Erin's Journals

Just a thought… You’re only human. You don’t have to have it together every minute of every single day. [Anne Hathaway]

Okay, true confession time: I tried to shake someone’s hand yesterday. We were walking around downtown Sidney and a young man holding his two-year-old son started up a conversation. When we were done, I said, “I’m Erin…” and he replied with his name and then we both instantly recoiled when we realized we had extended our hands for a shake. We laughed. I mean, what else are you going to do?

This is what our new normal is. We’re all trying to figure out the rules as we go along. In BC we’re doing well with how few new COVID cases are making the news each day; here on the island, it’s been something like three weeks now. While people are itching to re-open and to return to how things were before the start of March, we’re being advised to make haste slowly as the saying goes. And, yes, I’m okay with that.

But one fella who’s dear to my heart doesn’t agree with the rules or – to give him the generous benefit of the doubt – hasn’t been abiding by them: my dad.

As I told you, Dad tripped and took that nasty fall on Wednesday. He was badly scraped up and suffered some cuts and bruises but, thankfully, nothing that required more than bandages at the hospital and some TLC at home. When we all heard from him later that day, he sounded sore and quite out of it. Who knew when he’d be up and around again? Well, I got my answer in the weirdest of ways. 

The very next day, Thursday, he was not only up and around, but he went out to the local mall to try to get his toenails cut. Yes, they have someone at his home who does them, but because they charge twice what the ladies at the mall charge, he refuses to pay it. Next time, he may decide otherwise, because upon returning home, he was finally nabbed.

I hate to narc on the guy, as I love and respect him to the ends of the earth, but he was seen either parking the car or walking into the residence, having clearly been on an outing. So when he was caught and locked down for a week of isolation at his residence, my three sisters and I couldn’t help thinking about the song from the musical Chicago: “He had it coming.”

He’s been going AWOL repeatedly during lockdown. (In truth, he was trying to hop the fence last week when he tripped.) Yes, he’s told us about his outings: driving his gal pal for her medical appointments or supplies, going to the car dealership because his signal lights were malfunctioning…and other such errands. I’m thinking the drama that surrounded him Wednesday made it a bit of a shocker when someone spotted him on an outing the next day. So we got “the call.”

Unlike the messages or calls our parents would get from the school about us, the woman who phoned Heather was apologetic and gentle when she said that Dad was going to have to be confined to his suite for seven days. She said she had to; he knew what the rules were and despite him telling her he has three masks (I don’t think he wears them simultaneously) she told him that it wasn’t in line with what he knew the limits were.

Dad’s girlfriend was seriously ticked off and told Heather, “Your father is so well-loved; I can’t believe they’d do this when there are other people here who go out to get their hair done and whatever else they please.” 

We were raised to follow the rules and our dad, a career military officer before flying commercial planes, instilled in us the same respect for authority and the guidelines laid out for us that he’d had drilled into him. As my younger sister Leslie berated/teased him the other night: “Dad, I’d have expected it from my sisters. From my mother. From me. But YOU? You are the last person I’d expect not to respect the rules!”

In his way, our Rebel With Three Masks is taking his lumps – both literally and figuratively – with pretty good humour, but like his girlfriend, doesn’t understand why rules seem to apply to some and not to all. They’re apart, but fortunately it’s not for 14 days, the previous recommendation during COVID-19.

Wait a second – could this possibly be the first time in his almost 87 years that Dad has ever experienced a double standard??? I would say that in many ways it might be a teachable moment, but I think I know our dear ol’ Dad better than that.

The good news is that he’ll be out by Thursday to share with his fellow residents the birthday cake Leslie’s bringing on our behalf. But from a distance, Dad, from a distance!

Just a thought… Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong. [W. R. Purche]

Is it just me, or does this week have a whiff of hope in the air? (Of course, there could have been something else that happened since I wrote this, but I’m taking a chance….)

Perhaps it’s the tenor of the news that’s changing – and that’s a good thing – or just a feeling shifting inside me. After all, isn’t that where so many of our perspectives come from: how we deal with what’s going on outside of us?

Instead of focusing on what we don’t have or aren’t doing (yet), we’ve gotten busy. We had a responsibly-spaced supper at a local diner that has just reopened. Delightful – even among the sheets of plastic hanging from various spots on the ceiling.

We saddled up and took our bikes out for two 10 km rides on the circuit known as the Flight Path: circling Victoria International Airport, it’s two lanes of walking and cycling splendour consisting of mostly gentle inclines/declines and upon which one can build up a good head of steam. I was smiling so broadly, I spit out two bugs!

We still wear our masks religiously when we’re in public (not on the bike path, although that might have helped with the insect intake), but on Friday we had to don them for the most anxious of reasons when Molly had an emergency medical situation and we rushed to the veterinarian.

What was already a week fraught with drama thanks to Dad’s fall – he’s recovering nicely but has run afoul of the laws at the residence (a story for another day) – was taken down even further on Friday.

I was just waking up and suddenly Molly began to cough violently. Before I could get to her to find out what was the matter, she toppled onto her side on Rob’s pillow and began to screech, letting loose an ungodly howl as she arched her back and went into a seizure.

As I ran to her side, I called for Rob and we did our best to calm her. She was soaked in pee and traumatized. Rob called the vet and all we could do was hold her until her appointment.

Hours of tests later, her vet determined that Molly’s health is gently deteriorating but that the seizure may have been brought on by her not having eaten the day before (low blood sugar). This is fairly typical: one day our fifteen-and-a-half-year-old behaves like a pup and we can barely keep up with her speed and appetite; the next, she just wants to lie around and hardly touches her food.

To make a long story – and day – short, she is now on medication to help her heart (she has a worsening murmur) and kidneys (which are slowly failing). She was prescribed no anti-seizure medication, but we’ll just try to make sure she eats healthily and often. After a sleepless night Friday on my part, not hers, she was as close to 100% as she was the day before her seizure. And so it goes.

Anyone with a pet knows that this is what we sign up for from the day we joyfully bring them home to join our family. Unless we’re providing shelter to a tortoise, we know that we will most likely outlive them. Of course, that does not make watching our beloved animals’ health fail any easier.

We cuddle them a little more closely and count every blessing. Giving her meds twice a day (and discovering creative ways to get her to swallow a capsule whole)? Not a problem. Not a sacrifice. She’s our little everything, our cuddle bug at night, our sweet girl all day long. And after a day when we thought we might be saying our last good-byes, we’re grateful for every moment we’ve had and will have until that day inevitably comes.

If we can keep that feeling alive as long as she is, I think we’ll have made the most of our years together. It’s all part of the contract: you just be you and we promise to pay you back as best we can for all of that unconditional love. That’s a pretty good deal on both sides, wouldn’t you say?

Have a lovely Monday. I’ll start tapering back the journals to twice a week again starting next week, if that’s all right with you, but for now, let’s meet again here tomorrow, shall we?

Just a thought… Whataboutism: a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless. [dictionary.com]

Finally, Friday.

So I’ll start today with a bit of background: I got berated on Instagram yesterday (and the day before by the same person) by a woman demanding to know why I had not posted about the unrest and demonstrations in the US – and our own Black Lives Matter movement here in Canada.

It took my breath away. I responded that I hadn’t focused my attention on Instagram – a platform I consider to be primarily for photographs – because I write a journal here. I frequently labour (Rob will tell you, for hours) to find the right words for what I’m feeling about the world around us, weighing what will resonate with what might offend and which words will stand up to scrutiny from people whose opinions I value.

Let’s be honest: I am nothing but a white, privileged woman in a country with more blessings than most of us can count. What I say about the struggles that people have suffered for hundreds of years can’t possibly make a difference, and I know that. All I can do is perhaps point out to other ridiculously privileged people how we might observe or consider things just a little differently.

That said, what I’m about to share with you is something to which I’ve given a lot of thought.

The other day on social media, someone posted a piece that pointed out the deaths of two white police officers and wrote, “What about them? All lives matter!”

I considered the comment, then chose not to respond to a thread that I wasn’t involved in. I don’t know how many minds are changed on Facebook, but this week especially, I just don’t have it in me to try.

I did find this photo yesterday, though, and I love the sentiment; I’m not sure where it was taken. When people say, “All lives matter,” I hope this is what they mean.

Every life is sacred. Every human being deserves to live in peace, surrounded by love, and afforded the respect that they have earned. All decent people deserve to go to their jobs, whether they put on a uniform, a hard hat or a stethoscope, and expect to come home to their family when that shift ends.

Since I’ve been posting videos on Fridays, I chose this one from a correspondent at an ABC news affiliate. Chris Thomas is a journalist and anchor at ABC 10 News in Sacramento, California. I’ll let him explain what he feels is the difference between “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter.” Because I respect his perspective and way with words a whole lot more than anything I could try to put together.

I’ll be back with you here on Monday.

Just a thought… Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away. [Benjamin Franklin]

It’s been a few days since I thanked you for visiting this journal – so I’m doing it now. My Wednesday morning began as I read the comments in emails and on Facebook about the poem I posted. So many people remember it, had it framed, posted it on the fridge or otherwise bookmarked it. I’m glad “Children Learn What They Live” sparked so many memories.

You were so kind in your comments about Colin and Jane. They brightened my day, just as that picture did when Brooke so kindly shared it with me.

Then things kind of went straight downhill from there with a message marked URGENT from one of my Kelowna, BC sisters. My dad had fallen; he was walking outside his residence when he tripped stepping from the driveway onto the curb. He had a bag in his hand, but it didn’t break his fall: he sustained cuts, bruises and a bite inside his mouth. Luckily, he suffered no broken bones or teeth, but paramedics were called and they took Dad to the hospital for examination.

It was a scary experience for all of us, including Dad’s Dawna, who was with him when he tumbled. He spent time in Emergency at the local hospital and was checked over (including with x-rays). He was given the okay to go home later in the day, and a staffer at his residence promised to check on him during the night and offer him a walker to make his way to his bathroom, if needed.

My sister, who’s a home care nurse, was not allowed to come and stay with him at the residence (we did ask). But as of this writing, all is well.

It was, as I say, frightening to hear of the fall which happened while he was wearing his ever-loving socks and sandals. Despite our admonitions and pleas that he not wear them, Dad’s gonna do what he wants to do, so that’s that. 

We’re grateful he’s all right and wasn’t hurt worse than he was. He was in good hands all day and even through the night, which thankfully wasn’t spent in a hospital bed. No doubt he’s sore today, but he was joking about it on the phone yesterday, so we know his spirits are intact.

Dad’s going to be 87 a week today. We don’t take a day with him for granted. It was definitely a tense situation for a while as we waited for word from the hospital on his condition.

And now, to the funny part – which, with me, there always seems to be.

Thanks to my sister Heather’s suggestion, I have an app on my phone that allows me to swipe in the general vicinity of letters on my keyboard. It completes words and sentences, but for some reason of late – perhaps the speed with which I’m trying to write – it’s been messing things up. Yesterday was almost a fatal error.

I was writing to Dad’s brother and sister-in-law to let them know of his situation. When I heard that he was back in his own bed, safe and sound, I wrote to Laura to let them know. But one swipe of the keyboard just about sent the entirely wrong message. Here’s what was on my screen:

I heard from sister Heather.

He’s gone.

Nooooooo………! Before I sent the message, I gave it one quick glance and saw what I had written. I gasped and edited…

I heard from sister Heather.

He’s home.

…and then hit SEND. But I laughed about it later. Because you have to. That could have gone wrong in all kinds of ways – but thankfully, it didn’t.

Slow down, Davis! That’s me AND my father.

Have a gentle day. I’ll be back with you here tomorrow.

Just a thought… Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. [James Baldwin]

I’m not including this picture simply because it helped raise my seratonin levels, and may do the same for yours (I hope). No, I’m sharing this lovely shot that Brooke, our daughter-in-law, took yesterday of Colin and his now eight-month-old sister Jane, because to me it is a reminder of the tenderness in children’s hearts. How they are not born to hate or to discriminate.

They see differences, of course, because children can be the most oblivious but also the most observant among us – and often without filters. But they are all basically the same. Those differences don’t matter. Unless they are taught otherwise through word or deed, they hug and share and play. Of course they scrap – so do we all. But children see each other’s hearts. Do I want you to be my friend?

From the time our children are born, they thrive as much on love as they do on nutrition. Love from, and for, their parent or parents, their siblings and all of us who make up the village that helps them grow into good, decent, caring and kind human beings.

That picture that popped up on my phone reminded me of a poem that our grade school class performed for parents one night, many decades ago. I now know it was more of a message to the grown-ups than it was to the students delivering it. Each of us took a line we’d memorized and nervously spoke it from the stage, also singing a chorus with these lyrics: “Children learn what they live, children live what they learn. Teach them the way to love in their heart and they will find love in the world.”

It’s a poem by Dorothy Lew Nolte.

Children Learn What They Live

If a child lives with criticism, He learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility, He learns to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule, He learns to be shy.

If a child lives with shame, He learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with tolerance, He learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement, He learns confidence.

If a child lives with praise, He learns to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness, He learns justice.

If a child lives with security, He learns to have faith.

If a child lives with approval, He learns to like himself.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, He learns to find love in the world.

The sentiment is simple but I felt compelled to share it today. So much of what we see played out around us every single day began in our homes as children. How we treat each other; how we treat ourselves.

In poking around to find the song, I came across it on Youtube. It’s from the Desiderata album and, sure enough, it’s the one that we sang. It may sound like it’s some 50 years old – which it is – but, strangely, it gave me comfort. And these days, I’ll take it where I can find it.

May the darkness of these days be followed by a new, enlightened time. I know, I know – it’s a lot to hope for. But I’ll take hope over hatred every time.