It’s not a short read. You will need about ten minutes to go from top to toe.

What I’m hoping for, as always, is to find a connection, and in that, uncover our collective commonness. For it’s in the sharing of stories that we have a unique and very personal opportunity to see each other, up close. And, I believe that, in sharing stories, even those most difficult of ones to speak out, we can learn how to love and forgive each other better, one narrative at a time.

I have heard it said that the one thing more important than actual forgiveness is to believe that one is forgivable. But it all starts with a story…

J.

I don’t know if anyone was more surprised by my Mother’s death than she was.

In the last week of Mommy’s life I recall one of those rare occasions when our eyes locked for a split second; my blue eyes met her green eyes. It was Easter Sunday twenty one years ago and she had a tube poked into to her side, brownish-yellow liquid mixed with air bubbles slowly seeping into the bag below. Propped up in the hospital bed, head leaning to one side, she said, “It’s not coming out as much as the doctor hoped.”  Her eyes told a story I wasn’t ready to hear.

My Mother’s left eye had a perpetual droop and for as long as I could remember it was always half closed. There were a few exceptions, the times when she’d force the muscles around her eye to lift it up, taking her eyebrows along for the ride, creating a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look for the camera. A second after the flash of the bulb and the click of the shutter, her eyelid would be back down again, resuming it’s natural position, cutting her vision by half. I was used to seeing my Mother that way – one eye closed – but I know it annoyed her to not only have her sight reduced, but also to have her image reduced … as in how people saw her.

My Mother was a beauty. This is what she told me more often than was probably necessary. She would have said it like this: “Your Mother used to be a beauty, you know!”  Perhaps she thought I was interested in who she used to be, but really, I think she was more interested in reminding herself of the times gone by when people would turn their heads – both the men and the women. I have had many people, not just my Mother, tell me that she was a very beautiful woman. Snappy!  is a word I’ve heard to describe her. But, by the time my sister and I arrived on the scene, she’d already lived three or four lifetimes and was worse for the wear.

When she was five, she (along with the rest of the Mennonites in South Russia) was expelled and sent on the trip of a lifetime. Trekking by foot and train, showered by snow, bombs and shells, chased by tanks and everything else symbolic of the Second World War, she was orphaned in a small town in Northern Germany where she didn’t belong. She was sent on a ship across the Atlantic, alone, ending up on farm in Grimsby, Ontario. She’d been excommunicated by half of that same family who had adopted her and the church where she had faithfully taught Sunday School. She birthed two babies, gained some baby fat and had both of her cancerous breasts removed before getting divorced. Her happiest moments were somewhere in the middle of all that … when she’d had freedom, an income and a body she could rely on.

On this day in my memory, both of her green eyes were wide open, a very rare sight so I paid extra attention.

Her body had been bloating up, gradually and steady. It’s hard to say exactly when I began to notice. Apple cider vinegar soothed her dry, itchy skin, so I learned to rub my Mother’s body with a cider soaked cloth so she would have some relief from time to time. Her skin was slowly stretching thin over a bag of water-logged flesh. What weight she was losing from the cancer, she was gaining in fluid, starting in her liver and gradually collecting at her extremities.

The fluid in her feet was the final straw.

On Good Friday, two days earlier, she could put her shoes on and went to an evening concert. Her date that night was Gladys Smith, the church pianist, who had arthritis so severe that her fingers were on 45 degree angles. Sideways. And still, bent fingers and all, she played the church piano as if it were her lover. The passion was a little much for our small conservative congregation. Often we were stunned into silence. Maybe we’d clap awkwardly afterward, feeling as though we’d just been witness to an R-rated scene that no one dared admit to watching. Gladys’ piano solos were like that. Passionate and yet unnerving. But beautiful. So beautiful.

Perhaps this is what Gladys and my Mother had in common. They were two ladies who never gave up. Gladys truly should not have been able to play the piano with her hands, ruined as they were, and yet, she continued to coax magic from those keys. She even crocheted. Borrowed time, perhaps. My Mother also lived on borrowed time, spending it recklessly as though it would never run out.

Gladys picked Mommy up and they went to the concert. Mommy wore shoes that night because she could. She also walked that night because she could.

On Saturday, she and I went for a slow stroll around the block. It was the day in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday; the cheese slice in an Easter sandwich. We managed to get around the small block with my arm around her arm, just like we used to do when I was a kid. Her small steps alarmed me. Once we had rounded the block she declared “Your Mother can still walk around the block!”. And then she reminded me, once again about not being a spring chicken any longer. She often referred to herself in the third person, using “Your Mother” in place of “Me” or “I”. She would have said, “Your Mother’s not a spring chicken, you know!”. 

Usually, when I’m confused, I have no words. I get so many thoughts, questions and feelings coming from behind me, up and over, covering my head and my eyes … they get all tangled and mixed and I am rendered speechless. On that day, my Mother was 56 years old and I believed she could do anything she set her mind to. She reminded me she wasn’t a spring chicken, but as far as I knew, if she really wanted to, she could climb a mountain or ride her bicycle across the city or build a rock garden any time she pleased. She could dig a hole in the ground like nobody’s business, move a bush from one side of the yard to the other and get anything unstuck saying “It just needed a little elbow grease. Your Mother still has some get-up-and-go!”  Mommy was stronger than me in every way I could imagine and yet here she was congratulating herself on simply walking around the block.

I was confused. And so, in typical teenage fashion, I dismissed it from my mind.

Probably four months before Easter, in or around autumn, my Mother declared that she was going to a healing service. She asked if I would come. By then, I had been to countless healing services and, frankly, my curiosity had worn off. They were all starting to look the same to me. Every one had a similar method to evoke the the spirit of God to descend and bless people with healing powers. But not everyone got blessed or slain in the spirit. Sometimes you had to repeat words or special phrases, other times just get oil put on your face. Occasionally, The KISS method was applied – as in Keep It Simple, Stupid. In those cases, simple prayer was the chosen method.  I began to strategize and wonder if it was most beneficial to be at the front of the line leading up to the stage, just in case the preacher’s anointing only lasted so long; I was worried that the healing mojo might run out by the time he got to my Mother.

Attending healing services began to seem a bit like playing Russian Roulette. If you went to enough of them and of many various varieties, surely one of those times healing would come your way. That is, if you had enough faith. I seriously doubted my Mother’s faith on this issue. Later, I began to doubt my own – as though, if I had enough faith, I could maybe have helped the cause. I also wondered if my own lack of faith was the bad apple in the bushel spoiling the whole bunch.

One healing service that stands out in my mind was held at Sir Winston Churchill High School in St. Catharines. As usual, Mommy and I went together. After the preaching was preached, it was time to put your faith to the test and line up for the healing. She left me alone in the nosebleed seats and walked down to the stage where we had seen a production of Pirates of Penzance a few years earlier (Incidentally, my first musical and a fantastic performance!). I watched as person after person fell to the ground, usually backward, but sometimes forward, after the healer gave them a small pat on the forehead. This was called the “Anointing of the Spirit”. Some went down easy and others needed a bit of a nudge or a second try. Once slain, they’d lay there. Some laid very still, while others convulsed or wept, but all eventually got up and exited stage right. I assumed, if they could walk, that they’d been healed from whatever their ailment was. This particular night, the healer/preacher was on a role, and now it was Mommy’s turn. Watching her, my heart thumped inside my bowels, nearly quaking my whole body. I grabbed the top of the seat in front of mine to find some balance while I tried to squash the hope rising in me.

She walked up, spoke quietly with the preacher and then he stood back, praying and calling on the Deity in the Lord’s Name, claiming the power of God and Jesus while casting out a few demons for good measure. When he moved his hand to my Mother’s forehead, I felt tingles run up and down my body. I imagined my Mother being filled with the Spirit and all of her insides being cleaned and renewed, the cancer cells vanishing into thin air. I imagined going home, celebrating and laughing at how we all thought she was going to die, but then she didn’t die after all. We’d talk about how we beat the system, consulted the right people and found the secret code all the while making sure we thanked the healer/preacher and God. What had been done could just as easily be reversed.

He continued in a loud and authoritative tone. I prayed, too, but with my eyes open.

Mommy looked small on the wide stage. I saw her one good eye close as his hand came forward.  She was trying her best to be submissive and to play the part of the receiver. His open hand rested on her forehead as he spoke and he applied more pressure. She leaned back under the weight, but she didn’t fall. He pushed harder. Her leg stretched back, bracing herself. The prayer continued. I began to pray that she would fall down like all the other parents had.

With a steady hand on my Mother’s head, the preacher gave a more aggressive push. Again nothing. There was a woman standing close by, ready to catch and lay her down as soon as she was successfully slain in the spirit. But now it was a battle of wills. My Mother was not an actor on a stage. If she was going down, it would be because she had no choice. Truly, if the Spirit could heal, the Spirit could also slay her without the help of a sickly middle-aged woman.

I gave the preacher an ‘ A’ for effort as I watched him increase in assertiveness and push my Mother’s forehead even harder. Tears streamed down my face. Healing or no healing, I just wished she would be slain already. My Mother took another step back and then another while the catcher kept pace in the rear and the preacher pushed onward. They were a conga line on a stage, my Mother leading from the centre with the other two dancers keeping pace and time at her front and back. The three of them, preacher, Mother and catcher, conga-lined all the way from centre stage to stage right, where the stairs were. The preacher prayed without ceasing, his hand firmly planted on my Mothers forehead. They would have toppled over the edge and into the crowd, if someone hadn’t given in.

Once stopped, my mother opened her eye, politely said thank you very much and didn’t have to walk far to get to the stairs as they now were right beside her.

She came back to her seat, her bangs slick with anointing oil. I couldn’t even look at her. In the car she said, “Well, that was interesting!” I was speechless and mortified as she went on to tell me “Your Mother was once the only person in a class to NOT get hypnotized!” Apparently hypnotism and healing services had something in common. She beamed with pride at her memory of being too head-strong to hypnotize. To me, there was nothing prideful about being the only one who didn’t get healed.

At another healing service which I didn’t go to, my Mother came back to announce that her eye had been healed! She went to the front, got prayed over, then her eye opened up without any effort at all. By the time she got home, the eyelid was already starting to wane. By morning it was nearly closed again. I suppose this was a temporary healing? This one confused me more than any of the others as I could see something HAD actually happened, but it wasn’t powerful enough to last. I truly wondered what that meant and what it meant for my Mother. It gave me just enough hope to keep believing she’d eventually be chosen and healed or hypnotized or whatever. And it was this hope that kept me blinded to the truth that was right in front of me on Easter Sunday morning when she couldn’t get her shoes on.

“Your Mother couldn’t get her shoes on” she said when I came home from church. “How can I go to church without shoes?” She was speaking in both third person and first person.  I followed along and tried to imagine her at church in bare feet or stockings and she was right, it couldn’t be done. At least not in early April when the ground hadn’t yet fully thawed. Shoes were an absolute must for going out. I hadn’t realized how important shoes were.

She showed me her bare feet which looked as if they belonged on one of those dolls made from panty hose, stuffed with cotton balls and pulled tight with thread at the joints. Hers were shockingly wide feet and very good for swimming. Not like mine, slender and elegant. Mommy was always jealous of my feet and often said so. I was always glad that she’d given those wide-foot genes to my sister and not to me. The two of them together were a pair of ducks.

Later, she called from the hospital to ask me to bring in the usuals; a pair of cotton underwear; her turquoise hair comb; nail file; reader’s digest; and cotton socks – the nice thick pair with the stripes at the top. By then I knew what to bring without her telling me. She’d been in and out of the hospital so many times, it was normal. I grabbed everything from her dresser and drove to the hospital.

Her feet were always cold. From time to time, she’d ask me to massage them for her, which I would do though I’d never had a massage before nor had ever seen one being given. I’d rub her toes and the balls of her heels and the tops of her feet and her ankles. What it was like to be cold and alone in a hospital bed, I hadn’t a clue. I now suspect that partly she had cold feet and partly she just wanted someone to touch her who wasn’t a doctor or nurse or preacher.

There was a time when she discovered hormones were released when you got a hug from someone. The hormone was called endorphins or something like that. “It’s good for healing the body”, she said. “Everyone needs seven meaningful touches a day and I’m not getting enough. How am I supposed to get better if I don’t get hugs? Your Mother needs a hug.” And so we would hug. (What happens if I didn’t really ‘mean’ the hug? Do you still get the endorphins if you are under the impression of “meaningful affection”? I hope she still got hormones she wished for, even though I was a reluctant hugger.)

Looking back, I can see the irony in this picture of a Mother and a daughter living together with the deafening tick-tock-tick of time signaling the impending end of the story. Both wanting so badly to be loved, but not knowing at all where to start or how to do it.

She trained me to have such a fierce independence and many useful and varied skills, that in the end, my self-sufficiency may have also caused her heartbreak.  Her daughter had no need for a Mother any longer and could actually get along alright without her, making what may have seemed a success into a colossal failure.

I often think about that one summer long ago when my Mother was on so many interesting and new drugs that she was undoubtedly high. And very happy. Perhaps that was as close as she got to being healed. Writing poetry and wearing a silk ribbon in her hair, both eyes opened wide to see the world and be seen. I think back to that time, when she was high and happy and full of life and laughter and I think, well, isn’t that what she wanted? Perhaps the solution had always been right in front of us in a pill bottle.

One week after our walk around the block, when my Mother reminded me she wasn’t a spring chicken any longer, I walked away from a hole in the ground at the Vineland cemetery.

My Mother died on the first Wednesday in April during winter’s last snow.

Each year that goes by I get a chance to reflect on these events that have left me with a lifetime of confusion and regret. Each year I’m also learning more about love and forgiveness.

J.

My “lucky number” has always been thirteen. Perhaps I gravitated toward it because my birthday is on the 13th, but also, it’s a misfit number that a lot of people love to hate. I’ve always had a soft spot for things that don’t quite belong.  Thirteen has been like that for me. Not a perfect number, but at least it has been my own.

The first time my birthday fell on a Friday the 13th was in 1985. I was turning 10 years old and very thrilled about all of it.

“I don’t do birthday parties anymore” said my mother.

My sister took it upon herself to orchestrate a fabulous party for me.

I took on the task of delivering the invitations to my friends at school. My mom said that she would make a cake and my sister was responsible for the rest. M-M even drew up a schedule of events for the evening and had it all timed down to the minute. A bit over-zealous in my opinion, but that was her style.

Finally the day of the party arrived and M-M took charge. “Everyone line up in front of the raspberries!” she yelled from her place at the front of the yard, under the cherry trees.

“What time is it Mr Wolf?!” we chanted in unison, waiting for instructions from our leader.

This was a game that fancied pseudo-socialist ideologies. If our leader answered two o’clock, we would simultaneously take two steps forward. The collective was given the same information and required to respond in equal measure.  Those of us with short legs almost never claimed the prize.

Then there was the game called “Mother May I?”. Exactly the same game as Mr. Wolf, but with a dictatorial twist. Socialist gaming taken to it’s extreme limits.

Lined up at the raspberries, again we chanted in unison “Mother May I?”

In this game, you would individually make your request to ‘Mother’. “Mother may I take three steps forward?”. Then, request made, one would await news from the dictator-mother to either grant your request or deny it. One’s fate in the game lay entirely in the hands of Mother. Whomever was favoured, whomever was outcast – all was revealed by the order of winners and losers.

Not my favourite game. Then again, the concept of seeking permission has always been troublesome for me.

These two games were very good selections for the girls that I had invited. Squeaky clean. No dirt, no mud, no sweat. Just the kind of game for girly-girls in white slacks and puffy blouses. A girl like Molly who had a Cabbage Patch Kid collection bigger than the toy store. Some of which had never even been taken out of their boxes, which I totally resented her for, of course.

“I’ll let you see my Cabbage Patch Kids, but you can’t touch them” Molly said when I was at her house one afternoon. In that moment, I vowed to hate those dolls with all my heart, mainly because I knew I would never be allowed to have one for my own. If I happened to get one for my birthday, well then obviously I reserved the right to change my mind.

Then there was Sonya who was so slight that she could hardly handle the weight of her own freckles. This was the girl who’s parents made her sit inside at recess so she wouldn’t dirty her “going out for dinner” clothes. Always the same outfit – white ruffly blouse under a thin vest, navy blue slacks and shiny black shoes with lace-edged socks. Washed and pressed, Sonya was a doll left in it’s package, displayed on the shelf.

These guests of mine were frail and pretty and not at all like my sister and I. We were mud-cake making, track running, scabby kneed, dirt between our toes, marble playing with the boys kind of girls. Jump in the neighbours pool instead of a bath girls. Hit you in the face with a snowball and laugh ’cause it looked funny kind of girls. We played like we meant it.  As long as no one cried or died, all was well.

I think the party started to unravel about the time that the water balloons entered the scene. It was a simple game. Two people make up a team and stand facing each other, then toss the balloon filled with water, gradually taking steps farther and farther apart. Whichever team has their balloon the longest, wins!

Balloons in all colours of the rainbow were flying wildly through the air, the water precariously flinging around inside the thin rubber exterior. This game was one of my personal favourites. Involving skill, timing, challenge and that extra element that brings any game from good to great … FEAR! More precisely, fear of getting wet. Which was exactly what happened to Molly. When she stood there, shocked, soaked all the way from her pretty blouse down to her white slacks and shoes, I thought it was hilarious! Now we had ourselves a party!

The party girls filling up water balloons!

Wet Molly didn’t see the humour in the situation. “This party is stupid. I’m going home”.

It was at this very moment that the coup took place.

Power shifted from one leader to another as M-M had unwittingly lost control and Molly was quickly emerging as the leader of the new rebel alliance. I suppose that every group, even school kids, like to be told what to do and actually feel more comfortable when there is a dictator-mother. Up until this pivotal moment, it had been M-M. Now, all eyes looked to Molly who’s height towered over the rest of us.

With her simple, concise statement – “this party is stupid” – it was the beginning of the end.

Not wanting to waste the chocolate cake, we scarfed it down, hastily opened a few presents (I got a giant ceramic hamburger coin bank!) and snapped a few photos. It took all of 30 minutes for the party to dissolve and each of the girls to be on their way home.

My best friend, Angela, the last one to leave, finally said “If everyone else is going, I’m going, too.” My dad drove her home in his green pick-up truck.

The party now officially over, quiet and solitude were two things that I needed most. I found a place on the back step of the house to sit alone. If my mom came out the back door, she would have found me there and I suppose that would have been okay. I secretly needed someone to comfort me. Someone to be sincere. Perhaps to sit beside me and rub my back. Tell me it’s not my fault and that all those girls are losers anyway.

Enter Rusty, my dad’s creepy friend. With the confident swagger of a sidewalk drunk and a head full of shockingly orange curly hair, Rusty was aptly named – for the hair or his raspy voice – just which I wasn’t sure. As with most creepy people, I kept my distance from Rusty. Call it a survival instinct. I had this gut feeling about him that I just couldn’t shake. Sitting on the back step of the house I didn’t hear Rusty walk up the path and didn’t notice him until he was standing right in front of me.

“Whatsa matter sweetie, have a bad day?”

“No, I’m fine.” (Go away!)

“I heard it’s your birthday, where’s the party?”

“Everybody went home.” (Stop asking me questions!)

“They all left already? Ooooh… why’d they leave so early?”

“I don’t know.” (You’re creepy! Go away!)

“Well, sweetie, you sure look sad … “

Having this fact pointed out to me, that I looked sad, made the tears come and I was overcome with emotion and rendered speechless as Rusty continued to stand there looking at me.

Rusty’s eyes flashed with an idea. “I’ll be right back, wait here.”

Relieved to be alone once again, I let the tears fall freely now. Worst. Birthday. Ever. It was Friday the 13th – no wonder it had all gone so wrong! A birthday is the one time in the year when a girl gets to make-believe that she is important. It’s a day to get noticed and spoiled. My birthday had been the opposite of all of these things. I sat there feeling unimportant, ripped off and very invisible.

Chocolate cake excepted, it had all gone wrong. Little did I know it was just about to get worse. What proceeded next is akin to “icing on the cake”, but in the polar opposite.

Rusty returned taking big, confident strides into our backyard. He had been gone for only 10 minutes and was holding a Canadian Tire bag wrapped around a box.

“Here”. He shoved the bag into my hands. “It’s for you. Open it.”

“What is it? A present?” (It just looks like a boring box in a bag.)

“Sure is! And I think you’re gonna love it!”

Reluctantly I pulled the unwrapped box out of the shopping bag. A big Cabbage Patch face stared back at me with the words “AM/FM radio” printed next to it.

I looked up.

There was Rusty, standing there watching me with great anticipation, a huge smile on his face. His eyebrows jumping up when he caught my eye. He was a man very pleased with himself. Rusty was beaming with self satisfaction.

I was falling apart in slow motion.

I silently pulled open the box which still had the price tag on it. I was quite accustomed to receiving gifts that were not always packed in their original boxes. Suspiciously, I pulled the tab at the back of the box, lifting the flaps on the top to reveal the truth. Rusty had just given me a brand new Cabbage Patch Kid AM/FM Radio for my Friday the 13th birthday.

I burst into tears.

This is the Cabbage Patch Kid radio.

Dumbfounded, Rusty leaned forward, rather close and put his hand on my shoulder to comfort me. I pulled away. Obviously.

I don’t at all blame my sister for the epic failure of the party that she planned for me. In fact, I think she did a pretty good job with the games and all. Also, I can’t point a finger at my mother. She certainly did her part and made her always-amazing chocolate bundt cake.

The person who dropped the ball was me.

A party is only ever as good as the quality of the guests and I was the one who had made the guest list, written and hand-delivered the invitations. These girls were, well, not my friends. Rather, they were the friends that I thought I should have.These girls had all the right stats. They were top-shelf, smart and popular, 2-parent-home-on-a-tree-lined street kind of girls. Statistically, I had lined up a solid team. Somehow that wasn’t enough. Or rather, it wasn’t enough for me. These girls who I hand picked to be my bosom buddies were a perfect match as long as you liked Cabbage Patch Kids, Michael Jackson, sticker collections and sleepovers with make-up and make-overs. Truth be told, I just didn’t fit into that scene. And I guess they didn’t fit into mine either. In the end, I suppose we could have all benefitted from a little more honesty on my part.  It would have made for a better party.

I’ll never forget my Friday the 13th Birthday party from hell. It was heart-breaking and disappointing. It’s a story that I have kept in my back pocket for all of these years mainly because it confused me so much. When stories confuse me, I tend to not forget them, filing them away until resolution comes. For me and this story, it’s only taken 28 years to get to the root. Now, seeing it on a page/screen, viewing it from a fresh perspective, it’s all very clear to me now what went wrong at my party.

Here is what I’ve learned:

1) Choose your friends wisely. Be honest about who you are and who they are.
2) At times, it can be better to have no friends than the wrong friends.
3) Stay away from creepy people … especially if they come bearing gifts with pictures of Cabbage Patch Kids on the front.

The Cabbage Patch Kid radio sat unused on the dresser in my bedroom for about a month. Thanks to my Mennonite heritage, I was too frugal to throw it out and at the same time, too proud to bring myself to turn it on. Eventually, sometime in October, I plugged it in, turned it to FM and pressed the ‘On’ button.

Silence.

Broken before it ever got used. Which is really quite tragic, but you have to admit, it’s kind of funny, too.

A picture taken moments before the end of the party. That’s my sister with the ukelele. I’m on the right side with the red bow stuck to my head, You can see my mom’s chocolate bundt cake. It looks like my presents were markers and pencil crayons and a very large hamburger coin bank, which I loved.
One other note: Michelle, the tall one in the back, is wearing red pants borrowed from my mother since her white ones got soaked with balloon water.

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