Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Drink Coffee! Do stupid things faster and with more energy! [Darynda Jones]

Well, we made it through a Mother’s Day/Lauren’s 10^th anniversary double hit yesterday. Deep breath, full heart, and on we go.

As I told you last week, in the days leading up to May 11^th I’m often looking for signs that Lauren is still with us. By now, like good golf shots, there are just enough to keep us going, but not enough, never enough, in the long run.

So let me tell you about a few this past week, and my futile and funny attempt to make one happen.

Knowing we’d be away (up island in Courtenay, BC) for our own long weekend, I visited Lauren’s bench at a park in Sidney to spend a few minutes, listen to her sing in my Air Pods, and just be with her.

As I left, I thought how nice it would be if she’d make herself known to me.

While briskly strolling home, I saw something I hadn’t yet seen on a walk this spring: a little bunny on someone’s lawn. I stopped and said, “Hi, Flower,” using one of the nicknames we called Lauren. I know Flower was the skunk in Bambi, but since we don’t have skunks on the island, I decided in that moment that the bunny was my “hello” from Lauren, and was happy with that.

Then, a few blocks closer to home, I looked down. There on the road was a crushed carton. It took a second to register, but the brand on it was a version of that nickname, that we’d shortened to rhyme, not with “show,” but with “how.” Here it is:

A clearer, louder sign, or just a flattened carton? Look, when you’re starving and you’re offered a crust, you don’t ask for a croissant.

So on the weekend, after two futile attempts to charge our EV in Campbell River at uncooperative stations, we drove further out of town to a Shell station. Once we’d plugged in, we wandered into the gas station store. I decided that maybe we were led by those two other exasperating chargers to that place we’d never have stopped, so that I would buy a winning lottery ticket.

Well here’s where the sublime turned into the ridiculous: I had absolutely NO idea how to go about choosing my numbers or playing 6/49. I thought: People do this regularly. How hard can it be? but nope – I was literally clueless. Fortunately there was a lovely cashier who came over to the kiosk and tried to explain it to me; using numbers special to Rob and to me, I ended up ticking off enough for about $60 worth of tickets – HARD NO! – and finally left with three nights’ worth of draws.

Now this is where I should tell you that I awoke yesterday, that heaviest day on our calendar, to learn we were ten million dollars richer. Uh, no. Not even one number. But the good news is, I have two more chances to lose!

Somehow in my life I’ve missed out on learning the basics; How to put a loonie into the right cart at the store (did it on Friday and placed the coin in the cart ahead, so I had conjoined carts until I ran to the car to get another coin); How to do self-checkout without having to get assistance while I melt down with embarrassment; How to buy a damned (in every way possible) lottery ticket.

I figure when stupid stuff happens, as it always does to me, it’ll be a good laugh on the podcast. And if you missed last week’s “fart-walking” topic, you can still listen and have a wonderful cleansing laugh yourself. Just go to gracefullyandfrankly.com and join Lisa Brandt and me. Between the two of us we have stories in which you’ll see yourself, or be darned glad you don’t! Have a gentle week and I’ll be back with you after the long weekend next Tuesday.

Just a thought… As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. [John F. Kennedy]

I’ll start this week’s blog by suggesting that if you want all of the tea on what happened an entire, eternal week ago on our election day, please listen to Ep. 124 by going to gracefullyandfrankly.com. It’s free, 30 minutes long and I promise it’ll be worth your time; subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!

Today I’ll focus, not on the week past, but the week ahead. And I don’t know where to go with this except to say thank-you.

This Sunday, Mother’s Day, as fate would have it every five or six years, marks a bottomless crevasse in our lives and lands on May 11th: ten years since we got that call that our Lauren had died in her sleep at 24.

So much has happened in those years that I can barely list them:

Her son Colin, who that day turned seven months old, has grown into a wonderful tall boy (with men’s size ten feet!) whose passions are baseball and Leafs playoff hockey, who is funny, beautiful, sensitive and a wonderful big brother to the sister who is five years his junior but will always be our equally-loved grandchild, a gift of Lauren’s widower Phil’s second marriage to Brooke. So many blessings.

That joy was magnified exponentially when their little foursome moved west five years ago to just a few minutes’ drive from us, in our new home of British Columbia. We had left Ontario a year after Lauren’s passing, ready to make a fresh start and close the door on broadcasting, while opening several in the world of podcasting. Rob’s and my reWirement activities continue gently and with more than our share of satisfaction.

After four years of missing family and the life they had, Colin, Jane and their folks moved back to Ontario last summer, and in that time of healing on our part, Rob and I have relocated away from a sprawling house surrounded by tall trees and often visited by deer, to a sweet little town and an oceanside condo, where our telescope is poised to capture orcas. Haven’t seen one yet, but our walks are dotted with seals, eagles, outrageously beautiful vistas and lots of other little dogs. Oh yes – we said good-bye to Pepper and Molly after their full and happy lives, and brought Dottie and Livi into our home, finding love where we can get it and give it.

Ten years ago when well-meaning people told me that time helps, I found it almost offensive, like one of the “at leasts” that I caution people from using in my book Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy. Oh yes, I wrote a #1 Globe and Mail bestselling memoir about our experiences, what we learned and how there is a hope for joy down the road after experiencing so much trauma and pain. It wasn’t a “how to” as much as a “how we did it,” with lessons to take or leave, but mostly to let people know that they are not alone in whatever they feel at any moment of grief, in the myriad ways in which it presents itself.

I have experienced so much in the aftermath of writing that book and continue to share what little wisdom I can, when people who’ve read it write to me. Most recently it was a bereaved mom who had lost her beautiful adult son. I told her, in an analogy that came to me recently, that it’s like how in the course of our lives we often gain 20, 30 or 40 pounds. Now, if that was in a backpack, our younger selves might find it unbearable to carry, day in and day out. But our bodies adjust and that burden becomes a part of us. It’s the nearest thing I can think of that’s the least bit original when it comes to how we, as the Beatles put it, “Carry That Weight.” You just learn how. You shift, you struggle, but you live your life as best you can until you decide it’s perhaps time to put some of that heaviness aside. Or not.

As we begin our second decade without the daughter we had for only 24 years, Rob and I continue to try to live in a way that we hope would make her proud.

I found sobriety (thanks to six weeks in rehab) nearly six years ago, and am working at it one day at a time. Rob and I have our sad days but they are fewer; I’ve bent the ear of more than one good therapist, and know to seek help when I need it, instead of drowning my feelings and making them worse. I’m grateful not to have allowed anger to eat me alive. We accept that which we cannot change. And every day I keep looking for that pony in the manure pile. It’s got to be in there somewhere, right?

Most of all, I’m grateful for the kindness, damp shoulders and bent ears that Rob and I have both encountered in the past decade, many times from people like you. We try to give it back wherever we can, and be the parents that Lauren deserved.

Sometimes it all feels like a dream, from beginning to end. Was she really here? Who are we now, and why? But we know we’re not alone and, this Sunday, as always, we’ll keep our eyes and hearts open for signs that she’s here. I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day and thank you once again. I can’t say that enough.

Just a thought… The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

We begin with heartfelt thoughts of sorrow and compassion for the people of Vancouver who lost family and are suffering today in light of Saturday night’s tragedy at a Filipino festival on an otherwise perfect spring evening. Our hearts are with you. Nagsisi kami ng husto. We are so sorry.

Today I am Switzerland. No pins or hats, no political chats; I’m setting it all aside as somebody helping my fellow countrywomen and men to vote.

After weeks of campaigning for the first time, and doing my small part to help our local candidate unseat a popular incumbent and give our area a stronger voice in Ottawa, I decided that rather than wait around all day for results, I’d do something else I’d never done before this year: sign up with Elections Canada.

The idea only occurred to me last Thursday. I did so online, not really thinking that at the last minute they’d have a cancellation. But they did, and I got a call Friday asking me to come to a three-and-a-half hour training session that very afternoon. I was up for a convertible ride, and free for a few hours, and said, “Sure!”

Of the ten men and women there, I was the oldest (and here I thought our riding was filled with young seniors like me, wanting to fill their hours). I surmised that some were students just adding a bit to their bank accounts, but others perhaps felt that, like me, they wanted to do their part in these days of national pride and unity.

I left the learning session feeling informed and ready for my job as an Information Officer today: basically I’ll be greeting voters as they come in out of the rain to cast their ballots, making sure they have their voter cards/ID/driver’s license or any other card issued by a Canadian government with photo, name and current address. If any of that is unclear to you reading this today, just go to Elections.ca and your answers will be there. Or bring whatever you have on hand and/or someone who knows you and is also voting at that site to vouch for you. We’ll have you covered.

I have to be there today for 6 am (ugh), as polls here open promptly one hour later. Then after they close at 7 pm in our area, I may be called upon to take part in witnessing or tallying votes as they are individually brought out of a heretofore sealed box, opened and announced. Check your local hours, as they differ across Canada.

There is so much I didn’t know about how election days work. We take it all for granted, don’t we? I came out of training Friday relieved that in our federal elections we use good ol’ fashioned paper ballots and pencils or pens (a voter’s choice) and tally them by hand in front of witnesses. No voting machines or computers that can be hacked; just humans doing their absolute best to uphold this sacred right and rite of a democratic country.

Today I’m putting aside my partisan hopes for the voting outcome. My job is to be neutral, including not wearing any major party’s colours of red, blue, orange, green or purple (yes, that’s a hard and fast rule), to be polite and helpful wherever I can, to answer questions, to pass people on to those folks who have the needed info, and probably to sit…a lot. Yes, I’m bringing my enVy Pillow but I don’t think they’d appreciate my Nespresso maker.

You see, our riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands saw Canada’s second-largest turnout in advance polls Easter weekend. First was in Poilievre’s riding of Carleton, where Liberal Bruce Fanjoy is hoping to fire the incumbent Conservative leader. But in that riding, the poor Elections Canada workers will truly be earning their $20 an hour: thanks to the Longest Ballot Committee, some 90 candidates are on the ticket. Who knows when those votes will all be tallied?

Personally, I’ll be glad not to have to be vigilant to keep trolls off my Facebook page when this week is over and the political temperature across the nation somewhat returns to normal. Hopefully we’ll ALL come out tomorrow ready to face whatever insanity floods towards us from the US, standing together for a strong and united Canada.

As for tomorrow…as Rob and I, along with thousands of other involved Canadians head out to gather up candidates’ signs from the sites they were placed or delivered (the rules say it has to be tomorrow), we’ll be thankful to have had a chance once again to make our voices heard, to have actively taken part in this precious process for the first time, and, most of all, to be Canadian.

Elbows Up, my friend – and may the best candidates win.

Just a thought… There’s no such thing as being too busy. If you really want something, you’ll make time for it. [author unknown]

I’m so glad to make myself sit down and write for a bit, my diet A&W root beer at my side, dogs asleep at my feet. It feels good.

My friend, the word “whirlwind” doesn’t do justice to what the past and coming days entail. It’s a combination of volunteering for the campaign with just two weeks until Election Day in Canada, and the rest is been prepping for a plane trip to Ottawa in just two days. So let’s do this – with a few observations thrown in along the way. Grab a cup of what you love, and here we go.

Talking beverages: I used to drink about four cups of one-third caffeine coffee daily (Rob mixes the beans in advance). I am now down to ONE, the least caffeine I’ve taken in daily since I was pregnant. One one-third caffeine a day. And I’m still running on overdrive! I think it’s the first time since I left radio that I have so much energy, so much adrenaline, that anything added to my system is sending me through the roof.

Found out yesterday that today I’m introducing an MP (and candidate) from North Vancouver, who’s here on the island to chat with constituents at a rally and then door-knock with our guy. Rob cancelled his second-to-last hockey of the season tomorrow so he can come and do the PA system. We’re doing what we can to help. We’ve already voted but now we’re free to volunteer and drive people to the polls two weeks today.

Funny side note: on a long walk last week, I complimented a woman on the sign on her lawn. She and I chatted (she’s moved here recently from the GTA as well) and it turns out I had some interaction with her daughter, who’s in PR, back in my radio days. The woman said her daughter never forgot (it was positive) and we were trying to get the three of us together for coffee but this week is shortened. Maybe on daughter Meaghan’s next visit!

One more walking note: I was trying to gauge whether wearing a party’s button on my chest while I do my daily power hour of getting off my butt made a difference in eye contact. At first I thought people were avoiding me so that I wouldn’t try to proselytize or talk politics – which I would NEVER do. But then I did the same walk without the button on, and measured about the same number of smiles or averted eyes. Some people just don’t want to say “hello” as they pass by – even in friendly Sidney, BC. Still, I always have a smile on my face and if they want to exchange greetings, I’m there for them. Especially the seniors and fellow dog-walkers.

Of course, nearly everyone has a smile when they see me walking (on the shorter go-rounds) with Dottie and Livi. Dottie tends to be lippy and shout “Hello! Hello!” whenever she sees anything four-legged within a block. I’d like to change that, but right now we’re working on “SIT!” so one thing at a time.

We’re also training them to get to like their travel bags, in which they’ll be zipped and placed beneath the seats ahead of us on this Wednesday’s two-legged journey to spend Easter Weekend with our grandkids and their folks in Ottawa. The dogs LOVE being together in one crate, but we didn’t want to put them in the hold. So they’ll be at our feet.

They have little doggie downer pills to take, and I’m going to make sure I take something to; it’s going to be nerve-wracking. And in case you weren’t aware, we are absolutely forbidden to take them out and cuddle them, no matter how stressed they get. Many folks have offered to take the girls while we’re away, but this trip is a trial run for maybe taking them away for the winter when driving is no longer an option (as it is not). Wish us all luck!

So, in a nutshell, that’s this nut’s life this week: just trying to get everything done here in terms of our responsibilities, and ready for the trip. In addition to the brand new Drift with Erin Davis sleep story tomorrow (I’m going to try to lull you to sleep this time with the details from the British Museum about the Rosetta Stone), of course there’s a new Gracefully and Frankly Episode 123 this Thursday, and the one next week will be from our Ottawa hotel room. Ah, the glamour! The excitement! The decaffeination of it all!

Once the stress subsides, I’m sure the excitement about seeing Colin and Jane will actually sink in. But for now, just one day, one hour at a time, right? May you and your family have a Happy Easter if you celebrate, and time with loved ones no matter what the days ahead hold.

Just a thought… Because life is a symphony it must have its C Minor. Days there be when we hear only a discord of sharps and flats, and we wonder whether harmony will ever be restored. [Thomas Hylland Eriksen]

Ah, and what a perfect symphony it was – times two!

A week that began last Sunday with a perfect evening ended Friday with another soul-stirring experience, and I couldn’t wait to share them with you.

Rob and I were watching a comic we love on YouTube and a little ad popped up for the Victoria Symphony accompanying the 1987 movie The Princess Bride at the Royal Theatre. On a whim I went online and found three tickets – among very few left – for Sunday night.

We took our niece Ava, whose mom, my sister Leslie, and family live in West Kelowna. Ava’s in Victoria, about a 40 minute drive from us, attending university there to become a music teacher, and is specializing in clarinet.

It was an incredible two hours: the symphony performed the stirring soundtrack to the film, giving us not only the inspiring feeling of hearing live music, but also enjoying a most entertaining film – with subtitles, thankfully – and one that neither Rob nor Ava had seen! “Inconceivable!” to quote a memorable character. (If you subscribe to Disney channel, I can’t recommend this Rob Reiner-directed joy highly enough!)

We left the theatre with spirits higher than we’d felt in a long time. Later the same week, I shook with nerves as I introduced our local Liberal candidate and the president of the Liberal Party of Canada at a local rally that was well-attended and successful and only proved how out of practice I am at standing up in front of people. (Boy, did I miss the podium as a shield, as I trembled holding my iPad!)

Sadly, my services weren’t needed for another local candidate’s rally, attended last night by Mark Carney himself. Waaaaaaah! And I’m not going to take it personally, LOL. Even though I would have found a way to answer what the internet wants to know this week: what is this cat’s name?

Fast forward, in an already highspeed week, to Friday. Ava and the rest of her course’s musicians were joined on stage at the university by the incredibly talented members of the Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy: 35 musicians whose sole purpose is to support Naval Operations, ceremonial events and public outreach operations. Here’s how they looked just before the conductors were introduced.

The theme was Fantasy, Myths & Legends and featured music from Holst’s The Planets, a piece by John Williams from the movie Hook, and my personal favourite piece of classical music of all time, the final minutes of the Suite from The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky. I closed my eyes and was transported outside my body. It was truly transcendent and so good for my soul.

I was reminded of how little music I listen to, except in the car, and don’t know why that is! It’s right there at our fingertips through YouTube (here’s the link to Peter Oundjian conducting the Toronto Symphony; you may want to go ahead to the last four minutes to be reminded of this exceptional piece). 

I warn you, you may get taken down the best internet rabbit hole there is!

The film and its exceptional accompaniment on Sunday, as well as this past Friday’s concert, which we decided to attend at the last minute, served as perfect bookends and a reminder that no matter how loud the voices outside (and the ones in our heads and on our devices) get, there is always – unless we’re hearing impaired, and I’m sorry for that – music. To feed our soul. To right our inner balance and remind us of the beauty that is at our fingertips at any time.

To bring us back to who we are.

Have a beautiful week and thanks for spending a few minutes here with me. I appreciate it.