Giving Thanks #5

I dreamt about my dad the other night. I had been waiting to dream about him. Wanting to dream about him. Wanting to feel connected to him again. Wanting to talk to him again. Afraid I’d never dream of him. Never see him.

It was bittersweet seeing him. I was at the farm, and he was sitting across from me at the kitchen table at the farm and looked happy. We didn’t talk, and I didn’t want him to go away, so I was hesitant to look at him. When I did look, he smiled at me. I reached out and touched his arm, and could feel it. Then I woke up. I was so happy when I first woke up, but now as I think of the brief connection it makes me sad.

It still feels like he can’t really be gone.

I am very slowly working at finishing the basement and I have so many “I’ll have to ask Dad about…” moments. He was such a big part of my life, all my life, even when I was half-way around the world. I remember our calls on skype from Cambodia, the long lag doing nothing to slow down the pace of the conversation. He was my stability, my safety, my everything-else-fails-we-move-to-the-farm backup plan. And it’s hard to believe that he is gone.

Giving Thanks #4

Norah’s sleep has been a cause of serious stress since she was born. From weeks 3 to 12, the only place she would sleep at night was on my chest. Any attempt to put her down would result in instant waking, and sustained crying. Luckily, she started to sort things out around the 4 month mark, and has continued to make progress, and then regress, and then make more progress before regressing, then progressing, ever since. As such, I am thankful for every night, like tonight, where I put Norah down in her crib, sleepy but awake, and she rolls on to her side, and goes to sleep without a peep. I savour each night like this, not taking anything for granted, knowing it may all change tomorrow. Thanks for tonight, Norah!

Giving Thanks #3

Today, Norah went in for her 9 month checkup. She is very healthy, and continues to be over the 95th percentile in height and weight. While I am thankful for this, I am also thankful for Tommy Douglas, former Saskatchewan Premier and the father of socialized medicine in Canada. Without Tommy’s wisdom and tenacity, we could find ourselves in the same horrible predicament as the USA. So thanks, Tommy, for allowing us the freedom to take Norah to the doctor whenever we need.

Giving Thanks #2

While at grief counseling today, I mentioned my Grandfather, and how I dealt with his loss when I was sixteen. Part of my healing then involved using creative-non-fiction to record my memories of Grandpa. When she asked about my relationship with Gramps, I described the days of my childhood spent chasing my father and grandfather around the farm, and evenings spent sitting on one of their laps, perusing flyers from the mail. My couselor made an observation that, though it seemed obvious after she said it, I hadn’t ever verbalized. I was lucky to have two affectionate, kind, gentle men for role models. Men who knew how to make you feel special. Men who knew how to tease and tickle. Men who knew how to laugh. Men who knew the importance of a hug. The gift of being able to grow up with these two remarkable men is one I took for granted. Up until today.

Giving Thanks

I know this blog post would have been more appropriate last weekend. However…

Shortly after Dad was killed, I remember chatting with my older sister and she noted that something tragic like the accident was bound to happen, because we had had such a good life so far. I recall agreeing — We were both understandably quite pessimistic at the time. However, as I look back on it now, she was right about one thing — how lucky we have been, and continue to be, even in light of this summer’s tragedy. I was listening to Zarqa Nawaz (Creator of Little Mosque) on CBC radio the other day, and she was explaining that during the five times a day that she prays, she tries to spend at least half of the time being thankful. She said that this has helped her to acknowledge all the good in her life. As such, and along the lines of Schmutzie’s Grace in Small Things, I will do my best to post about thing or things I am grateful for at the end of every day. So, to begin:

Last night we went over to our oldest and dearest family friends, the Perogies. We grew up with the Perogies. We spent our childhoods running around the farm, or their house on 20-Block Queen, playing hide-and-seek, chasing each other with fire-tipped sticks (really, where were our parents during this?), hiding out in the play-corner, and generally just immersing ourselves in new worlds we created. There were five Perogies and three of us, and the eight of us kids occupied each other so our parents could have a no doubt well-deserved break. As is wont to happen, as we grew older, we got together less frequently. We would touch base infrequently, often running into each other and bemoaning the length of time between visits. However, when word of the accident came, the Perogies repositioned themselves back in our lives. The loss of Dad has left a massive void, and the loss becomes all-the-more-apparent during holidays. With that in mind no doubt, the Perogies invited us to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving with them last night. The food was wonderful, the company even better. We caught up on new adventures, and reminisced about old ones. And as we visited, our kids (okay, the 2 of the 5 that are mobile) occupied each other. And it was delightful. Thanks, Perogies…

Old Fashioned Guilt Trip

Don’t get me wrong — I like Old Fashion Foods. They sell good, wholesome stuff. The smell reminds me of when I was a little boy, shopping with my mom, buying impossible-to-spread-peanuts-only peanut butter. That said, if I get served by another self-righteous cashier at the south store, I might lose my bacon on her. Yesterday was the second time this has happened to me:

Cashier: <motioning to four items Chris has purchased> Would you like a bag for these?

Chris: Oh, yeah. I have reusable ones in the car, but I have run out of garbage bags, so I left them there. I actually almost had to buy plastic garbage bags the other day, which seemed silly. So I’ll take a bag.

Cashier: Well, they won’t be making plastic bags much longer, so you’ll need to find a better plan.

Chris: Well, I can’t really think of one, besides dumping my garbage sans bag into the city dumpster, and they’re not too keen on that.

Cashier: Well you could compost. Or recycle.

Chris: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I do both. It’s just that we have some diapers to throw out, and they don’t compost so well. Even the composting ones don’t compost so well.

Cashier: Don’t you use cloth diapers?

Chris: Yes, we use cloth diapers. But we don’t use them at night, because our girl soaks through them so quickly, and then gets diaper rash. So we use one or two disposables per day.

Cashier: Huh. Well, here is your bag. <Grudgingly hands over plastic bag>

I didn’t say anything at the time, but perhaps I will next time. Like, “Hey, maybe you should offer paper bags, not plastic ones. Then I could recycle or even compost your bag” or “Hey, can’t help but notice that all dry goods you sell are in plastic bags. Maybe you should find a better plan for that. They aren’t making plastic forever you know” or “I’m not interested in being guilted by you right now – your judgement does nothing to change my behaviour.” This is a far from complete list, but you get the idea. If you have any other thoughts on what I should say, post them as comments!

Dad and Small Engine Repair

I bought a rototiller a few weeks back. More accurately, I bought 1/3 of a rototiller. I brought it home in the 1/4 of a truck I also own. The tiller is old, but has a brand-new Champion engine from Princess Auto. A brand-new Champion engine with intermittant spark, meaning, a brand-new Champion engine that doesn’t run all the time you want it to. A brand-new Champion engine with the type of problem my Dad would curse – one that is intermittent. Dad had a love-hate relationship with small engines. He loved them when they ran. He hated them when he had to spend hours fixing them when they didn’t. This lead Dad to have a great understanding of troubleshooting small engine problems – filing points, cleaning air filters, finding a faulty kill switch – he could think his way through any problem. Not that he enjoyed using this knowledge, mind you.

I remember Dad stopping by our place one day on his way to the farm, and showing me his latest purchase – a new pressure washer. For years we used the spray gun on the air compressor dipped into a bucket of water to clean things. Dad had had enough. He bought the biggest electric pressure washer he could find. It wa 240V and ran on a dryer plug. I chided him for buying an electric instead of a gas, and he responded by telling me that he was constantly battling gas engines that weren’t reliable. He’d had enough. Anywhere he had water, he reasoned, he had electricity, too. So, he installed dryer plugs on the barns, the outside of the house, and in the garage.

So, as one of the co-owners and I sat in the garage the other night, trying to troubleshoot intermittant spark, I though two things – first off, that all it would take would be a five minute phone call with Dad to figure out what was wrong. The second though, which came later as we gave up, for now anyway, was that perhaps now I need to learn all that he did. And in the way that he did. The hard way. Though I do have google on my side. Now, to find out how a kill switch can only have one wire running to it…

What I want…

Chris: I think I’ve decided what I want.

Brenda: What’s that?

Chris: I want a job that pays around $70,000 a year, but that gives me 8 hours of free time a day.

Brenda: Well, if you worked from like 8am to 2pm, you’d still have from 2pm to 10pm. That’s 8 hours. So you need a 3/4 time job.

Chris: No, I mean 8 hours a day of free time in addition to the time I already have after I get home from work.

Brenda: But you work for 8 hours.

Chris: Exactly. <pause>

Brenda: I want a unicorn.

Chris: Unicorns don’t exist.

Brenda: Doesn’t mean I can’t want one.

Chris: Touche.