Remembering Mom and Dad

 

This past week would have been Mom and Dad's 71st wedding anniversary. They were married on August 30th, 1952. While many families make a regular practice of visiting their loved ones'  gravesites, I've never found much comfort there. It's not a familiar place, a place they spent time. 

Fortunately, our family had the opportunity to donate a bench in their honour at Champlain Park, across the street from their house, where they lived for over 60 years. That neighbourhood, that park, the nearby Ottawa River - that is where I feel their presence. 

So, on some of the special occasions,  some of us in the family decorate their bench. It is our way of celebrating them. On their anniversary this week, I tied on a photo from their wedding day and a poem I wrote for their 30th anniversary. There are still many "old time" residents of Champlain Park who remember Mom and Dad, but many more newcomers, who will not recognize their names on the bench. This way they'll learn a little bit about them. We were so lucky, to have them, for so long!

Only five minutes of fear

 It's been a summer of extreme weather. All around the world and across Canada, people have experienced drought, extreme heat, typhoons, floods, tornadoes and wildfires with their resulting smoke. Here in Ottawa we have mostly been lucky. We started off the summer with wildfire smoke and extreme heat but that all subsided into a fairly usual summer.

Except for the storms. Last Thursday, August 3rd, a tornado touched down in the southern section of Ottawa. It's the the thirrd time that has happened here this summer. We are getting used to alerts on our phones, warning us of damaging thunderstorms and/or tornados. Click here to read Bruce Deachman's piece in the Ottawa Citizen. 

On Friday July 28th, I was driving near the Experimental Farm, about ten minutes from our house, when a violent thunderstorm hit. I couldn't see where I was going so I pulled over and waited it out, as hail pounded the car. For those few minutes I was scared, as I wondered how long it would last and what else might happen. 

When it subsided I slowly drove home, to avoid the gigantic puddles on many streets. It turned out that I had stopped in an area that was not that hard hit, compared to our neighbourhood. The hail where I stopped my car was not large enough to leave any marks. However, any cars that were parked in our neighbourhood were left with dimpled roofs. The hail here was golf ball sized! One of the unexpected outcomes was our damaged screens. The sideways hail was so strong that the screens on the west side of our house now have holes. The flashing on our roof is dimpled. Homeowners with older windows found some to be cracked or broken. 

As I spoke to my husband and others who were home at the time of the storm, they all said the same thing. They were scared. They thought all their windows were going to break. After it all stopped we surveyed the damage and got to work, raking the leaves and branches. It seemed like fall when you drove around, with so many folks out raking, in the middle of summer. (And then there was the totally annoying sound of leaf blowers, at all hours. How I hate those things ! ) We were lucky. We didn't lose any trees around us.

                                          Strange to be raking in the middle of summer !

And so, we got off relatively unscathed. We have 5 small screens to repair but that's nothing compared to the catastrophic weather events happening all over. If we were scared for five minutes, what is it like for those caught in a flash flood, or in wildfires ? What it is like to go to bed, with your bags packed, knowing that you might suddenly have to evacuate your home?

The 5 minutes of trauma here is nothing compared to what so many experience every day in war torn countries. In Niger now, in Syria, in Ukraine...how do those people go about their daily lives, knowing that everything could be violently destroyed at any moment? 

As I write this, it's a sunny morning and the cicadas are singing. to tell me that it's going to be a hot day, a day to go for a swim perhaps. And so we go about our ordinary lives, spending summer time with family and friends, while evidence of climate change hovers around us. 

Other neighborhoods had it worse than us.

What to do? We all need to do what we can, to be kinder to the earth. We need to encourage our children, grandchildren, and our governments to pursue policies and practices to reduce climate change. And, whenever possible, we need to offer support to those caught in the middle of natural disasters and war. Their ongoing pain is so much worse than what we have experienced here. 

                                        Hail, still on the ground, two hours later.

Happy Pride !

 Thank goodness for the young people in our lives! Whether they are our children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren, our relationships with them help to keep us current. One of the areas that we have been helped with, is our familiarity with LGBTQ2+ issues. 

A few years ago, Norah's family, who lives in Toronto, gave us a rainbow flag. We often fly flags so that was appropriate but this flag was not one we would have bought ourselves. "Why does this rainbow flag look different?" we asked. "Grandma",  our grandchild answered, somewhat impatiently. "It's not a rainbow flag, This is a pride progress flag." This updated flag is meant to include more marginalized communities. 

So we have flown our flag during June for the past three years. In Toronto, many businesses and homes fly similar flags. In Ottawa, not so much. We haven't seen another flag like ours in our neighbourhood. I wondered what our neighbors thought. How does it make them feel? Do they appreciate us flying this flag? Do they think it's strange for us to fly it? 

As time has gone by, and I have listened to more media reports about how this community is being treated, I have felt more strongly about how important it is, to show solidarity with them. In a time with so many more pressing issues to worry about (climate change, the war in Ukraine etc.) why are people wasting their time and energy targeting a group of people for no good reason? 

And then, out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, a friend in the neighbourhood thanked me for flying the flag. It means a lot to him and his partner. I was touched that he mentioned it and told him we are happy to fly it. This community, made up of our neighbors, our friends and our family members, need to know that we support them, especially now.

Last weekend we were in Toronto. On Saturday, the day before the Pride parade, we drove to the train station and then decided to walk around. We went to the wonderful St. Lawrence Market, then walked around Church St. which was blocked off for Pride weekend. After that, we ended up at the old Maple Leaf Gardens building, which now houses a large Loblaws on the ground floor. 

Everywhere we went, we encountered people in a happy mood. It was like being at a Christmas parade but instead of hearing "Merry Christmas" we kept hearing "Happy Pride ! " We bumped into a couple of Norah's friends from her high school days here in Ottawa.  It was good to see them and all the other families out for a stroll, in a celebratory mood. I was impressed with all the creative slogans and displays at various businesses. You can call it mere marketing but it worked for me. Having these businesses put their money into supporting Pride events should help to make us realize that all of us, regardless of our backgrounds, are all part of humanity. We all deserve happiness, safety, comfort and love in our lives. Visible signs and symbols really do matter.

Along Church Street

The lobby of the Royal York Hotel

Rainbow pizza at Loblaws

Bubly display

 

Bakery counter at Loblaws

                                           My favorite sign of the day !

Mother's Day, Service and the Coronation

As we celebrate Mother's Day and soon,  Father's Day, I think of my parents, but that is not unusual. Their expressions, their lessons, their care, is with me always.  If they were still with us, I would have watched the Coronation with them last weekend. Dad would have found it long and Charles' wardrobe changes ridiculous. Mom would have enjoyed the ceremony, especially the hymns. She would have been angry with Meghan and Harry.  However, I think they both would have appreciated the sermon, with its emphasis on service. 

When I awoke last Saturday morning,  I turned on the radio, expecting  CBC's usual Saturday morning show. Instead, I found myself listening to the sermon being delivered at the Coronation, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

"Service is love in action. We see active love in our care for the most vulnerable, the way we nurture and encourage the young, in the conservation of the natural world. We have seen those priorities in the life of duty lived by our King."

I was struck by his emphasis on the idea of service to others - that the King's role was to serve and that we, as well, were asked to serve. 

"Each of us is called by God to serve. Whatever that looks like in our own lives, each of us can choose God’s way today."

Later that morning, as we watched the Coronation, I took out this very special mug. 

My mother was in hospital on the Queen's Coronation Day, having recently given birth to me. On Coronation Day she received this mug, so it always makes me think of her and the start of her role as mother. There are no words to describe how well she served the six of us, as our devoted mother. As well, she served her church and community in many ways. She was always serving someone. 

Dad, as well, was a wonderful parent. Reminders of him are throughout our home, as he worked on it a lot.  Last weekend we got busy washing windows and putting in screens. One of our screens has seen better days. The metal framing is now wobbly and I was perturbed to see that the plastic lining that holds the mesh in place, had come out. 

I really didn't feel like dealing with it, but memories of Dad flooded back. I went downstairs and fetched a screwdriver. Dad was, among many other titles, our repair guy. He could fix just about anything and we relied on him a lot. At one point he taught me how to use a screwdriver to repair a screen. And so I did.

There is a sense of satisfaction that comes with fixing something - a feeling that Dad must have experienced a lot. I felt pleased with myself and my little job. Teaching screen repair is only one of so many lessons Dad taught us. Maybe the bigger lesson here is not to throw things out, but to fix them. Again, as with Mom, I could never list all the ways that Dad used his many talents, to take care of his family and others. 

My grandmother used to say, "Give every devil their due." And so, regardless of what a person might think about the validity of the monarchy today, I think many might appreciate that the idea of service was a theme of Coronation weekend. Last Monday was a Bank Holiday in the U.K. It was called "The Big Help Out"  -  a day of national volunteering. Chris Brown, on CBC's The National , said that The Royals encouraged people to spend part of their holiday helping out in their communities. There were over 50 000 volunteering events planned across the U.K. The idea was to inspire more people to serve their communities, in whatever ways possible. Click here to see his report. 

And so, as I think of my parents, I think of their example, of their service to others. As the  Archbishop of Canterbury declared last weekend,  service is love in action.  

Happily, we escaped the heavy snows of Ottawa for three weeks. We drove to Florida and really enjoyed our family time there. On the way home we visited Washington for the first time. Our two days in Washington were the same days that President Biden was in Ottawa. Along the way we met so many really friendly, helpful people. I wrote about them, in this  piece, which appears in The Ottawa Citizen. Click here to read it. 

The Virginia Welcome Centre, where Katrina helped me contact the restaurant

At the Lincoln Memorial

Cherry trees along the Tidal Basin

Inside the National Gallery

                                                 The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

                                          Cherry trees.  Me, with the famous purse

How do I loathe thee?

 I just read over my last blog post, from way back in March. In it I spoke of being tired of bullies like Trump, Putin and the trucker invaders. So who is it that has provoked me into writing again, after such a prolonged absence?  Another bully - Ontario's Premier, Doug Ford. 

With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning - How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Last week Ford introduced and passed legislation that forced CUPE members to accept a lousy contract and then took away their right to strike. 

I don't believe Ford blinked on Monday because he cares about children being in the classroom. He withdrew the legislation because he realized that CUPE, along with  many other unions, were perhaps poised for a general strike. Also, public opinion seemed to favour the support workers  - the folks who actually keep our schools running.  

In September, in a conversation with my husband's cousin, we learned that she would likely be going out on strike this fall. She's a member of CUPE - a secretary in the student services department of a high school - an essential worker, if  ever there was one! (As a special eduction teacher, I relied on our student services secretary every day.) She was dreading a strike but it seemed inevitable.

If a strike seemed that likely to CUPE members a couple of months ago, why didn't the government take their concerns seriously and work to avoid the situation our schools found themselves in this past weekend? The untold hardship and stress that Ontario families found themselves in, could have been averted if this government had treated these workers with the respect they deserve. 

At the start of the pandemic I thought we came to the realization that we can't really function as a society without our essential workers - teachers assistants in our schools , cashiers in our grocery stores,  truck drivers who deliver our food,  personal support workers in our long term care facilities, nurses in our hospitals. Remember the mantra - we're all in this together? Where did all that goodwill go? If the Ontario government really valued the contributions of these employees they would pay them what they deserve. But no,  these education support workers needed to resort to drastic measures to get the government's attention. 

Instead of negotiating fair contracts with nurses and school support workers Ford gives handouts to the rest of us, to keep us compliant. Right now any student in Ontario is eligible to receive a $200. benefit. ($250. for students with special needs) . The province has set aside 365 million dollars for this program. What will the benefit be ? $200. might buy you four sessions of tutoring, if that is how a family decides to spend the money... if you can find a tutor for $50. However, these "Catch Up Payments"  are available to every student - the rich and the poor, the families with struggling students and the families with students who are at, or above grade level. What a foolish way to spend education dollars! 

Why not spend those millions on hiring another special education teacher for every school? And more social workers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and psychologists for the schools? 

2. This mindless gesture of giving every student  cash, goes into the same category as the license plate rebate earlier this year. Sure, everybody loves to get a cheque in the mail but that giveaway was crazy. Well, maybe not crazy if you want to win an election.

The Ontario government made the announcement in March. They would scrap licence-plate renewal fees and sticker costs. They would also refund the sticker costs paid by private vehicle owners in the previous two years. Ford's vote-buying strategy worked - he was returned  in June's vote with another majority. 

In March's announcement, Ford said the move would cost the government $1.1 billion annually in revenue. The premier told reporters, “The best place for your money is in your pocket, not the government’s pocket. "

It was a ridiculous move. No one was asking for the license plate fees.  When we vote for a government, we trust that they will take our hard-earned money and carefully consider where it can be spent, for the greater good of all members of society. Ford alluded to that in his statement this Monday, when he announced that he would go back to the bargaining table with CUPE.

"As stewards of taxpayers dollars, we also have a responsibility to the entire province. A deal with CUPE has massive impact on broader public service salaries, as well as the government's ability to invest in services like health care, transit, education and hospital infrastructure alongside other vital public services. " Duh...exactly. That's what we were thinking, when you gave us the 1.1 billion back, last spring. We thought you should have used that money for those vital services . 

Don't give us back 1.1 billion just before an election , as if the province doesn't need that money,  tell us we know better than government how to spend money, and then turn around a few months later and tell us you can't afford to pay our essential workers a decent wage. That's what our taxes and fees are for. 

3. When Ford treats us to one of his prepared statements he usually ends his "speech" with a blessing. "God bless the people of Ontario." Where does that come from? Is he really a religious person? Does he think that copying the Americans' "God bless America" will bring him more followers ? Contrast his "God bless the people of Ontario," with his odious wire brush comment, revealed in this week's testimony at the Emergencies Act Inquiry. Which is the real Ford? 

4. During the conversation between Ford and Trudeau, that was revealed in this week's inquiry session, Ford made it obvious that clearing the truckers protest  in Windsor was his priority, not Ottawa's three week occupation. Thanks for nothing Premier Ford. Ottawa is actually located in Ontario. We deserved your support last winter. 

5. "I'm always for helping the little guy, little gal. " Ford declared on Monday. I don't think so. Along with his reluctance to pay education workers a living wage, he recently tabled another bill, the More Homes Built Faster, bill. Among its many controversial regulatory changes is the decrease in requirements for affordable housing. (Click here for more details.) His government is ignoring the hard work and suggestions from cities like Ottawa and Toronto which would have required builders to provide a larger percentage of affordable units in new developments. Ford likes to promote his image as helper of the common man, but it's his developer cronies who benefit from his policies. 

6. Last year Ford promised that he would never use Ontario's greenbelt for housing . That was then, this is now. His new housing bill will seriously curtail current environmental protection of the greenbelt, parkland and  watersheds.  The ability of conservation authorities to question development plans will also be scaled back.  (Click here for more details. ) Clearly, the recent severe storms experienced in Ontario and all across the globe have had little impact on his understanding of climate change.

We've got a very long, four years ahead of us. 

Words of Encouragement

 What a bleak time we are living through. There are so many layers of despair all around us. As I have written previously, I have been dealing with the loss of my parents. Mom's illness and death occurred in the early stages of the pandemic - a word that I had not paid attention to, before we were in the middle of one. We have all suffered, in unforeseen ways, over these past two years. 

Just as we were emerging from this dark period, Ottawa and many parts of Canada were subjected to the occupation of our city and other vital areas. Having to witness the selfish behaviour of the occupiers was a rude introduction to this section of Canadian society. 

Just when we finally got our city back, Russia invaded Ukraine, plunging us all into another dark hole.  The images we are now seeing are unbelievable. It is difficult to understand how one person can be responsible for so much destruction and profound sorrow. I am grateful that my dear parents are not alive to see how the world has turned backwards. 

What to do? How can we go about our days, knowing that so many are living in fear and misery? There are many agencies, working in Ukraine, looking for our donations.  Our local Ukranian Church is starting to accept donations of various items to send to Ukraine so I bought a few things this afternoon. As I put some boxes of baby food pouches into my cart I was overcome with sadness, wondering who might eat them - babies, or toddlers, children or even desperate adults? 

While standing in line for a cashier, I became aware of a disgruntled customer at an adjacent cash. A middle-aged man was berating a cashier because there were no No Name peanuts available in the store. He had a rain check for that brand and he was ticked off there were none available. She explained they were having trouble getting them  and he went on and on, about how was he going to use his rain check! The poor cashier was extremely patient with him. When he finally left, another customer and I talked to her about his behaviour and  empathized with her.  

The more I thought about it, afterwards, the more I wished I had told him off, instead of waiting to speak after he left. I wish I had told him to look at the images from Ukraine and then complain, only if he had a real problem. But I didn't. That's what we do with bullies, don't we? We let them talk. We let them have their way. That's what we did in Ottawa for three weeks. We let the occupiers, those bullies,  take over our city and treat our special places with complete disrespect. I'm sick and tired of bullies, like Trump and Putin. 

I was in a pretty foul mood until I heard an interview on CBC radio's All In A Day with Alan Neal. He was interviewing Andrew Hon, the Associate Musical Director with the Ottawa Choral Society. On Sunday they will perform a piece called Annelies, which is a musical evocation of the diary of Anne Frank.

As I listened to Mr. Hon, it seemed he was giving me the pep talk that I needed, to keep on going, to not give in to anger and despair. Here is some of what he said about the message of Annelies:

"My hope is that, as we contemplate the words of Anne Frank, that we realize, her diary is a reminder of how the human spirit can prevail,  even during the darkest of days. ...It's about the human spirit and the human condition and how we cope with isolation and adversity in life...We can still have some hope in how we live our life....I want the audience to walk out of the concert hall, feeling inspired with how to treat people....We are so capable of hurting each other, especially people who are different.....We are also capable of loving and caring for each other. That is the core message of this piece."

Thank you Andrew Hon. I needed to hear you today.