Chris: <snuggling up to B before going to sleep> You’re SO warm.

B: Well, I WAS warm. <pulling away>

Chris: Nope, compared to me, you’re still SO warm. <snuggling closer>

B: Compared to you, I’m a lot of things. Infortunately for me, the world doesn’t use you for a standard of measure.

Chris: I take it back. You’re cold. SO cold.

Norah has more hair every day — and every day her cowlick gets bigger. And cuter. Even after a bath and a brush it stands tall. Cutest thing ever.

And, for good measure, a picture that shows that Norah has a good sense of humor — why else would she make that face when we took the picture?

And, since we just had a civic election, I’ll include this pic. Look how wise Norah is! She will use this when she runs for class president at pre-school. I’m already working on her campaign slogans, but not much that is relevant to toddlers rhymes with Norah. Plethora? Fedora? Hmmm…

When Dad was killed, people followed a predictable script when interacting with me: “It’s such a shame,” “It sure is too bad,” “It will get better,” “An accident like this could have happened to anyone” – You get the idea. I know these words were meant to comfort. I know these words came from places of deep sympathy. I know that Dad would say that these people were doing the best they that knew how. But I also know that these words meant very little to me. Not that I didn’t appreciate the sentiment, but these wishes seemed so insignificant. So meaningless, because they did nothing to address the emotional turmoil that I was going through.

However, since that horrible accident at the end of June, there has been one situation that sticks out in my mind where the words said by someone were comforting. Really comforting.

After the accident, we spent a lot of time with our close family friends that we grew up with. Our common experience growing up on the farm created a strong bond, and true to that bond, when we needed them, they were there. One evening before the funeral we had them over to our place in the city for a bar-b-que. I showed my Uncle around our house, and we ended up in the demolished basement, which I had been planning to spend the summer putting back together. I was feeling very overwhelmed by the thought of doing the renovation, and asked him if he could come by when we decided on a floor plan so that he could come and take a look and make sure I wasn’t making rookie mistakes. This is something Dad had offered to do, and I was feeling down about not being able to seek his advice. He said he would be happy to come by.

A few weeks later he was over and I was showing him the taped out floor plan. The only thing I was uncertain about was the bathroom — I thought that to make use of the existing plumbing would be tricky, but didn’t feel confident enough to tackle moving it on my own. He looked at me and said, matter-of-factly, “Well, what we’ll do is just take out the bathroom floor and re-do the plumbing. Then you can put things where you want them. It’s not a big job – it won’t take us any time at all.”

And with that comment – that simple statement – I felt so comforted. So loved. It is so lonely to be without Dad. He was always there to bounce ideas off, to think problems through with, or to tackle big jobs alongside. But the way that my Uncle said “we” when he could have just as easily said “you” was so comforting and so kind. It was the first time I really felt like I could go on living without Dad, because there would be someone there to help fill part of the void left by his death. Amazing the power of a pronoun.

Norah slept through the night on Saturday night. She didn’t wake at all. This in itself is cause for celebration. But wait, there’s more…

Monday afternoon, when I got home from work, I was holding Norah in the kitchen, watching as Brenda started making supper. I was taking advantage of some stolen cuddle time, kissing her face as she watched her mom. She then turned to me, and said, clear as day, “Dad.” Not “dadadadada” but “Dad.” DAD. What an amazing girl. My heart melted.

The next morning, I changed her diaper, and told her I was going to pick her up. As I took her and started to leave her room, she looked at me and said “up.” Clear as day. Up. Two new words in two days.

“Up,” added to “Dad” from the day before, and “Mom” from last week, brings Norah’s vocabulary up to three words. “Mom” is by far her favourite word – so far she has used it to mean “I want Mom to come feed me” or “Mom, why are you doing this to me?” or “There’s my Mom!” 

How grateful I am that Norah has come into my life!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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…

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!