young widowhood

Shredding Life


I have spent the better part of today going through stacks of papers, trying to decide what should be kept, what can be recycled, and what needs to be shredded. I think that shredding as an activity ranks right up there with monthly faculty meetings and cleaning the bathroom. Mind-numbing and faintly disgusting. But, until modern life becomes the truly paperless utopia it secretly deludes itself that it already is, sorting, storing and shredding are just one of several downsides to be an adult. Not a grown-up, mind you, but an adult. Adult is a term that recognizes the number of years spent living and breathing (and for some of us those years were spent breathing more than living) but to be grown-up means to have come to terms with the downs as well as the ups of attaining the age of legality. And, I think, acting accordingly.

Having exhausted the shredder, which now sits idly as I wait for it to cool down, I am left to ponder how the room consuming piles I had this morning have, being lessened, managed to take on an even more unkempt appearance. A lesson to be learned about organization is that it is always more chaotic before order is restored. In my case, this isn’t quite true. My ideas about order could unhinge even the most bohemian soul, but it (mostly) works for me.

My Facebook profile of late has stated that “Ann is currently attempting to force organization on her life.” This is only partly true. There is order, of sorts and even routine. It just still seems that some days I am not making headway though where I think I am going is a mystery. I am where I want to be, but, and this should be unsurprising, I am still the same haphazard person I was before baby and dying husband supposedly infected me with disorganization. Who knew? Well, I did. I like to imagine that I cleaned more often and had all my important papers sorted, labeled and safely stored. I really didn’t clean but once a week and since it was just me, it was pretty easy, and I have always filed horizontally. Even at school. I remember one time when I was teaching eighth grade Language Arts, a student came in at the beginning of class and remarked upon how wonderful it was to be able to see the top of my desk. And she was one of my nice students. I am order challenged, then and now. Still I somehow retain the fantasy of clean and put away.

Shredding is like cleaning toilets though and on a scale of one to ten, it is a two when it comes to increasing efficiency and aiding the quest for order. It’s dusty, dull and intermediary because even when you have finished shredding, you still have shreds with which to deal. It is a task that forces you to actually read and assess the worth of the items Many of the papers concerned medical issues of my late husband’s and paperwork that was generated by his stay in the nursing home and then hospice. Lots of application copies and consent forms. Nothing heart rendering but there comes a time when you wonder where the end of the paper trail is. Though some people refer to the process of downsizing official files about their loved ones’ illnesses and/or deaths as “shredding their lives” for me, my life is and was more than a stack of wood pulp. Rendering them confetti doesn’t signify literally or even metaphorically a loss of my past. Memories are not that easily gotten rid off. I suppose for some their is a finality to getting rid of old papers (or clothing or anything tangible really) but most stuff is just stuff. In my personal frame of reference there are only a few items that hold meaning to deep to allow them be destroyed or cast away.

Still, even minus drama the kind of burrowing in today’s efforts entailed is taxing. In the end though, it is better to divest oneself of the literal baggage of the past, good and bad, on a more regular basis then we do. It is an exercise in growth as well as space saving.

Last Wishes


There is nothing like attending a funeral to get you pondering your own. We drove up to the Grande Prairie area on Saturday to attend the memorial service and burial of Rob’s late wife’s Uncle Raymond. He was eighty-one years old and, ironically, it was a car accident that took his life. Usually when elderly people pass it seems to usually be related to illness and the wear and tear of so many years. I think of my own father who is slowly being robbed of life by pulmonary disease or my mother and her sister who have hypertension and a family history of strokes and heart disease. When did they stop being middle-aged? Of course, when did I become middle-aged myself? Am I going to know when that day arrives? When I am old like them? When my daughter will start to wonder when she will get that phone call telling her that I am gone, the same way I wait for that call myself?

 

The service took place in the Hythe Legion Hall. Like so many farming communities, every one knows everyone else, and their business, and the hall was packed to standing room. The family gathered in the lounge and since we were late, as always, we went to join them. The tradition is for the family to enter last and seat themselves in reserved rows at the front after filing past the congregants. I wasn’t overly apprehensive about being there. I have already met several of Rob’s in-laws including Shelley’s mother and stepfather, a sister and brother and one of the nieces. They were quite welcoming and though Rob tends to downplay the significance of this because generally most people are on their best behavior when first you meet them, I know from experience that good in-laws are not a given. Not that I buy into the in-law stereotype whole-heartedly. I think that it is a crap shoot really but it tips more to the good side than the bad.  I personally know more people who have wonderful to fair in-law relations than those that are truly awful. Still, I was a bit uncomfortable walking up with the family and sitting in the section that was saved for them. I was also keenly aware that little more than a year ago, Rob and the girls had been in this exact same place, taking this exact same walk for Shelley, and that many of the people who were attending now were there back then, and I couldn’t help but wonder what must be going through their minds.

 

The service was conducted by an older gentlemen, not a minister or anything of the like, but someone who clearly was used to conducting memorial services. He had, in fact, led the service for Shelley.  I kept a close eye on Rob. I am not sure how close he was to Raymond. Not really, though it is always disconcerting when someone you know but only on a “just so deep” level dies. It is not the same kind of sadness. It’s more like coming home and finding that someone has broken in and taken just one thing. You don’t notice outright. Can’t put your finger on exactly why things seem amiss, but there is that one piece missing from the jigsaw puzzle feeling that you just can’t shake off. I knew though that he couldn’t help but go back a year and remember the service for Shelley and when you go back, even fleetingly, the emotions are waiting for you because they always are. More loyal than any friendship you’ll ever have, that’s grief. I watched the girls a bit too. Jordan especially. Her grief is never too far from the surface. She still has the look in her eyes, lurking behind the brightness. Farron keeps it at bay by being in perpetual motion. I was able to do that myself when I was younger. Now I am a virtual empath, swamped by emotionally charged people and situations. I wondered aloud at one point this weekend if I would ever not be able to pick up other people’s pain like an XM satellite receiver. Rob says no. And would I want to be as cold to others’ pain as the majority of people seem to be as their worlds swirl around them as if they were the sun? I guess not, but it does make an event like Raymond’s memorial exhausting.

 

There was music, a eulogy given by two of Raymond’s nieces, a few scripture readings, more music and after the service, the hall was quickly transformed for lunch. The lunch, unfortunately, threw me. It caught Rob off guard because we haven’t been through any similar experience together yet and unsurprisingly, we don’t spend any more time than necessary discussing things like funerals. But I have been this way since my first experience with death at age eight. My dad’s younger brother died in a freak farm accident. He was my godfather and my hands down most favorite relative. Now that I am older I realize that I have partly looked for men who possessed similar traits as my Uncle Jimmy.

 

I don’t switch emotional gears easily. I need to wind down from highly charged events. The practice of going from grief to the light social interaction of the funeral dinner is too wide a chasm for me to cross quickly. My parents could never understand and it caused no little bit of friction. I can remember being sent to the car on one occasion though I can’t remember which relative’s funeral it was, and I earned a reputation of being incorrigibly shy amongst my extended family as at least half our gatherings were wake/funeral related. It didn’t help Saturday that I couldn’t eat a single thing being served. Farm folk, ironically really, don’t hold with veggies. Add to this a hyper five year old and I didn’t stand a chance. Rob managed to extricate himself from family and other acquaintances to rescue me. He generally goes practical when I am having one of my less than stoic, as he calls it, moments. We drove back to Beaverlodge for a veggie sub before heading to the cemetery.

 

After the interment there was a get together at the home of one of Shelley’s cousins. A mix of family and friends. I was my characteristic quiet. I need to assess and warm up. Katy is the same but where she can fly through the process in minutes, I need hours to several days worth of exposure. It sucks but it’s me. All in all, I did okay. Okay enough to earn actual applause for attending from Shelley’s family. At one point during the weekend Shelley’s sister Cindy told me she thought I was a very special person. As I have stated in the past, I am not special in any particular way. If Rob’s in-laws hadn’t been as open, accepting and inviting a group of people as they are, things could easily have ended differently. Their behavior just confirmed for me once again how special a person Shelley was.

 

But how has any of this led me to think about my last wishes for myself?

 

On Sunday, we gathered at Uncle Raymond’s farm to bury some of Shelley’s ashes near a tree that Raymond had planted in her memory. It stands right under the shade of the two large trees where she and Rob were married twenty-six years ago this past July. The farm had originally belonged to her grandparents and she had always felt that her grandmother, who she was quite close to, was still lingering there in spirit and she wanted to be there too. It was one of her last wishes. So Rob had brought her ashes along with us to conduct a little memorial and fulfill one of the two requests she had made before she died. As I stood in that shady place listening to Rob speak over the rustling leaves of the trees that sheltered the front yard, I realized that though I had spent some time thinking about the what ifs of dying, I hadn’t really considered what comes next for my earthly remains. I had always assumed that funerals and whatnot were for those left behind and not for the deceased, but both of my parents have their entire wake, funeral and burials scripted. There is really little for my siblings and I to do but follow the directions. My aunt has pre-planned, as they call it. I only know that I want to be cremated and having the experience I have had with burying Will, I have come to the conclusion that the interment of ashes is a silly thing to do. But where to be once I am dust? I don’t know. I told Rob that I haven’t been much of anywhere over the course of my life. I hadn’t any favorite or special place. He thought that perhaps it was because I haven’t been there yet. Maybe so. Bodes well for the long life we wish on each other too in some ways.

 

I am not really ready to think about my last wishes. I have too many others that need attending to right now, but the thought has been planted firmly. 

The First Day of School


My little girl started kindergarten yesterday. She has been itching to be a kindergartner since her first year in preschool two years ago. I can remember her tears of frustration because the kindergarten students in her multi-age room got to attend writers’ table when she had to go to nap-time. She has always wanted to write. More than she wants to read really. She has filled many a pad of paper with line after line of scribble. When she finally managed to break her preschool teacher down last year and join the kindergarten students at writers’ table, she was so happy. It didn’t last long however. She expected to be able to write, like I do on the ‘puter, instantly and was miffed when she realized that there was work involved. She hasn’t give up though and still practices. Her Grandma Gerry, Rob’s mom, sat with her nearly every day on her last visit, helping Katy with her letters. Chip off the old block. I can remember being in the second grade and teaching myself cursive. I was always in a hurry to be older too. She is so much like me that it never fails to catch me off grade when I see faint hints of her father mixed in and drowning in my DNA.

 

She was a bit apprehensive when we pulled up to the school. So was I, truth be told. I wasn’t sure where to park and Rob had managed to scare me throughly with tales of traffic violations in school zones because it seems that Canadians actually enforce school zone speed limits. Once we were inside, and one of the school secretaries had escorted us to the kindergarten room, things were back on familiar ground. At least for me. Twenty years of teaching have made the rituals of the first day of school practically a reflex even if I am the parent now and not the teacher. 

 

The teacher was “wee” as Jordan would say. I find it interesting that so many of the teachers I have met who teach preschool and kindergarten are themselves quite short. It certainly puts the children at ease. They also have this very young sounding, sing-song voice that little ones love but could very slowly drive an adult insane. She introduced herself, got me going on the paperwork, of which there will be a steady and endless stream until the end of June, and invited Katy to roam and play with anything she took a fancy to. My cautious child spent a good amount of the next ten minutes observing and poking about. She is so like me in the way she stands back and assesses and big-toes the water before jumping in. Unlike me however, when she jumps, she is in. She has her dad’s ability to attract and make friends. It is something I have improved upon with years of trial and error practice, but I am still socially somewhat retarded by my inherent shyness. 

 

A tour of the building followed, and Mrs. Thompson made wonderful use of a variety of hand gestures, signing for the children many of the things she was explaining to them. She wisely took advantage of the tour to point out all the washrooms and drinking fountains and asking the children if anyone needed to make use of either or both each time. And someone always did. When we arrived at the main office, she took the little ones in to meet the vice-principal, leaving us parents to stand awkwardly in the hall to stare at each other. One of the more chatty mothers asked about start and dismissal times and was told that afternoon kindergarten began at 12:19 and ended at 3:12 to which she joked; “ What ever happened to 12:15 or 12:30.” She then proceeded to talk about her high schooler’s classes being 81-minutes in length and asked, “Who thinks this kind of thing up?” Another mother replied that it was just a way that teachers could justify their paychecks. Everyone else nodded and I bit my tongue. Not for the first time either. Just a week earlier I had listened with quiet amazement as mommies picking up their children from the child-minding at the fitness center moan about buying school supplies. One was incensed that she was expected to send a box of pencils to school with her son. “I wrote a note to the teacher saying that I was sending just five and when he was out, she should let me know and I would send 5 more.” I am glad I wasn’t that boy’s teacher. What a pain in the ass that woman must be. I have taught classes of 30 kids or more 6 times a day and can’t imagine having to keep track of the supply levels for 180 children. That, by the way, is the reason supply lists ask for boxes of pencils or reams of paper because teachers can’t keep track of every child’s supply level nor do they have spares enough of everything to give (because children of any age “take” as oppose to “borrow”) to students when they lose things or run out. 

 

At the end of the two hours, we all joined our kids on the alphabet carpet for a story. Katy made sure we sat in the first row. It pleases me to no end to have a child who chooses to sit up front because that is something I never had the confidence in myself to do. 

 

I had to hold back tears more than a few times yesterday. In part, I think, because this is a new school and I don’t know any of the people to whom I am about to entrust my child, but there was a a part of me that marveled at what a big girl she has become. Smart. Well-behaved. Inquisitive. Beautiful. And I did that. I raised her. Which is what hurts. The things that I see in her occasionally that are her father’s, well, they are there by some miracle and not  because he had an opportunity to actively shape her. I try not to let this overshadow important moments like these, but it is always there, back in the far corner of my mind.