Heh. During that two week span, I transformed from somebody who was secretly wary (and even a bit petrified) of my grandpa to an open-hearted goddess of love and understanding for that particular branch of my family tree. I am back at the lake now, safe and sound, but I am definitely a woman changed.

Newsflash: My Grandpa was good looking! Consider me shocked.

My metamorphosis started with a dream.

In the wee morning hours of March 12th, I bolted awake in bed, finding myself reciting the final words of the Lord’s Prayer. Out loud. In the dark! Only moments before, while I was still asleep, I had seen a circle of women holding hands and chanting the Our Father together. When it came time for the final verse, they summoned me over. “You have to say this part”, they said, but I was warm and cozy underneath my blankets. (Besides– godless heathen alert!– I wasn’t certain I would even remember the final words to the Lord’s Prayer. Yes, I had been raised ultra-Catholic, but it had been well over 10 years since I had recited any officially-sanctioned prayers.)

This photo pretty much sums up everything I thought I knew about my grandpa: cowboy hat, crucifix, enthusiastic fist pump, and the Lord Our Shepherd in the background.

There was no way I was going to say anything for the women in my dream. Sorry, ladies: No late night Lord’s Prayer for this sinner.

“You have to say this part!”, they demanded again, this time more urgently. “Now!” So I woke up and whispered, For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Now and forever, Amen. I scanned the bed in embarrassment to see if Marty had heard me, but luckily he was still fast asleep beside me. Then, knowing how uncommon it was to find myself roused from my slumber by a prayer, I quickly checked my alarm clock for the time. It was 2:52 am.

This photo ALSO sums up everything I thought I knew about my grandpa. His own caption for the pic is "Me reading bible". Yep. Reading the bible... on the deck... practically nekkid. Oh, Grandpa!

I found out from my mother, mere hours later, that my grandpa had passed away during the night. Do you want to hazard a guess re: the exact time of his death? Uh-huh. It was even adjusted across time zones– 3:52 am Mountain Standard Time, or 2:52 am Pacific Standard Time. Leave it to my grandpa to beckon me back onto the Catholic Path with his last earthly breath… (I called it Grandpa Shaktipat, a decidedly un-Catholic way of understanding what had happened to me and what it all meant.)

Grandma and Grandpa. My mom looks EXACTLY like my grandma in these shots!

It sounds cheesy. It seems cliche. But after that dream, my heart opened up like a flower in full bloom. I reconnected with my family members (dozens and dozens of them) and finally felt the peace associated with not judging them or trying to distance myself from them. I was awash with grace. I cared for my family members, both in the physical sense– making sure that the legendary family home was clean and that healthy food was always on the table– and in the emotional sense, too. Most of the tears I cried in Calgary boiled over not in sadness over my Grandpa’s absence, but in love and compassion for my Grandma, who had been with my Grandpa since she was only 15 years old. Her heart had been broken, and my own heart broke in empathy for her.

Only the best photo in the history of the universe! Can you believe that this is my grandma and grandpa? He was 17 in this picture; she was 15.

A year later, in Golden BC

Terrible circumstances are what brought Marty and I over to Calgary, but the tragedy of losing my Grandpa– the undisputed, often terrifying head of our family’s household; the God-fearing, Bible-loving Catholic with a big heart and a short temper; the usually-shirtless man with a permanent suntan and a generous gut– enabled us to form actual friendships with my Grandma, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and even my own sisters and parents again. My heart still aches for my Grandma, but for the first time in my life, I am phoning her regularly and enjoying our conversations together. We’re friends now! The two weeks I spent with her have literally changed me. Yes, I’m still the pro-choice, feminist, gay-marriage-supporting black sheep in the family, but the grace of god and my Grandpa’s spirit helped me to realize that so much more connects me to my family than sets me apart.

Grandma and Grandpa at their 25th wedding anniversary, unveiling the now-legendary pic of my mom and her infinite number of siblings. (My sisters and I have tried duplicating this pose in many of our own pics.)

RIP Grandpa: October 20, 1937 to March 12, 2012

Totally unrelated to this post: Apparently WP is blocking some people from commenting on this and other posts. If you have been trying to comment but find yourself facing the stone-cold wall of WP disapproval, please e-mail me at:

dana (DOT) zonapellucida (AT) gmail (DOT) com

and I’ll see what I can do. Thanks!

Sadness

Sunset at the Harbour

There is no easy or sugar-coated way to say this:

My grandpa is dying. He might even have passed away by the time this post goes live. (Who knows? I am writing this entry before rushing off to the airport to be with my family in Alberta. My grandpa isn’t expected to still ‘be there’ when we arrive.)

The sun is setting on my grandpa

After experiencing the highs of being at Race Rocks Lighthouse, Marty and I are now facing an indeterminate amount of time in Calgary, wallowing in the lows of grief. There’s no telling how long we will be away. How long will the tumours press on my grandfather’s brain? On his lungs?

Chances are extremely high that I will not be stopping by your blogs in my absence, making pithy comments or even hitting “like” buttons. Such is life. Such is death. (If I do happen to make a trip to your blog, though, let’s not think that I’m being callous towards the circumstances, OK?)

Please keep my family in your thoughts while we are away. Thank you in advance. xo

Under a blood red sky of sorrow.

Premature

My sister and Lily on Lily's first birthday

As many of you already know, my sweet little niece, Lily, came into this world prematurely by two and a half months. When my sister’s water first broke– all the way in early February instead of comfortably in mid-April– the whole family was terrified. Life seemed precarious, and the term ‘precious’ suddenly had that much more weight, value, and significance. Nothing was taken for granted in the week that lapsed between my sister’s water breaking and Lily’s dramatic birth. I hardly dared to breathe in Victoria, lest any ripples in my west coast air compromise the fragile atmosphere that had been painstakingly established in Great Falls, Montana (where my sister had been flown via air ambulance to deliver).

We waited in deafening silence until it was confirmed on February 8th, 2007 that both baby and mommy were safe. Then the entire Mountain Standard and Pacific time zones erupted into celebration and jubilant applause!

Can't let a birthday pass without posting a few baby pics!

Lily has been a mini-celebrity since she was born. She received more newspaper, television, and magazine coverage in her first few days of life than most people will garner in a lifetime. Everyone in Calgary and most of Montana knew her story and who she was.  The nurses in both hospitals (in Great Falls and later in Calgary) went out of their way to make glittery signs with her name on them, probably to the chagrin of the parents whose sub-celebrity babies slept in incubators and cribs on either side of The One And Only Lily. Lily has been adored by everyone– not just her ultra-biased family members– right from the start. And today, incredibly, she turns five years old!

Ball gown? Pink sequined purse? Plastic high heels? Mini Swiffer? Just another ordinary day in the life of my niece.

In the five years that have passed since Lily’s birth, I have been continually astonished and dumbfounded by her sage-ness and maturity beyond her years. Whereas I, at five, was helplessly awkward and painfully shy, Lily is assertive, collaborative, and fair. She adds new friends to her circle easily and has the uncanny ability to read group dynamics in a flash and then make whatever adjustments are needed so that everyone feels welcome, safe, and at ease. She’s like a mini-ambassador or ombudsman– a completely savvy soul encased in a skinny five-year old’s body.

From left to right: The Creative One, The Pretty One, Lil Star!, and the Book Smart One (<--whose skin cannot readjust to the dry Calgary air and is subsequently angry and red)

In retrospect, her premature birth feels like more of a deliberate choice on her part than a random or scary event. It’s like Lily suddenly declared to the universe, “Wait a sec– I want to be an Aquarius!” and then rushed out of the uterus, posthaste, to make it happen. Now she can’t wait to go to school and then to be a grown-up. Her favourite game is “doing the dishes”. She’s convinced of the need to have both a purse and high heels. I think she has her life on fast-forward. Dare I say it? She has a lot to accomplish and only so many human years to get things done. (Cheesy? Yes. New-agey? Totally! But I dare you to look into her eyes and still feel 100% confident that there’s just a regular kid in there.)

I debated getting this Rock Star set for Lily as a birthday present, but I didn't think her mom would approve of me promoting skankiness at such a tender age. Baby's first Boob Tube and Trampy Mini Skirt? Probably not a wise move...

This year, in honour of her momentous birthday, I’m embarking on a feel good project to help say thank you to the staff at the hospital in Great Falls, Montana. Using the leftover wool from Marty’s infinite supply of hand-knit socks, I’ll be whipping up some preemie caps this year and sending them en masse to the States. I’m so thankful to have Lily in my life, and the least I can do to show my gratitude is to put my knitting skillz to good use and hopefully help comfort other people in the process. Here’s to happy endings everywhere!

Lily in her preemie cap at 1.5 months old. (When she first tried it on, the cap-- which barely fit over my closed fist-- was like a parachute on her tiny head.)

Thrift Score Wednesdays: Celebrity Sighting!

Victoria might be a smallish city of 350,000 people on an isolated Canadian island, but it actually plays host to a steady stream of celebrities. Sure, we don’t get *giant* concerts like Madonna or my beloved Depeche Mode on the island, but we do have an “arena” where well-known musical acts perform, and we also get an influx of celebrities from the cruise ships that dock in our ports en route to Alaska. When you live in Victoria like I do, sooner or later there’s bound to be a celebrity sighting. It’s simple math, people: the laws of probability.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to have my first celebrity encounter today at the Harbour: a woman I did not know or even bribe came up to our booth out of the blue and told me that she reads my blog all the time! Yes, I was the celebrity in this particular sighting!!

I have an awkward history of making real-life friends through people’s blogs. I have actually e-mailed bloggers in Victoria and asked them if they wanted to hang out. On more than one occasion. (<– This sounds a lot creepier than it is. When I first came to Victoria and yearned for my knitting buddies from Calgary, I contacted a local knit-blogger and asked if she wanted to knit with me. Lo and behold, she did! Instant friend! I also met Jabba and Mary through similar circumstances. What can I say? I’m a total nerd and quasi-internet stalker. <– Also less creepy than it sounds.) Anyway, despite this clumsy history of introducing myself to bloggers in real life, I have never been on the receiving end of a Blog Recognition Moment. Until now! Look at me, so famous…

(Aside: I knew I shouldn’t have let my guard down with my Top Secret Disguise. As soon as my Hannibal Lecter mask came off, I was spotted! New nose, new collagen-injected lips, and all!)

Anyway, I was super excited to have Monica come up and introduce herself today (as only a true geek could be). I know that encounters like that hold extreme potential for awkwardness, so that made me appreciate her friendliness and candidness even more! No autographs were signed– now that would have been awkward– but it made my day to meet her and hear that somebody who is not related to me, not a long-lost friend of mine, and not even paid by me reads my blog. Rock on, Monica!

It was mighty chilly* (*read: 8 or 9 degrees Celsius? 45-ish degrees F?) at the Harbour today, so I was bundled up in about 14 layers of clothing, including two jackets, a scarf, and gloves. Give me a break– it was cloudy outside!! What Monica couldn’t see (and what I wisely decided not to show her– that would have been supremely strange and creepy of me) was that I was wearing one of my all-time favourite Thrift Scores ever. Buried underneath my eleventeen sweaters was a garish pink shirt that my awesome sister transformed from Frumpy into Fabulous!

My Ché Guevara shirt started out as a size XXXL top in an awfully bright shade of magenta. (Too bad I don’t have any Before shots– it was GIGANTIC.) It was big, it was boxy, and much like the sun, it was best not to look at the shirt directly, lest your retinas scorch from the intensity of that pink.

Oh, the pain! The suffering! MY RETINAS!!

It needed a lot of work– cutting, ripping seams, sewing, embellishing– but I lived in Calgary at the time and could “borrow” my sister’s superb sewing skillz to do all the work for me help me out with making this into a wearable top.

Wednesday did not disappoint. She ripped out the too-tight collar, leaving an open neckline that flattered my favourite body part on myself: my clavicle. Then she wisely decided to turn the shirt inside-out– permanently– rendering that god-awful Ché portrait on the front, um, not quite as god-awful. She cut off inches and inches of fabric from each side, narrowing the silhouette of the top and even cinching it in with some beautiful green ribbons (which have since been taken out– I wore those ribbons to their ratty deaths.)

The long and narrow silhouette-- pictured here "inside out". I wear it with the intense black image facing in.

Wednesday finished everything off with a “Made for You With Love” patch on the back, as well as some meandering embellishment stitches for added effect.

I love this shirt.

I have had this shirt for about… 10 years now? It is starting to pill a bit, and yes– the ribbons that embellished it for the first 5 or 8 years of its glamorous existence have since been yanked out– but I refuse to give this shirt up. Ever. I love how Wednesday turned what was possibly the World’s Ugliest Ché Guevara Shirt (and believe me, there are a lot of those around) into a wearable work of art. I love how much time, effort and (hopefully!) love she put into this shirt for me, and every time I wear it, it’s like getting a revolutionary snuggle from my absentee sister. That said, I guess it’s only fitting that I was spotted as a quasi-celebrity today, because I was wearing an outfit designed by my *personal stylist*. Oh, fame– how I love thee!