Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Speaking words of wisdom, Let it Be. [Paul McCartney]

(taken a few years back in their BC yard)

We had our first FaceTime with the grandkids this past week. They were understandably frenetic and running around to show us the mostly-empty rooms (furniture is due to arrive on the truck today), the latest in snack foods and their uber-cool basement play area. No meaningful conversation, but then, I think those may be taking a hiatus for a bit – at least until we all settle into a routine of when we can sit for heart-to-hearts. And that, I realize, may come only in person.

During a quiet evening before his recent move to Ottawa, I had a chance to sit down with Colin. I felt a need to instill some kind of wisdom before he, his sister, parents and beloved furry family member Sammy (to whom Dottie is as attached as we are to the humans in the family) pulled away to board the ferry to the rest of Canada and begin their week-long drive to Ontario.

Do you remember any advice your grandparents gave you? Or did they just lead by example?

Mine never sat me down and talked to me; it just wasn’t a thing for the generations that preceded us (or at least the ones with whom I’m familiar). But the grandmother to whom I was closest did write in my autograph book long ago, these words:

They’ve always stayed with me. Maybe it’s because I love a rhyme (and I do love those), but mostly because they’re true. And I wish I knew where Gram picked that up, because I haven’t been able to find it credited to anyone else. And I think that they are words that this tough-as-nails depression-era bride lived by through the death of her toddler daughter and the hard times that accompanied living with the moody ladies’ man/musician/artist who was my beloved Grandad Moore.

I had given this a lot of thought. What could I possibly say to a nine-year-old that might stick with him?

I told him two things: to be kind – to remember what a beautiful and loving heart he has and never to let that be crushed by anyone. To know that not everyone will like him and it will be the hardest thing to understand (as it was for me) but that they didn’t matter; all that matters is his kindness to those who need it most. And he’s already living by that advice; it’s part of who he is.

The second bit of wisdom (or at least it is for me) is this, and you’ve heard me talk about it on Gracefully & Frankly with Lisa, and here so often: you won’t be able to control the things around you, so all you can control is how you react. To put it in terms he could understand, we said we didn’t want Lauren to die, but she did and all we could do was open our hearts to love even more people like Brooke, who became his mom, and of course his sister Jane. We decided we would be happy again, just as he is adjusting to leaving his life here for new adventures.

Did any of my words sink in? Who knows with a child that age? He has a mind that can tell you what team won the 1953 World Series, or the jersey numbers of more players than names I know – both in hockey and baseball – but where, in that brain, do these words land?

Perhaps they’ll find their designated home in his heart. And he’ll remember the words that were meant as stitching when it’s breaking, or fortification when he needs it. They have done so for Rob and for me in the past, as they will – hopefully – continue to do in the weeks and months ahead.

And on we go – paddling slowly and looking ahead instead of over our shoulders – as best we can.

Welcome to a new week – and I have a special treat for you. Before my former radio partner Mike Cooper departed last week, we sat down for a heart-to-heart (complete with pups) on the deck. Enjoy the view and stay for a special “love ya, buh-bye” as he heads off…. Here’s a link.

Just a thought… There are friends, there is family, and then there are friends who become family. [Author Unknown]

I hope this new week finds you well. Rob and I have been keeping very purposely busy the last few days with the departure of our grandkids and their parents last Wednesday and the joyful arrival the next day of my former radio partner Mike Cooper. And not only is Mike here, but a terrific guy, our friend and former production superstar from CHFI, Chris Shapcotte ferried over from his home in Vancouver Friday to spend a long weekend with us.

So what have we been up to? We’ve been doing a lot of talking while readying the condo for our move-in (date to be determined once we sell our house), and also dismantling a most important part of our current home.

But it’s not been all work! As you’d expect, we’ve been having a great time: eating out, gently exploring our little part of Vancouver Island and, yes, having lots of laughs.

Last night, Rob, Chris, Mike and I went for dinner in downtown Victoria and then, at the insistence of a friend of Chris’, we stopped by an ice cream shop. I didn’t order anything, but as you’ll see, that didn’t stop me from enjoying the sweetness of the moments I’ll share with you now in this video featuring Mike Cooper.

Enjoy – and I’ll be back with you here next week, and as always on Facebook and on Threads and Instagram (@erindawndavis) and X (@erindavis). You can keep up to date there and we’ll talk again soon.

Just a thought…

Welcome in – and thanks for spending some time here again this week.

These next few days are heavy on our hearts. I’m digging deep for all of the stoicism I can muster as we wave good-bye to our grandkids and their parents who will be on their way back to Ottawa, likely tomorrow, depending on the moving truck schedule.

So in light of that, I’m sharing with you a wonderfully-written piece by my Gracefully and Frankly podcast partner and dear longtime friend Lisa Brandt that I will pore over again and again in trying to harden but never close my heart. I hope it helps you, too, if you’ll take a moment to read it. Here’s a link.

Have a gentle week – Lisa and I return with Ep 77 of Gracefully and Frankly this week and I do hope you’ll listen.

Just a thought… If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. [Maya Angelou]

As we approach these final days of May and head into the sweet month of June and my favourite season, there are changes in the wind, of which you know if you follow here. (Twitter length: after four years here, our grandkids and their parents are moving back to Ontario in the week ahead.)

To mitigate the sadness, as is our way (what we did after losing Lauren – leaving the area), Rob and I decided to start a fresh chapter: last Thursday we took possession of a condo on the oceanfront in Sidney-by-the-Sea, about a ten-minute drive from our current home, which went up for sale the same day.

But there’s an emotional speed bump that we didn’t foresee: the effect that selling this house would have on the kids, especially Colin, who’s older and more in touch with his developing emotions. He told us he was bummed that we’re leaving this place. And after thinking about it, it became crystal clear to me as to why.

When I was a kid in a Canadian Armed Forces family, we moved around a lot. In Grade Five I was in three different schools in separate locales: England, Alberta and Ontario. (I’ve always used that year as an excuse for my sub-par math skills.)

The constant in my childhood was my grandparents’ home in Turner Valley, Alberta. Thanks to a free seat on a military 7o7 or Hercules transport plane (loud and uncomfortable but the price was right), I’d get to visit them many summers and stay for weeks on end.

It was in their tiny turquoise house below a golf course, at the end of a rough, pitted road that flooded over seemingly every spring thanks to the nearby Sheep Creek, that some of my best adolescent memories were made. Whether they were learning to golf, getting my feet wet (figuratively) playing bridge with my grandmother and her friends on ladies’ day at the club, or getting wet (literally) at the town pool – arrived at by crossing a decrepit and scary swinging foot bridge – days were filled with a hammock full of moments that stayed with me for life.

When I was an adult, Rob and I made one of our pilgrimages back to Alberta and drove the hour or so from Calgary to the tiny oil town of my and my parents’ childhoods. We had arranged with the new owner of that old turquoise house for us to pay a visit; I wanted to go inside and experience the place again.

When we pulled off the still-awful road and into the driveway, I saw that the house exterior had changed. Of course it had! They’d put on beige siding and modernized the place that my grandfather had built himself back in the 1930s.

That’s when my heart dropped into my stomach. If the outside had been altered, what had they done inside the house?

Were the checkerboard tiles, on which I could still hear my grandmother’s Tender Tootsies clacking as she made popcorn on her gas stove, still in the kitchen? Was the old piano, around which we had gathered for music nights with a guitar (or two), sax and microphones, still there? Were the bathroom sink and tub still that pastel green? And the big fridge with the sideways lever handle – had it gone, too?

Of course they probably had, but I didn’t want to see for myself. I wanted to protect my memories, just as Colin wanted always to picture us living in the house where Jane first crawled, and where he and his sister played hockey, baseball, soccer, UNO and Bingo with us for hours on end. He wants to remember the dogs excitedly running up and down the halls when their own dog, Sammy, arrived. He wanted to remember the birthdays and Christmases, the shared meals and the raucous laughter.

These are all things we want to remember, too. And we will try hard to make sure that the new place is fun for them if and when they come to visit.

We’ve tried to explain to him that we couldn’t stay here for the exact reasons he wants us to: the memories. Even the sweetest stories have to come to an end, but we can have a hand in making sure the ending is a happier one.

And the best news? On the weekend we took the kids to the condo and they absolutely LOVED it. Playing hide and seek in its bathrooms, closets and storage spaces, running around and exploring and discovering, a big game of softball out on the lawn between our building and the ocean with our friend Nancy’s two grandsons? New memories are already being made!

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