time goes on.

all I want for my birthday is for Dad to call and sing to me.  

 It is the summer of bears, here.  I have seen two more sets since my last post - a tiny mom with two very small cubs and a giant brownish mom with two bouncy kids.  The last set was Saturday, and mom could have been a grizzly but I wasn't close enough to tell.  Mulder was with me, on the weekend, and wanted badly to go and visit with the cubs but I talked him out of it.

Dreamed of Dad, last week.  I was driving him and Mum in the mountains, we were going hiking but I wasn't convinced that it was a good idea.  Dad was directing me from the back seat and we ended up in a gentle valley with a large trail going straight and long towards a high valley between two peaks. Dad made me stop the car but I was thinking, he's never going to be able to walk all the way up there.  Last fall, one of his neighbours very kindly added extra steps to Mum and Dad's back porch because Dad couldn't get up and down the two steps.  He could only get into the car with difficulty, his legs were swollen from the various health issues dogging him.

I got out of the car and was messing with my stuff, Dad said, behind me, "Come on, then!" I turned around and he was striding off up the trail, but he wasn't old and infirm anymore, he was young like I remember him when I was a child, vibrant, solid, with brown hair and fit legs, wearing his climbing clothes and not using a stick.  He turned and grinned at me.  I said to Mum, who was standing next to me, "Look at him walking like he always used to, that's amazing."

Then I woke up.  And although I know it's just a dream, it makes me think that he's ok.  wherever he is there's mountains and walking, and he's not hurting.

 Things move along. I got a small contract to mark undergraduate term papers for the University, which was gratifyingly intense, and another set of statements to transcribe so I continue to keep my head above water financially without leaving home.  

I was thinking yesterday when reading Alexander McCall Smith, where people are referred to as "the late" when dead in Botswana, and that my dad would now qualify as late.  How much he would hate that. He was never late.  I remember him being upset with people who couldn't get it together to go places when they said they were going to (my brother, specifically) and bitching about Canadians having no sense of time.  My whole life, after his training, I've been that person who has to sit and wait for things to start for way too long.  Although, I have made people happy in that sometimes they say, "Oh, I'm so pleased to see you, I wasn't sure anyone would come."

Also yesterday. I went into town in the morning, ostensibly to meet the detachment commander, we've been emailing about the possibility of work, and he wanted to meet.  So I duly showed up at 10 (on the dot - see above) as requested.  You'd think I'd know better, really. How many times did I have to tell the person waiting in the porch that the member they were coming to see had been called out to something and I didn't know when they would be back.  He was at a meeting.  Pleasantries were exchanged between the clerk and me, I left my number, she promised to get him to call when he got back in the office.

I went home.  Decided to go for a run, because it was almost lunchtime anyway.  Set off with the intention of going down the water plant road to the track leading to the railroad. That's not my usual path, but it's a steepish hill and it makes the coming back harder, so bonus. It was a beautiful shiny day, and Spotify gave me Burton Cummings singing Fine State of Affairs, and then John Denver, the song about poems and prayers and promises.  "I've been lately thinking, about my lifetime, all the things I've done, and how it's been." Not the most upbeat song, but I wasn't running fast, just steadily.

As I rounded the corner halfway down towards the railroad, dark shapes were moving on the track. I realized it was a black bear and at least one cub, but I was looking at their butts so I turned around and ran back up the hill, hoping they hadn't seen me or heard my bell.  I was moving pretty fast.  I know you're not supposed to run away from them but as soon as I rounded the corner again they wouldn't be able to see me even if they were looking. Got back up to the water plant road, glanced back and no bears following so I kept running.  By then, after taking the hill so fast and then running flat out on the road I was totally out of breath.  I slowed down, took off my headphones, and my phone started to ring.  I fumbled to release the Bluetooth connection and answered it.  It was, of course, the detachment commander.  I tried not to huff at him and we spoke briefly about me coming back at one.

When I met him, after lunch, we were talking about here and how wild and beautiful it is.  I said, oh, yes, sorry I was out of breath this morning when you called, I was running away from bears.  

 All right.  Talk about something else.  

Rachel had said to me, when we were putting our shoes on to go back down to the bridge on Saturday (she visits on the weekends and parks down by the bridge, because the river is in the way and only has a pedestrian bridge, but driving here by the road takes three times as long - so I walk down to meet her and then we walk the dog, come back to the house and visit, then I walk her back to her car so we can keep chatting) "Aren't you bringing your bear spray?"  I told her, no, we weren't going far but when I was coming up the hill by the farm with the sheep and goats I could hear something crashing in the bush so I stopped.  A large black thing was down by the fence on the other side of the pasture.  As I watched, it stood up and started climbing over the fence, black and furry, must have been five feet tall at least when standing full up.  My brain registered that it could be a bear, but it still looked kinda like a man in a fur suit.  It flopped over the fence and curled up in a ball on the other side, as if laughing at itself, then got up and ambled off on all fours.  (Away from me, I should add).

So I'm not leaving the house without my bear spray now.  

 Got vaccinated on Wednesday.

On the way there in the car, I started thinking about how if they'd done this four months ago, I might have been able to go and visit Dad before he died.  This line of thinking was a deep and direct hole into the hell of would/could/should have and...

So I'm sitting there at the table, waiting for the nurse to give me the shot and she's talking, talking, talking and asking me about my health history and then explaining the vaccine and suddenly I realize I'm about to start crying and there's nothing I can do about it.  So I let it happen.  She was unperturbed, gave me the shot anyway.  She thought I was crying because I was scared of being poisoned by the vaccine but that wasn't it.  I just kept thinking of Dad saying that he would be the first in line for the vaccination if it meant that he could see his family and go back to his normal life.  He never got to do that.  Too late...

Anyway.  No ill effects so far.  Nurse said I was very brave.  I didn't get a sticker, though.  disappointed about that.  

Last night I dreamt Dad was still alive and for some reason wanted a puppy.  So I was looking for one for him.  

 Rachel said to me, while we were driving down the road to the farm the other day, that grief is a physical process.  I understand now what that means.

sometimes I find myself crying without any volition from my brain.  just an upwelling and the feeling of a sticky lump of (what? muscle? bone? pain?) in my throat.  sometimes I stop in the middle of what I'm doing, exhausted in a deep way that has no end.  my brain helpfully plays me chunks of songs.  for some reason it is alternating between the impossible John Denver thing The Eagle and the Hawk and that Foster the People song about shooting everyone you know.  all that we can be / and not what we are.  he's bringing me a surprise.

somedays now I don't cry.  these days are always followed by days where I do cry.  I'd like to stop, now.  (I know, I've said that before).  that thing about God not sending you more than you can bear, I can bear this but I don't want to.  it's gone on long enough now, he can come back and consult with me on the 100 tomato seedlings I'm cultivating.  good thing I have a big greenhouse.

 it's strange to have a relationship with someone who no longer exists in corporeal form.  I talk to him, think about him, but he doesn't talk back and he doesn't think about me.  I try not to think about what happened to the physical parts of him, the pain and the dying and the cremation, flames and the sheer horror of that.  I think that's the bit no-one ever talks about -  the shying away from thoughts of destruction, the loved body that held the loved person.  how do I live on, knowing that the (now minuscule) pieces of him are in a box and no longer animated?  what happened to all his memories?  what happens when I don't remember a story properly now?  Do I fill in my own interpretations?  what was he doing or thinking in that picture where he's standing next to the river holding up his mug?  I'm sure I will mangle the stories when I try to tell them, but that is all I have now.

and yet I know that although he was the star of my childhood, the one person I wanted to emulate and impress, I was only a part of his life.  that I wasn't born until he had already lived three very intense decades without me.  and I will likely (in the best of all possible worlds) live another three decades or so without him now.  it's the overlap that counts, in his life and mine, his memories and mine, his love and mine, but do I now have to be my own role model?  I'm not ready for this.  I don't know if I can.

I have a handwritten letter on my wall.  found it in my desk when I was rummaging for meaningful things in the middle of the night while he was ill and I couldn't sleep for hating everything about the impossibly fraught days and nights.  He sent me seeds every year while I was in the Arctic, to plant in my dining room. It is addressed to "Dear (my full name) AKA carrot puller", and talks about how he remembers my imaginary childhood friends.  (I had a lot of them and he was always really good about holding the hand of Molly, my favourite, when I needed to leave her somewhere for a few moments on the playground).  He wishes me luck with my Doctorate (which is why it's on the wall).

As for the carrots, he reminded me a few years ago that when I was about five, he was growing a garden and planting vegetables, including a row of carrots.  He couldn't understand why they didn't grow properly, they all were about thumb-sized and hard when he harvested them.  I eventually told him that I had been fascinated with the process, and had, over the time they were in the ground, pulled them all up to examine them regularly and then re-buried them...

what I take from the letter is that he knew me.  knew my unquenchable curiosity and offside imagination, and felt that these would assist me with my ventures.  and also I remember that he thought it was hilarious that I unearthed the carrots to check on their progress and wasn't mad at me.  and he recognized that we made connections between things in the same way.  I guess I'm gonna keep digging.

 In my mind, there's a black line that divides time, right around 7AM on February 24th.  Before the line, Dad was alive and there was hope, then the line, when everything changed in a second.  After the line, I struggle to make sense of a world without my best person.  

There are ok days and bad days.  Days where I go to lie in bed at 3pm like a small child, wanting my Dad.  Days where I go about my business but think about him a lot.  Days where nothing seems to matter and I question everything.  Answers are slow.

One thing that I do think about a lot is that although I shared a lot of things with Dad, I wasn't a boy.  My brothers weren't into the same things Dad was, other than sport.  I'm happy, though, that Ian came along and shared those same things with Dad (music, walking, paying attention to people, woodworking, loving to tell stories...) and they had a special relationship.  Like a second chance, an extra unexpected person who comes along, for each of them, and redecorates their life (to quote that terrible Kenny Rogers song).  I sent Ian back the letters he had sent Dad over the last ten years, they were right on top of Dad's dresser drawer, on top of more recent things, suggesting that he had re-read them recently.  

I'm trying not to smoke.  I'm trying to remember why I'm doing the stuff.  I'm trying.

 Home.

I drift around, go running and cry, work in a disconnected way on my PhD stuff.  Answer emails.  Video calls with mum waving a wine glass and asking the same questions over and over.  The dog sits with me, Miguel pats me and hugs me when I'm visibly upset.  The sun shines and the mountains glisten in the overarching light.  I listen to the Julian Bream album Dad had on his workbench next to his CD player, crisp clear Baroque guitar.  Coffee and cigarettes, dreams that I don't remember but know were fractured and make me wake up with tears in my eyes.

I talked to my friend Karen on the phone the day before yesterday, slid over the whole death thing, we chatted about our kids and the future.  I don't want to talk about it anymore with people who aren't my brothers.  It makes people uncomfortable and they say unhelpful things.  'One day at a time.'  Seriously, is there any other way to do it??  My dad's older brother emailed me.  We discussed the Royal family scandals.  

I rummaged through my two boxes of memorabilia, found some more pictures of and letters from Dad, framed a small photo of him smiling, for my desk.  I feel I am lovingly archiving him, tucking him away safe in my heart, concentrating on the bits of me that are him.  I hate that I'll never be able to give him a hug again.  If I get the job I interviewed for last week he'd be the first one I'd want to tell - an emergency response job and he gets why I would want it.  I took his seeds from his potting shed (they are last year's and the year before's but I'm gonna plant them anyway) and they will go in my greenhouse.  That I'll never get to show him in person.  The time passes slowly.  I fail to see the point in a lot of things.  I'm re-reading Pema Chodron - 'The Places That Scare You'.

"We know that all is impermanent; we know that everything wears out.  Although we can buy this truth intellectually, emotionally we have a deep-rooted aversion to it.  We want permanence; we expect permanence.  Our natural tendency is to seek security; we believe we can find it.  We experience impermanence at the everyday level as frustration.  We use our daily activity as a shield against the fundamental ambiguity of our situation, expending tremendous energy trying to ward off impermanence and death."

 as they say, and although I'm still fighting it somewhat, Life Goes On.

today was a better day, no more fighting and not too much drinking.  we went for a walk, saw the peacocks in Beacon Hill Park.  Went to the grocery store and I managed not to want to kill anyone and even bought some food.  Our walk was leisurely, a beautiful day, there were squirrels and dogs for Sam's amusement.  (more about him later).  

I was feeling for a while that I wasn't on the verge of tears but then we got back into the car and Roy turned on the radio.  The song that was playing was Extreme's More Than Words and it was about half over, so the music started exactly at:

'then you wouldn't have to say

that you loved me

cos I'd already know'

and I felt the tears coming again.  I'm sure it was a total coincidence, the universe is full of them, but it was something I needed to hear, anyway.  It doesn't matter that dad didn't say he loved me in our last facetime call, he didn't stop loving me between the last phone call and the end of his life.  

then later I was sitting outside on the steps smoking*.  There's a honeysuckle bush with flowers on it at the bend in the path and as I watched, an iridescent green and blue hummingbird darted over and visited some of the flowers.  Dad loved the hummingbirds, and it was lovely to see it.  Again, a coincidence, but a happy one.  The birds are going about their business.  It felt on the verge of normal, for the first time in a month.  I know things will never be the same again.  The fabric of the universe has a burn mark now, like when you suddenly catch a spark on your clothes by a campfire, but the hole won't get any bigger.  I just have to learn to live with it.  But I'm not going to try to patch the singed place, I'm going to live with it showing on my soul.  Normal is going to be different, but perhaps it can still be good.

I'm tired today.  Bone weary.  I lay on Roy's couch this afternoon before supper, and Sam the dog came and curled up with me.  I drifted off to sleep, quickly and deeply, with his little ball of warmth by my side.  They told me at supper that they had taken pictures and also run the industrial-size blender, but I didn't wake up.

*(yes, I did give it up four years ago but you know, sometimes you just need the chemical crutch to get through the days.  I'm not doing meth so there's that.).

 About a month ago now, I got the call from Roy on a Friday morning that Dad was in the hospital. Few details at that point, but the message was clear. This is serious.

I found a phone number and called the hospital. A recorded message that basically said, we're too busy to go find your loved one and put them on the phone.  Screw off.  Oh and you can't come and visit because Covid. Goodbye. 

Graeme called me in the afternoon and said that he had pressed buttons until he got a person and then said, "I'm calling from Australia, I'd like to talk to my dad" and they gave him the number to dad's room and he was cheerful and chatty. I agonized for a while as to whether to call him or not, as I didn't want to wake him up if he was sleeping or bug him if he was feeling badly, but in the end, I did call.  He answered the phone and was his usual self, said that he was waiting for the nurses to come and poke him with needles and could I call back in half an hour.  In about 45 minutes I called back.  He answered and before I could say anything he said, "Hi, kid," like he always does, and told me he'd just got back into bed and was settled.  We chatted for a while.  He asked about the kids, I told him they were good, I asked about the hospital, he said everyone was friendly.  He started to cough (fluid on his lungs) and I said, "I'll call you again tomorrow if you're still in hospital."

One of the things about calling dad is that he was always happy to hear from me.  Invariably.  I loved the moment when I said, "hi dad," and he would reply with joy in his voice.  Hi, kid!"

The next day, he was still in hospital, but it was a different hospital with a cardiac unit, courtesy of a nice helicopter, and he was getting ready for surgery.  This is, coincidentally, the cardiac unit that Roy works on, so he went to dad's room with his phone and facetimed us.  I have to say that I remember very little about that conversation other than that dad seemed tired and drawn. There would be more agonizing facetime conversations over the next three weeks.

His condition was deteriorating.  I'm tired of the gruesome medical details.  there was a non-invasive cardiac operation. It was successful.  he was in a sort of coma state for a breath-holding few days, during which time I wandered around in my woods and cried in whooping bursts thinking about what happened if he didn't wake up.  He woke up.  We jubilated. But he was delirious.  He told Roy that some people were coming to visit him from Yorkshire because they were going to offer him a job.  Roy said, you might not be fit for work right now.  His blood pressure fluctuated. then his kidneys, damaged by the heart drugs, began to fail. dialysis ensued, was successful, but.

Perhaps you have noticed that I am referring to him in the past tense.  this is incredibly hard for me and I still can't believe it.

Roy facetimed us for dad every day, but it became an increasingly painful procedure, probably for all of us.  dad could not speak much because while he was in his comatose state he had a breathing tube and it had done something to his throat.  He sometimes seemed to recognize us and a couple of times stuck his tongue out at us, which sounds weird but he would do that, if he was behind a window or in a car and saw you.  we knew what he meant.  but I so wanted more.  I wanted him to tell me he loved me.  I lost count of how many times I told him.  Sometimes he just stared into space and then fell asleep while we were talking.  He looked dire, a feeding tube, a dialysis line in his neck, a bunch of machines.  They kept getting him out of bed and putting him in a chair which looked like a scene from Weekend at Bernie's.  Graeme and I, who were not there, were appalled.  We kept talking to each other in the middle of the night about how much we didn't want him to die but it really looked like he was going to.  Mum and Roy, who were with him a few minutes a day, were living in hope.  

On the 22nd of February, the doctors told us they could not do anything more to help him.  Doctor-speak for:  sorry, he's going to die.  We tried.  I asked if I should come.  Roy said yes.  I told all the kids what was happening.  Our groupchat was kinda dire, for those weeks, full of updates and downdates.  Dad had a good day, dad had a bad day.  During those three weeks, my world had contracted, the only important things the daily facetime ordeals, walks in the woods thinking about him, talking to the kids about him, listening to his music.  I stopped sleeping and really had to force myself to eat and drink water.  I drank a lot of tea.  Ate bananas, which was the only thing I wanted.  Miguel made me suppers and I tried to eat them, with limited success.

On the 23rd of February, a facetime call, he spoke a bit.  Mum told him I'd passed my last PhD exam that morning and he said, clearly and distinctly, "wow".  As in, I understand that this is a big deal.  That was the first time in a week or so that he had seemed to be with us.  We told him we loved him, again.  Roy called later and said that he had told mum he loved her (fair enough, only so much breath, they were together almost sixty years).  Roy called afterwards and told us that he was getting better.  I'm a bit hazy on some of the timelines of what came after.  That was Tuesday.  I got in my car and started driving.  I got to Peace River after dark and checked into a motel.  I started smoking the cigarettes that Miguel had kindly given me before I left home.  At 4:30 in the morning, awake, I went outside to smoke.  As I was standing there in the quiet darkness, I suddenly thought, I'm not going to make it in time.  I went back to bed.  Lying there, half-awake, I had a vision of his hand, his ridged nails and his backbent thumb like mine and I reached out to grab it.  Then I had a feeling of intense peace, as if all the breath had been expelled from my body and I was empty.

In the morning, I left a note for the cleaning staff with a twenty dollar bill, saying, "Thank you for the lovely clean room. I'm on my way to Vancouver to see my dad who is dying.  Please have coffee on me."  I packed up, pleased with my efficiency.  Made a thermos of hot water for coffee for the day.  I dropped off my motel key and went to my running car to get in and drive off to see him.

My phone rang.  It was a facetime call, I could see Roy and Mum, and they were crying.  But i couldn't hear their voices.  I knew what they were saying, though.  I messed with my phone and somehow hung up.  They called back and then I could hear them, saying that the hospital had phoned and said that twenty minutes ago his heart stopped.  He was asleep and the nurse was sitting with him and she just watched it go to nothing and that was it.  He was 83.

I didn't cry.  I called everyone who was awake - Jorden first, because I knew Rachel wouldn't have left for work yet but it's an hour later in Alberta.  Jorden said Kirsten had just texted him so I should probably catch her at work.  She asked if I wanted to her to come.  Honestly the answer was yes and if it wasn't Covid I would have taken her up on it.  Ian had worked a graveyard shift and was asleep so I asked Madelena to get him to call me when he woke up.  We discussed waking him, but my thought was that dad would still be dead at 3pm but at least Ian would be rested when he heard the news.  

I did some strange things during the day.  I somehow didn't communicate the news properly to Eric.  I misread a text of Rachel's as "I declined to go to work" when it was "I decided to go to work" and tried to call her.  I stopped at a gas station and bought another pack of cigarettes.  I was driving along and I was thinking about my greenhouse and thought, "oh I must remember to ask dad when I get there what kind of tomatoes I should grow".   And then I had to pull over because the crying had started.  I was doubled over crying in a rest area parking lot and a passer-by came and talked to me gently.  I told her that I was on the road to see him but it was too late, and now here I am in the middle of nowhere.  she said I should keep going. Told me I should go be with my family.   Ian called.  Madelena had told him, for which I was very grateful because I'd already done more next-of-kin notifications than I wanted to. I talked to him sitting on the side of the road in a reserve somewhere around Cache Creek, where the entrances to the communities were manned by guards keeping people out because of Covid.  Graeme sent me "Always look on the bright side of life" and I laughed and cried at the same time. 

Cruelly, it was a beautiful sunny day with a few fluffy clouds, and the mountains were gleaming in the sun.  I listened to Paul McCartney and Dvorak, and there was a measure of elation somehow in my pain, that the natural beautiful things that he had loved, all the peaks and the valleys and the miles of trees, were still so amazing.

Went to Victoria.  Arrived late at night after catching the ferry.  Roy fed me.  Mum was there.  We had a glass of wine.  Low-key in shock.  But then sleeping was impossible.  I dreamed that I was being asked to build a casket for dad out of old pallets.  I laid and looked at the ceiling for a long time.  Although today is only Saturday it feels like seven hundred years since Wednesday morning. On Friday morning I realized with a jolt that it had only been 48 hours, it didn't seem possible.  I would have guessed two weeks at least.

I had a panic attack in Whole Foods on Thursday, feeling like I was going to pass out or throw up or both simultaneously, all over the polished floors, because the other customers were blithely and brutally going about their business, unconcerned.  I was so angry with them, leading their lives and shopping for food for their families as if the most important person in the world hadn't died.  I turned to Roy, who was closest, and said, "I have to go be outside, now." He said, sure.  I left.  Called Jorden and he talked me down.  Reminded me that I should get food and fluids.  Which I hadn't done.  None of the food in the grocery store looked even remotely edible.

Mum is her own difficult self as usual.  At one point I was standing in the road, 2 AM, smoking, and the clouds were scudding by overhead.  I looked up, and asked dad why he had left me to do this?

Friday we made arrangements.  A funeral home sent paperwork.  We dutifully filled it out and sent it back.  Cremation, date unspecified, no service because of Covid.  

We alternate between talking normally of mundane things, memories of dad, bouts of Mum crying, but also catching up as it's years since we've seen each other in person.  I get to spend some time with my niece, who was a child last time I saw her and is now a teenager.  Dad should be here.  I smoke.  My emotions fluctuate too, and we set each other off.  Robyn yells at Luci about something and I find I'm crying in the porch, so I go outside.  Mum follows me and hugs me and I can't stop crying.  I want my Daddy.  I don't want to do this.  Like the bit when you're having a baby and it occurs to you that it has to come out the way it went in and you think, ok, I've changed my mind.  I run past the hospital and find myself weeping, tears in the pouring rain, because I think about dad being in the fridge there.  My mind says, well, they're going to take him out of the fridge and put him in the oven soon.  Rachel says, he'd be joking about being a popsicle.  He would.  This new surreal place I find myself in sucks.  Make it stop.

But it doesn't stop.  In fact it gets worse.  Today mum is mad at us, a misunderstanding but it drags on and requires fixing.  We go to their house and dad's not there, and we look for documents.  Luckily the will we find doesn't say, "I want to be buried" because I suspect it's too late.  He has organized and labelled everything we will need.  I am touched to find that he kept a note I sent him with a present for his birthday, in his bedside drawer.  I annex his bathrobe.  It smells like him.  I am no longer crying but I'm jagged and can't settle at all now, I want to go and walk until my legs give out but I should probably stay here with everyone else. 

All the roads in my head lead to him.  He always seemed so indestructible, so strong and upbeat. I keep thinking of all the things he loved to do, and how he's not here to enjoy them any more.  The cooking and woodwork and gardening and sailing and climbing and photography and drinking beer.  He shaped my life with his so-large life, in so many ways. Genetically, with our height and build and endurance. And so much more - it was his love of the mountains that brought us to this country, his musical taste that shaped mine, his work ethic and devotion to other people that drives my life, his curiosity and passion for adventure and walking that runs in my veins, his love of Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Blackadder that makes me spout quotes, his tendency to say out loud the things that should probably be kept in one's head that I suffer from.  If I can live even half the life he did, I'll still have done more than most people ever dream of.  I am proud to have been his daughter for as long as I was, and I will miss him until the day I die.