Random Ramblings, Year's End, All That

 I was alone in the house last night. JG and the daughters were away coping with the aftermath of his brother’s death. It doesn’t happen very often, that I am alone. That I choose my own meal time and bedtime without having to consider anyone else’s schedule. That I can write undisturbed by the ordinary routines of the day. That I am on my own.

What did I do with my unscheduled time? Well, wrote this, for one. I spent most of the day alternately doing laundry and writing the post below this one, a eulogy for the brother who has gone. I wrote it pretty carefully and when I put it up, I only found two errors, one being a wrong date of John’s death. His friend was on the phone about two minutes after I posted, to correct that one, but I had already seen it. Typo. The other was a bad insert erasure. I did a lot of rereading and rewriting before I posted. I wanted it to be good, to be a fair picture of a complicated and somewhat conflicted man. Don’t know if I got it. You never really know how something that personal and subjective will read to someone else.

But most of my writing is subjective. There is not much else going on here, not even in normal times and these are not, for sure, normal times. We did manage to have a Christmas Day with the nucleus of the family, but it was not the gathering we had hoped to have, due to one positive Covid test and one relative who decided, reasonably I thought, not to fly this season. There were gifts and music and a table laden with goodies (and four vegetable dishes, just because). I still have a kitchen full of cookie tins that are full of cookies because the YD baked from the time she arrived until Christmas Eve, non stop. Well, almost nonstop. She took a few naps and walks. It was a fine thing to be together. This is the YD’s first home visit in two years. But she was too late to see her uncle. And that hurt.

I am glad that, from my last visit, my last memory of John is of laughing with him over the completely predictable and totally in character actions of his brother and our ED. We had arranged to have John’s bathroom remodelled to put in a walk-in shower. The work was finished the day before we arrived, and JG, that evening, was talking about getting a shower seat for it. With arms, he thought. The ED demurred. The shower had a good bar that John could use to stand up, she thought. JG said there was no bar there. The ED said yes, there was. The two red-headed opponents rose, in sync, and proceeded to the bathroom to settle the argument. And John and I looked at each other, did an in sync eyeroll and laughed like loons. It was just a perfectly typical thing for them to do. I am glad I can remember him laughing.

It sometimes seems to me that particular bits of memory in turbulent times, get locked into the brain. My last memory of my mother is a sad one – she was in pain and confused. An aunt I cared for deeply, I recall, in her last day of life, sitting in her wheelchair, head at a strange angle, cushioned by morphine. At least she was serene - earlier she had been frightened by reflections in the hospital room window, thinking that they were going to attack her. The end of life, in my experience of helping my parents and aunts through it, is a rough ride sometimes. Not always. My father, I am convinced, died in his sleep, having dozed off while watching his beloved baseball on the television. He was 85 and while he had some pretty major ailments, he was able to his last day to live independently, drive and enjoy a lot of things. I hope that is what is in store for me, but it is not something that can be planned.

The only plan we can legally make is an application for MAID, ahead of debility. Fairly severely restricted eligibility for it, too. John would not have qualified by the time he needed it, as the applicant must be fully competent to agree at the time it is administered. I think this needs to be changed to allow a precondition on the part of the applicant, but I can see that it will be tricky to structure it in a way that protects both the medical people being asked to do it and anyone who is worried that they will be, as it can be said,’ put down’ without their concurrence. 

No one, if they think about it reasonably, wants to die in confusion and diapers and fear, cared for by relative strangers in an institution. But that is how most of us will die because that is how our relationships and medical systems are set up. We live most of our lives in small nuclear families that cannot handle the end- of-life care most of us will need. Our medical system can eliminate or cure a lot of things that used to kill old people. And so, we end our lives in repaired bodies but with minds that no longer function well. And that usually means that we end up in institutions, underfunded and inadequate institutions in many cases. I have thought for a while that Covid may have done a lot of fragile old people a favour by killing them relatively quickly. 

It is now the next day after I wrote this and I am still working on the laundry. I will also try to come up with a plan to feed and/or water the varied G’s when they get back from their quick and frustrating management trip. It is not and will not be easy for JG to clear up his brother’s detritus. He is, in fact, so aggravated by all of it that he says he plans to do a massive clearance of his own ‘stuff’ as soon as he gets home. I am faintly amused. I do not believe it is possible to clear up ahead of death, no matter how much planning and arranging you do.  

Nor do your plans for greeting the returned family, or for posting, last past the first challenge. It is now almost New Year’s Eve. Almost. One day to go. And it was my mother’s birthday and my parents’ wedding anniversary. My father always thought it was clever of him to have arranged to have both events on the same date – he could buy one bunch of yellow roses and cover all eventualities. I am not sure I ever heard my mother comment on this, but she did like yellow roses, so I guess it worked out. 

I am at a greater age now than my mother ever reached, but have six years to go to pass my father. He was lost for a while after my mother died, but he regrouped and made a new life for himself. He moved into an apartment in a retirement complex, made new friends and new interests. He even acquired a lady friend, a retired professor of languages, a wonderful and warm woman not unlike the wife he had lost. Jg and I were engaged in building the house we now live in, and he drove out from the city to supervise our progress. He organized a move for his widowed sister into another apartment in the complex and ran her life for her as well, adding countless codicils to her will, supervising her shopping and generally making sure she did well. I was booked as chauffer for many medical, dental and other appointments, if they were in spots where he did not care to drive. He was busy and he kept me busy too.

I have just glanced out my office window and I viewed an horrid mixture of snow, rain and ice pellets pelting down. I hope it quits before the YD decides to drive out here to spend New Year’s Eve. I hope it quits, period, but since this is December in eastern Ontario, it probably won’t. I was looking for a photo to post for a new year’s greeting and found some from our holiday in Bequia a few years ago. Sun and surf. Sigh.

Hereafter

 

My brother-in-law died early in the morning of December 26^th of the effects of a glioblastoma. If he had lived two more days, he would have been sixty -eight. Too young to go.

In my mind, Johnny will always be the little brother. He was a small boy,

nine years old, when JG and I were married and still a young boy, to my eyes, when we had our children. As a teenager, he lived with us for part of a year when our girls were preschoolers, and has, to an extent, spent a lot of time and holidays with us through the years. An only child, myself, I always was thrilled to have him and Anne, the sister in the family, as accrued siblings. I force fed him through some of his Grade 9 final exams, insisted he learn to touch type, ragged him about our common lack of basic arithmetical skills, enjoyed our common interests in swimming and diving, argued with him, endlessly, about politics. Loved him. Even when he was at his most exasperating, he was lovable.

And, oh my, could he be exasperating. He did not have opinions – he had Opinions. Blazingly intelligent himself, and, as he described himself, an autodidact, he expected equal ability in public office and public service. When faced with what I would interpret as stupidity or carelessness, he often classified an action (or lack of action) as deliberate and culpable. ‘The whole council is corrupt’, he would fume. ‘They are in it for what they can get.’ he would mutter about just about any politician going. Well, he liked Trump. We did argue. Long into the night on occasion. And agreed to disagree.

What impressed me the most about this guy, among many impressive actions and accomplishments, was not the skills he taught himself, many as those were, but rather his innate kindness. He was not afraid to tackle anything. Once when, as a fifteen-year-old he was babysitting our toddler daughters, one of them woke up and was sick. I got a phone call from him and he told me about the accident, that he had cleaned the kid, put her back to sleep and put the dirty linen in water in the basement sink. What the call was to ask was if there was anything else he should have done. He was a teenaged boy. And he had calmly and thoroughly done an adult job.

As an adult, this caring behaviour became one of his signatures. Over the years John cared for his parents as they aged and until they died, and for a childless cousin, also until she died. He was a good companion to his brother-in-law and a concerned and caring brother to his sister. In her final illness, he provided support and companionship to her daughters. He supported his mother as she looked after her sisters-in-law, and found tasks and supporting roles for some of his cousins. And that was just family. He always maintained the friendships established in school days and through his many activities. When he and his brother were planning for his death, those friends were the people he thought of.

His friends thought a lot of him. It was those friends who cared for him in his last illness. They drove him to appointments, brought him food and necessities, sat with him, nursed and supported him. His best friend was with him in his last hours and he died in her arms. A former girlfriend spent countless hours supporting him. His friends were his family, in truth, as we live far away. Yes, his brother has the task of clearing up the residue of his life, but his friendships are his testimonial.

Did I mention that he could be a pain, at times? After his mother needed nursing home care, John lived alone in and had the run of the family home. He established, on top of my mother-in-law’s dining room table, still covered with her cherished crochet lace tablecloth, an electronics working station, piled high with components and, at one point, three disembowelled radios. His kitchen table was little better. When we visited, we ate out. He was a packrat, son of a packrat, brother of another. And most of what he and his father had gathered over long years was stored in the basement. Along with the cat’s litter box, access by the cat to this last having been achieved by cutting a small round hole into the basement door. What is not in the basement is probably in the garage, waiting to be sorted. Gilmours – collectors and a collective pain, actually.

John collected skills as well as stuff. He was an accomplished cold and tropical open water diver. He had a pilot’s licence for small planes. He was a certified auto mechanic. He was a designer, teacher and repair expert on some types of computers, all skills that he taught himself. He was a long-time HAM (VE3NKH) radio operator. He played guitar. He ran and rode, both bicycle and motorcycle, the latter on several cross-continent trips. He was skilled at landscape maintenance and had a stash of cash that he had been paid for doing so. He could weld, estimate and build. He was a top-notch amateur photographer, both regular and underwater. Among the skills he taught himself I can identify brokerage, typing, marksmanship and gun handling, cooking … I am sure only that I have missed some. The tag name JOAT? Jack of All Trades. That was John.

He should have died hereafter. In Macbeth, the quote goes “She should have died hereafter; 

There would have been a time for such a word.” It was not John’s time. He should have had at least another decade or two to practice his skills, hang with his friends, cook a beef roast, play his guitar, bomb up here on his bike.  His father lived past his 90^th birthday. His brother is 82 and still a vital, active man. The tumour diagnosis was made in September. John opted to have it treated, and endured the effects of the treatment until it was obvious that it was not doing enough good. He struggled with the effects of the tumour itself, but even as his illness increased, he could still laugh. He was himself for as long as he could be and then, mercifully, he was gone.

Leaving us with loss. That he left a lot of stuff to disperse is maybe not a bad thing as it provides something to do. I think that a lot of the activities that we do around the death of someone we loved or admired is a displacement of the pain. That is what writing this has been for me. Once I stop writing, once I have, in effect, said the word, time will start again. Without him.

I am putting in a bit of a photo gallery, as time permits and I find the photos.

This is a family shot taken about 1963, at a guess.

From the left, Grandmother Annie Murgatroyd, Jim (Red) Gilmour, father, John in front, left, Anne Hamer, sister, middle rear, her daughter Lori in front, right of John, George Hamer, right rear, Dorothy and Georgia Hamer, front right, Dorothy holding racket down, Georgie holding racket sideways.

This is John with his brother, also Jim Gilmour (the family distinguished by calling this one Jimmy. Year probably 1960- Jim is wearing a Science Faculty jacket from Queen's University and sporting a first year beard. Pity about the colour - the beard was bright red

Here is a young John, probably in his early twenties, helping his brother cut a dead tree - and preventing his nieces from getting under it until it was down.

Around the same time, playing baseball with Jim and the girls.

John and his father often came up from Fort Erie to our land in Lanark to help with the job of getting in the sugar wood. Here are two photos of  firewood working -one of setting the splitter and one of splitting.

Here he is unloading a tractor he helped his brother buy from the float he and a friend brought it in on.

Ans here is another young John, helping his brother construct a garage. It is the window of this building whose frame calculations cost John and Mary a long and painful exercise in arithmetic.

I do not seem to see many photos of older John. I am sure they are in my boxes and boxes of photos, somewhere. 

I found this one of John holding the mother of the baby in the next photo down.

There is one that I really love, however. It is John holding his great niece as a small baby. This is the John that we knew lately. The baby he is holding is now a much changed 18 year old university student, however.

And to finish off for now, this is a middle aged John with his sister - I don't know if this was a serious discussion or if they were both contemplating the dog's state of relaxation.

I am finishing off with a selection of John in his latest iteration - but always himself.

That baby two photos up? That's her in the white sweater. Her father to her left, John's niece, Wendy in the centre with her dog, Shammy, and John in our bush in Lanark.

Last Christmas, dessert time. 

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The Voices of Our Children

 Tomorrow we will lay to rest one of the oldest men in what I consider to be my community. He was a man who spent his life working for his family and for the people whom he considered his friends and neighbours. He farmed, he made an astonishing number of gallons of maple syrup over many years, he built, he sat on committees and worked on roads, he taught and rescued and laughed. And danced. He raised three strong children who, in their turn, raised capable and generous children, his grandchildren who were his delight and his pride. And in his last year there were photos of great-grandchildren to comfort him. 

His was a life well lived, and as we send him to his rest, I cannot help but wonder what he would have believed to be his accomplishments, his summing up of what he did and felt and was. That he kept his land together and passed it on? He has a grandson making many litres of syrup in from bush he established. He has grandsons with fine building skills and a thriving business with children to follow them. He has a daughter who is as giving and glowing a person as anyone could imagine. He has granddaughters who are also skilled and loving. Grandsons and granddaughters, all fine people in whom he could take pride. He has a league of friends who will remember him with fondness and laughter. But I think that the children and grandchildren are what he would identify as his legacy. 

We live on in the voices of our children. There could be no finer summary of a life than that. 

But they do not need to be physical children. Any child who is helped or inspired can be part of a legacy. I have a daughter who, last winter, was teaching little girls in northern Pakistan how to get up on skates and push a hockey puck. To broaden the horizons of these girls and help to work things out so that they are allowed the exercise and fun is a legacy indeed and one
that will keep on giving. I have another daughter who teaches biology at a university. The students she inspires, coaches and supports and who go on to become informed and skilled adults are a fine gift to Canada. 

Thinking about this made me try to identify what I would single out as my legacy. It is not, proud as I am of them, my daughters and granddaughter. What I see is a plaque on a school in Ottawa with my name on it, among other names, commemorating its establishment as a French language public K to 8 (maternelle a niveau huit) school. I sat on the school board that set it up. I chaired the committee that recommended its beginning. It was a battle. The received wisdom at the time was that French Immersion was the way to go. But it happened and the children whose first language was French got a public school. 

It was an unforeseen bonus that my grandkid ended up going to that school and is now a fluently bilingual young adult, with the fine future that this skill makes easier. It is probably an unforeseen bonus for my neighbour that his grandchildren, spread from here to British Columbia, to California, are all thriving and strong. Thanks, although I guess you can’t hear me, Brien. You and your family are the core of what I think Canada should be and become.

Not the Christmas Post.

 

This last year of having to sit at home hiding from Covid is almost over and I am sure we are all hoping that the end is near. JG and I are now double shot and eligible for the booster, if vaccine were available At present it is not. Luckily, our neck of the woods is amazingly free of cases - as the count goes; our Health Unit is said to have the highest proportion of vaccinated people in the province. Anyway, we are now seeing our daughter and friends in person and are actually booked for a Christmas Party with Dinner. I confess to being rather excited about this dissipation.

 And worrying about Christmas. The YD is hoping to fly home from her far, far away job, Covid protocols permitting. She has not been home for two years. And here is this new variant looking to close us down again. Even for those who are fully vaccinated. What impels the ‘anti-vaxers’ is absolutely opaque to me. I remember the polio restrictions from my early childhood, and do not recall any discussion about not getting the polio protection when it became available. I loaded my toddlers into the family car and roared off to the doctor to get their measles vaccine, as soon as I could. Flu shots? Every year. And I cannot remember anyone making any fuss about any of these benefits. But the Covid vaccines? Eep. Poison. Masks are The End of Freedom. What? It makes no sense to me at all.

 Maybe I just have too much time to brood about stuff. But it is something to do while cooking dinner, I guess. If I could figure out some way of having my meals cooked for me, preceded by being offered a menu with plenty of choice, I would be some thrilled. A friend of mine just moved into an apartment in a seniors’ building where that is the case and I confess to the sin of covetousness. It is just a wistful, passing thought, though. I would miss being out here with the flower-chomping deer and seed-stealing squirrels. And the neighbourhood turkeys, five of whom can be seen out back most afternoons. They are big toms, but they are safe from me as I am sure they are extremely tough. (Tough, tough guys. No Christmas Feast for you, decked out with dressing and gently steaming.)

 There is very light snow sifting down outside. It does not seem to be accumulating, a bit surprising for the end of November, but hey, global warming is here. I guess that is not as funny as all that, thinking of the messes in BC and in Newfoundland/Labrador this last while. When I think of what it is going to cost to bring the infrastructure in the former up to new weather standards, I cringe. Has to be done, though, if we are to remain a country. In fact, I wonder about that sometimes as well. (Probably when I am on to washing up after dinner.) Will the changes to the climate with resulting changes in infrastructure, ways and standards of living, all that, allow Canada to remain one country from sea to sea to encroaching sea?

 Our grandkids are going to have a rough ride, for sure. I guess the best any one grandparent can do is help to make sure the coming generation is as healthy and educated as it is possible to make them. And that includes, in my opinion, getting them vaccinated and back into schools, in person, as soon as humanly possible. Nothing else is fair to them. Nothing less is fair to all of us.

 I wrote this in November and it is now the fourteenth of December. So it goes. Today is sunny, and it is forecast to stay that way for the next several days. Long enough, I hope, for me to get my shopping done. This post has been sitting here for a couple of weeks, for various reasons, but I do need to report that we have a skiff of snow left from last week’s dump and that JG is attaching a new, shiny red snowblower to his tractor. Expect unseasonal warmth and no snow. He may run up and down the laneway anyway, new toy whirring. Or, it could snow like mad and he will get to play with it. It is December in Lanark, after all.

 Yikes. It is December in Lanark and I am not ready for it to be Christmas. Not ready. Not motivated. Not organized. (Oh, shut up, Lou!)  Maybe tomorrow.