Erin's Journals

Just a thought… When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak. [Audre Lorde]

All right, my friend, I have a question for you. I asked it in a more existential and rhetorical way last week, but today, there’s something perhaps you have a moment to think about. If you were expecting another book from me (and some have expressed that hope), what would it be about?

I’m talking this week with some folks who might help me make the next chapter happen. But the question is this: what more is there to be said?

Hundreds of people – bereaved or not – have written expressing their disappointment at just how unable we are to talk about death or the aftermath of loss. I call it being inept at the “language of loss” and, honestly, people don’t even want to consider learning it, unless they’re in the throes of it. Why would we, right?

As supposedly the only beings who are sentient about the fact that there’s an expiry date on us, we could lose our minds and slide into depression over it or become obsessed with how much time we have left. (I guess that’s why there’s no date stamp on us, except for the inner data that is wound up in our DNA.)

Just give it a thought – the phone call is Wednesday. You know you can email me, right?

Then there’s this other thing I need to share with you. A former radio pal from Victoria sent me a link to a CBC story Saturday about two moms who are raising a baby and using induced lactation so that the one who did not give birth can feed their child.

How did such a feel-good story turn my day upside-down? Here’s how: in one line, the reporter says that domperidone has helped; it’s mentioned very much in passing as “an anti-nausea drug that…enhances lactation.” Sounds benign – who wouldn’t take it, right? But here it is: women have to get their hearts tested before taking domperidone.

There’s a reason it’s BANNED (yes, I’m yelling; I’m also shaking as I write this) in the US and prescribed with caution in the UK. Here in Canada, our health regulators suggest taking the minimum dose for the minimum time.

Lauren was not taking a minimum dose when she died from what the coroner believed wholeheartedly (but was unfortunately unable to prove for certain) to be an interaction with the drug. I remember Lauren telling me that her pharmacist remarked, “Wow, that’s a lot,” when Loo was getting her prescription filled. And here we are.

I don’t get angry about Lauren’s death – so many other emotions are there to fill the void – except where domperidone, (aka Motilium) is concerned. Thankfully, last week’s National Post article linked to the Health Canada website and I fervently wish the CBC story had done the same. I wrote to the CBC’s feedback site on Saturday and am awaiting a response. (My last one several years ago to their ombudsman never did get answered, so we’ll see.)

Please, for the love of your family or breastfeeding friends, remember the name domperidone. It sounds like Dom Perignon – a champagne – so it’s easy. A heart test is all we’re asking that doctors request before prescribing; the drug might be safe for most, but we are of the fervent belief that the side effects can be deadly in some cases, and were in the case of our family.

I’m thankful for this email from M, whose mom and a friend did just that:

My Mom is a huge fan. Talks about you like you are one of her old friends. While I just had my second child and although I think she is perfect, the doctors were worried she wasn’t gaining enough with my breast milk. Being a bit stubborn I opted not to give formula and tried my best with herbal supplements and pumping. Although it was working slowly I jumped at the chance when the doctor offered a prescription to domperidone. Thinking it was an easy solution and started taking it. Two weeks after taking them, a family friend who is a nurse was concerned I was taking them. Told me about the issues it can cause with your heart. When I mentioned it to my mom, she begged me to stop taking them and made me Google your perspective.

I’m so sorry for your daughter’s death, but I thank you for sharing your story. Because I stopped taking those pills and am disgusted that doctors continue to give them to mothers who like me will try anything for their kids. So thank you and I wish you nothing but peace and love.

That’s all I have for today. My tweets about this on Saturday garnered a lot of responses from people who were unaware, or who had acknowledged hearing about the cautions needed with Motilium, because we had been trying hard to spread the word. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start. So, thank you.

Just a thought… Confidence in the past gives us the courage to look forward to the future. [author unknown]

What a week, what a week – and it’s only Thursday. The tragic deaths of 63 beautiful Canadians in Tehran in a plane crash could very easily have hit home for us: having hosted two Iranian Canadians in our house in the past year, I scrolled through news stories yesterday with tightness in my stomach. The lovely man and woman we know are safe, but, oh, the suffering for those families in the aftermath of this enormous disaster.

I awoke yesterday to clips of the slurring, sniffling, haphazardly made-up “president” stumbling through a speech to the United States without the background cacophony of a helicopter’s engines to hide what appeared to be his slipping grip on just about everything from diction and balance to logic.

Already in 2020 it’s been hard to keep looking to the horizon and feel positive. But that’s what we have to do, those of us who don’t have a role in making change actually happen.

Every day, like the yogi who sits with the smallest smile to convince herself that a position is one she can endure for just…a few…more seconds, each day I post a positive picture and quote on my Facebook page. Sometimes I tweet them or post to Instagram. And I’m finding that this role I’ve inadvertently adopted, as a purveyor of positivity, actually helps in my attitude towards life.

I mean, if I don’t believe what I’m saying, I’m not going to share it. I’ve been like that with endorsements during my career, and I’m not shredding my integrity now just for more clicks and likes. Plus, people really seem to appreciate them. So I’ll keep doing it! Besides, it helps to keep me busy, and I really really need that right now.

So, where we are…the winter is going well and I look forward to a visit in February from all three of my sisters. Are we getting Harry and Meghan as neighbours back in North Saanich? It was almost a foregone conclusion that they’d want to move there (not that we know it’s their destination). After all, it was where Rob and I decided to land after leaving our lives, as soon as we’d visited. Perhaps, perhaps.

Back to reality: besides letting dark thoughts permeate when the occasional military jet screams overhead, of course…. I worry for our own armed forces personnel in areas being attacked because of the whims of mad men. But amidst the predominant silence that surrounds us sits a much smaller existential crisis. What now?

I’m sure it’s a question that a lot of people ask as one year fades away and a new one steps through the open doors of our lives. But where do we go from here? I’m not good at introducing myself to agents (and I definitely need one) but my plan is to expand my public speaking in 2020.

I’ve sent a produced video of the 30-minute business version of my “Reclaiming Joy: You Have a Choice” speech to a few speakers’ bureaus and gotten automated responses, if any answer at all. It’s not what I’d hoped for, but I guess it’s to be expected. Everyone wants to be the next Brené Brown. (But, um, what if I am? LOL)

As I set my dream map for this year, I see so many possibilities. Maybe I can be invited for a guest spot co-hosting a TV show, which is a big hope, but one I hold onto. Sure, there are geographic and financial limitations (most shows don’t pay guest hosts or their travel and accommodations – if can you believe that) but I look at Jann Arden, my hero, as inspiration!

There is some podcast work in the offing and I may be asked to be a presenter of a home mortgage equity program that looks honest, promising for customers and truly worthwhile considering. There’s a real estate podcast that’s in the works, too. And with our history of moving, I sure do know the questions to ask!

The future holds plans for me that I can’t imagine, but patience was never my strong suit. I can’t just sit here and vegetate. I have so much more to do and to give, but what – and to whom?

This is really the first time since I stepped away from radio that there hasn’t been a “big plan” in the works. Write the book. Re-write the book. Promote the book. Do interviews. Make public appearances. Sign books, give and receive welcome hugs, share stories and offer any words of comfort I can.

While the empty spaces on my 2020 calendar afford me a certain amount of relaxation, it’s not what I really want right now, to be honest. I need this book, this project, to take on another life, but I can’t foresee what that’s going to be, or where it’s going from here. Again, patience – dammit!

How do I get Mourning Has Broken into the US? It has been delivered by hand (by an amazing woman named Carolyn) to Marie Osmond, herself a bereaved mom. Did she get time to read it over the holidays? Might she suggest it to a producer on The Talk? Who knows?

Right now – here, today – I’m grateful for you and to have a place where people can reach out to ask me about sobriety, as they have been doing. It’s a real honour and, again, I don’t give advice – just support and perspective. There are people who know so much more than I, but I’m lucky to have a position where people might say, “Well, if she had a problem and can talk about it, why can’t I?” and truly, that’s the most rewarding part of all of this.

Have a safe weekend and thank you for coming by. Think peaceful thoughts and we’ll get through all of this together.

Just a thought… The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. [Dan Millman]

HELLO!!!! So, have we settled on just what we are calling this year? 20-20? Two-thousand-and-twenty? Two-thousand-twenty? I hope that there’s some kind of consensus; I’m tired of recording two or three different versions of a year when I do auditions. “In two-thousand-and-ten…in twenty-ten…” and on and on. An informal Twitter poll I posted showed nearly 100% of us are saying 20-20. So there we go!

OK – confession: I wish I hadn’t put off writing a new journal until the 6th; I figured many people wouldn’t be back in their routine until today if the school board schedules (by which we used to time our radio vacations) are any indication. I have a lot to tell you.

Some of you know from FB and other social platforms that Mourning Has Broken (which comes out next month in soft cover) ended 2019 on some Top Ten lists: #9 on the Toronto Star for Non-Fiction Canadian, #10 in the Globe and Mail; #20 for international authors, non-fiction in The Star.

Rob and I had a joyful morning (on my late, feisty grandmother’s 111th birthday Dec. 28) as the lists were sent our way by readers – thank you all. And the news couldn’t have come at a better time.

My dear friend and radio partner Mike Cooper left the day before the lists came out. The silence in the house was, as the saying goes, deafening. Molly kept trotting around, checking to see where the man with the big voice was. The heaviness of that quiet, the lonely realization that it was back to our “normal” after several boisterous days together, hit hard.

We enjoyed a road trip, a Christmas turkey dinner, a night out together (seen above) and enough moments to hold onto for the months between now and our next visit, likely in May when I return to Toronto for two events.

On December 30th I marked my 6 month “birthday” as they call it in 12-step groups. Yes, I made it to 10 years the first time around, but every milestone is a big one. So yay. More cranberry and soda, please. I posted this on Twitter:

There were literally hundreds of messages and a few dozen extremely personal and touching emails from people wanting to know more. Of course, I answered as best I could, deeply honoured to have been taken into people’s confidence and hearts.

There were two people on Twitter who objected to me using an F-word, even with dashes, to express myself. (One said I was obviously not a nice person. Such a gift he has, being able to sum up another person so succinctly through just one tweet!) I responded this way:

And the tweets that followed were nothing short of hilarious, almost all dipping into their colourful vocabularies as well. Ah, Twitter.

Out of those two tweets came an interview with the National Post. An intern named Merna got in touch on NYE day and asked for a chat. Of course, I obliged, and the result is here.

I did reach out later and offer Merna one correction on the initial print article: I was off work, not for a year, but a month. However, there’s one word that made it into the story that I wish I could change: “advice.” I am in no way giving advice to people who reach out to me; just support. I’m not in a position to offer anything except perspective and what is working for me.

My biggest message is to talk to someone – anyone, even if it’s online – if you think that your drinking is not something you can control any more. (Is that advice?) I cringe to think that my fellow 12-steppers and the folks who have guided me to where I am today think that I, of all people, am giving advice. So please know that’s not the case.

I haven’t gotten a “how dare you?” email yet (and have resisted reading comments on the Post website, as that’s nothing but a cesspool, if past experience with that section of the paper has taught me anything) but with that one word, advice, I would not be surprised at all to get one. I guess I’ve been lucky.

But honestly, there are a great many more things to be concerned about today than one little word that may be misconstrued: the devastation in Australia, the insanity coming out from a grievous gargoyle on a golf cart in Florida. But I’ll keep trying to remember to accept the things I cannot change, and to try to make a difference in the ways that I can – however small.

Have a gentle “first day back” and I’ll be with you on the usual social media platforms, plus here with you Thursday. And I wish all of us a peaceful 2020.

Just a thought… Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance – each beautiful, unique and too soon gone. [Deborah Whipp]

Ah, here we are, Christmas Eve EVE.

This is a time so blessed and cursed with memories and feelings that I like to go back to the happiest times. Of course, those are the days and nights around Christmas that are all about a little girl, her short, sweet lists (“a kitar – guitar, that is – and a flashlight”) and the craziness of opening presents for hours on that most special morning of the year. 

This year, as every year has been since 2015, things are much different. There’s no tree, no lights – just a few candles that we would likely light anyway.

We have with us our friend Mike Cooper who is in a similar space of stillness and memories, and that’s just fine with us. We’ll laugh together. There will be quiet. Some tears. And then, because our friendship always buoys our heavy hearts and brings us back to the surface, more laughter.

This is a time of quietly and frequently travelling back to the Christmases when we were children, when the memories of breathless excitement of surprises and delights are etched on our hearts, in our minds. Of the family. The food. The music (and we always had so much in our family of performers) and the warmth.

The laughing and the fighting, the torn wrapping paper stuffed into garbage bags. Full glasses, empty glasses, Pillsbury Grands (which we’ll have this year with Mike in our home Christmas morning) and green paper-wrapped oranges. Stockings. Santa!

The trees – which went from artificial to, in our final two years with them, real and glorious. The tree to end them all, as this was, from 2014.

And then, there were the cards. Some came from afar, some from co-workers and even from our daughter: the ones that we’ve tucked away, the ones we wish we had.

And so I wrap up this Christmas season with not a bow, but a card: this is a poem that my co-worker and friend Jay Kennedy passed along to me years ago. I would share it on our “Christmas Eve at Erin’s” show and I’m so glad to have found it to bring this poem to you once again.

I do so with love. I wish you a heart filled with only the best memories. Put the others aside for another day and wrap yourself in what keeps you warm: love. Family. Comfort. Joy. And always, gratitude – as I have for you every day that we share here.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, a peaceful Holiday Season, a Happy Hanukkah and, again, only the best memories. I’ll be back with you with a new journal on Monday, January 6 (but definitely on Facebook just about daily – so join me there, click ‘thumbs up’ and I’ll invite you to join the page).

One more picture before I sign off from this extraordinary year: here I am with Dad (now 86), Molly (now 15) Colin (now 5) and Lauren (forever 24). 

Christmas Cards

I have a list of folks I know, all written in a book 

And every year when Christmas comes, I go and take a look. 

And that is when I realize, these names are all a part 

Not of the book they’re written in, but simply of my heart. 

For each name stands for SOMEONE, 

who has crossed my path some time 

And in that meeting they’ve become the rhythm of my rhyme. 

And while it sounds fantastic for me to make this claim 

I really feel that I’m composed of each remembered name. 

And while you may not be aware of any special link 

Just meeting you has changed my life, a lot more than you think. 

For once I’ve met somebody, that the years cannot erase 

The memory of a pleasant word or a friendly face. 

So never think my Christmas cards are just a mere routine 

Of names upon a Christmas list, forgotten in between. 

For when I send a Christmas card that is addressed to you 

It’s cuz you’re on a list of folks I’m indebted to. 

For I am but the total of the many I have met 

And you happen to be one I prefer not to forget. 

And whether I have known you, for many days or few 

In some way you have had a part in shaping things I do. 

And every year when Christmas comes, I realize anew, 

The best gifts life can offer, is meeting folks like you. 

And may the spirit of Christmas, as long as it endures 

Leave its richest blessing in the hearts of you and yours. 

Just a thought… At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they’ll remember how you made them feel. [Maya Angelou]

I don’t know if anyone counts down to Boxing Day (or as they call it here in the US, Thursday, LOL) but here it is, just one week away. As push comes down to shove and the Christmas crunch gets even crunchier, you may be struggling for ideas. (I have a little gift for you when you get to the bottom today – a memory of Mike & Me and a politically incorrect and only vaguely musical version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” – so, um, you’re welcome? LOL)

Last year, you may recall that I did a “Friday Favourites” thing here, in which I listed a few ideas about things that made my life a little better. By the way, I still love my weighted blanket, although I think I might have gone too heavy in my choice. I’m seeing them in stores everywhere now and they come in a wider variety of weights than when I first saw them. But overall, I am glad I got it; saves piling one or two bathrobes on top of me at night (or hotel towels if we’re out of town).

If you haven’t got a good coffee maker, get one; life’s too short and mornings can be too difficult to face them by drinking weak, insipid coffee. And you don’t have to buy the really expensive makers or beans. Considering ourselves coffee connoisseurs of sorts, we love our Kirkland coffee, both regular and decaf, which we combine and grind. For what that’s worth – and to me, that’s a lot – those are a few little tips to add a bit of “aaaaaaah” to your holidays (and well beyond).

Maybe you’re looking for a gift for that person who’s hard to buy for. I’ve been accused of this by people close to me for years, but here’s the thing: I cherish anything that has come from the heart. My sister gave me some of her kitchen items when she cleared house a year ago and every single time I use one of them, whether it’s a measuring cup, a coffee mug, a candy dish or a candle, I think of her.

I don’t know if that makes me a sentimental twit, but I am always grateful for the warm association that comes with a gift – or even a hand-me-down. It’s the emotional link with the item – whether it’s my Gram’s precious paper-thin Belleek tea cup or my late mom’s super sharp paring knife (which I may or may not have pilfered from my dad’s cutlery drawer before he changed residences) – that truly matters.

So for that hard-to-buy-for person, the experience can make all the difference. Whether it’s the feeling he or she gets when they look at what you gave them, or the actual gift of an experience.

This year on my birthday, I received gift certificates for a float spa near here. You’ve seen me write about these before; almost every city has at least one. You go into a sensory deprivation state in a tub, closed or not, that has tonnes of Epsom salts to make you simply float at your body’s 98.6F degrees. It’s an hour of peace, tranquility and time to think – or not – just to be. Maybe you want to look into that – or run in the opposite direction as some say they would – but it’s just an idea.

My struggle this year (as always) is that Rob and I are intrinsically linked in our financial dealings, so that he can easily see what’s been purchased lately on VISA. We have a “don’t look!” rule for the rest of this month, so as to preserve a surprise or two.

And if you’re thinking of getting one of those devices like Google Home or Alexa or any of the others, I’ll tell you that I’m a big fan. We have one bigger unit (about 5 inches tall) and a small one about the size of a tuna can, so there’s music in whatever room we want (even though we have speakers wired into the ceiling that we don’t use), we get the time, the tunes, the weather, the answers to obscure TV personality questions – all right there. No, we’re not worried about anyone listening in on our mundane lives; I figure that Big Bro is there almost 24/7 so I’m not particularly concerned.

But here’s the one thing that DOES bug me about Google Home. Clearly 75% of the conversation in our house consists of Rob yelling from another room, “What?” and me responding, “I was talking to Google!” Honestly, it’s a real thing. But on the other hand, if he’s near one of our two devices, I can say, “Okay Google, broadcast…” and then talk to him through the device. Again, half the time he doesn’t hear what the speaker said, has to walk to wherever I am and ask me to repeat myself – but it sure does work (in theory)!

The best gift of all, in any life, isn’t your presents, it’s your presence. And the memories that each one comes with. I have a bottle of Silly Cow hot chocolate mix, bought at Winners, from Lauren’s last Christmas with us. Unopened, it was a gift from her that will always stay in the cupboard, although maybe one day we’ll have a cup of that cocoa with Colin. I think she’d like that.

Have a great week and we’ll be with you again (with daily posts at my Facebook page, through Twitter @erindavis and on Instagram @erindawndavis if you’re so inclined). And thanks to everyone who’s clicked LIKE on my Facebook invitations. And if you have been invited and haven’t clicked LIKE yet, what are you waiting for? It guarantees you’ll get a daily dose of inspiration or humour as well as a link to Monday’s and Thursday’s Journals!

Now, here’s a link to my Audio Gallery, where you’ll find a recording of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” that Mike and I did a few years ago. Enjoy!