I am a semi-retired administrative assistant turned writer. Sometimes I write for love, sometimes I write for money. When I get really lucky I write for love and money! My family is my joy, including 18 grandchildren and one great-grandson!
Today we honoured veterans, including those from World War II and the Korean War. I hesitated to intrude on this day with another blog post but watching the surviving veterans compelled me to say something about what we owe them.
Approximately 33,000 Second World War veterans are still alive, with an average age of 94. 6400 Korean veterans remain with an average age of 87. (Veterans Affairs – Demographics)
These folks are “old,” those that many in society devalue and say should stay locked up at home, so younger people don’t have to wear a mask into a store.
As young men, these guys went to war against a tangible threat.
The veterans interviewed today and telling their stories were young men once, as the ones we lost forever will be.
Louis Dautremont, lost in the Netherlands, age 25, April 21, 1945
As Robert Laurence Binyon wrote in his 1914 poem,
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not wear them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them. “
My daughter bringing an Afghanistan veteran into our family truly brought home how young those lost were, how much life they had to live.
Some came home and carried on with their lives, though often not without significant scars from the battles they fought. Globe and Mail’s Les Perreaux paid tribute in 2016 to 31 of the then 70 Afghanistan veterans who lost their lives to suicide after returning home, in his article The Unremembered.
I have no doubt we lost some the same way in those earlier wars.
Those that survived World War II and the psychological aftermath are among the seniors most at risk for serious complications and death from COVID 19.
These people went to war for our country…
to protect others…
I think it’s time we return the favour.
Let’s protect these strong (but vulnerable) soldiers of our country. Let’s protect the partners who waited for them to come home. Don’t let them die in such a horrific way after what they have given.
To reference Mr. Binyon,
They have grown old,
Age has worn them; the years have condemned,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them too.
As deaths in long-term care once again reach a crisis point, as we in Alberta break hospitalization and ICU records, there are undoubtedly some veterans or those who love them, among the statistics.
217 in hospital (average age 62 years – range 0 – 102)
46 in intensive care (average age 60 years -range 4 – 89)
7 new deaths reported, 383 total (average age 82 years – range 27 to 106)
Pay tribute to these veterans.
Wash Your Hands
Stay Home if Ill
Sanitize Surfaces
Social Distance
Wear a Mask Indoors Where Social Distancing is Difficult.
They protected us. It’s now our turn, and our honour, to protect them.
Alberta hit 919 cases today. We don’t know our hospitalizations or ICU admissions currently; our system is experiencing technical difficulties at an inconvenient time. (My experience with technical difficulties is that’s ALWAYS when they hit.)
We had five additional deaths reported…
These deaths are a tragedy, no matter their age, no matter the circumstance. If you’ve lost someone, you know, it’s a tragedy for these five families.
Death is the most tragic part of this illness.
We know we will add deaths to our COVID total if this continues. We need to know we may have additional deaths from other causes too, unless we get this under control.
Let’s talk about our health system.
Anyone keeping track of your province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health (or their equivalent elsewhere) has heard about “overwhelming the health system.”
We saw it in Italy with military trucks hauling away bodies, with Italian doctors and nurses having to choose who received care (and who did not) based on survival probability. Many didn’t “make the list.” These weren’t all COVID patients. Patients with other situations were hitting those hospitals at the same time. Triage, I imagine, was a nightmare.
We saw it again in New York. Bodies were stored in refrigerated trucks when the morgue and funeral homes ran out of room for the bodies.
Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons and daughters…in a reefer van
(via CTV news)
And here we are. We are talking about an “overwhelming” of the system here in my home province. The metropolitan city north of me is feeling the strain. As of a couple of days ago, 30 percent of non-urgent and elective surgeries in Edmonton have been postponed for the foreseeable future to ensure hospitals have the capacity to withstand any outbreaks.
Calgary, just 25 minutes from my town, is bracing itself. ICU departments are holding emergency meetings because (typical of 2020) ICU departments are already experiencing higher than normal levels of NON-COVID ICU admissions…and the COVID wave is headed their way. Of the 919 cases today, some proportion will hit the Emergency Department; will go to acute care, others to ICU. Again, our data has not been updated for current numbers, but this is what I have.
The age breakdown for total COVID ICU admissions we have to this point is:
1 – 4 years – 1 admission
10 – 19 years– 4 admissions
20 – 29 years – 8 admissions
30 – 39 years – 11 admissions
40 – 49 years – 22 admissions
50 – 59 years – 41 admissions
60 – 69 years 56 admissions
70 – 79 years – 49 admissions
80 + years – 21 admissions
(Looks like my husband’s age group is winning the ICU lottery…)
The last current data we have is 171 COVID patients in hospital including 33 in ICU. 9 hospitals have outbreaks.
Resources for ICU are expensive, but it doesn’t stop there for those that recover, especially older patients.
Dr. Darren Markland, an ICU doc in Edmonton, took to Twitter to share some information on COVID ICU admissions for older patients. (shared with permission from @drdagly) We know mortality is high for this demographic, Dr. Markland shared that should someone over 80 need ICU, their mortality pushes 80%.
“Consequently, they rarely are admitted to ICU. This means:
ICU occupancy lags hospital admission rates significantly and is an insensitive metric for healthcare capacity and strain.
These are preventable deaths that take a significant number of quality years with them. “
Dr. Markland also points to the weeks of treatment required for these sickest patients.
He talks additionally about those that survive the ICU and how they continue to need augmented support in the hospital for an extended duration. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and nutritional support. If not cared for, he says they can end up back in this rapidly filling ICU.
Finally, Dr. Markland tells us,
“This situation is preventable. Our hospitalization numbers are a serious warning that mandatory measures are needed now. But while we wait for direction. Please do not go to work if you are sick. No more in-person parties until there is a vaccine. Wear your mask around people.”
He ends with…
In the middle of this, people in healthcare are stressed by a government that has chosen this particular time to address health care costs. I’m a fiscal conservative; I get it. The old Alberta Advantage seems to be a page in history. However, our health minister appears to be hesitant to collaborate with doctors for cost savings, refused arbitration and ended their contract early. He’s announcing layoffs of the very people specifically trained to clean to COVID protocols (while hiring private folks without that training). It looks like he’s eliminated overtime at a time when health professionals need to use it the most, needing to cover shifts for those self-isolating, caring for kids who are isolating…becoming ill.
Before the second wave of COVID19 completely hits our health system, we have a group of fragile people on the front line.
They are already tired.
Our government has put the burden on us to try to turn this tide. Many people posit that the government should be doing more. It’s a hard call to make. There’s no question the spring shut down negatively affected business owners across the province; many closed. Most restaurants have done a stellar job of adopting COVID protocols to keep their customers safe, and very few infections have come from those types of gatherings. Is it fair then to shut down a restaurant owner, many who operate on the thinnest of margins at the best of times? Maybe not. I don’t have the answer.
Personal responsibility, however, has led us to 919 cases in one day. We don’t appear to be a very responsible lot. Why? Again, it probably relates in a big way that it’s mostly “old people” who die. Here’s where I say,
If you can’t get behind saving the lives of the aged, could you get behind saving the lives of the general public who may suffer harm from an overwhelmed system?
Can I appeal to you to “protest” for our health care workers by protecting them from this onslaught? Is wearing a mask, sticking to your own household, sanitizing etc. harder than walking a picket line? Maybe not.
Is it more meaningful at this moment in time than honking your horn as you go by or clapping for them as they leave the hospital?
I daresay, your actions to bend the curve on this thing will be the single most loving and impactful thing you do for our health care workers.
I know. I love a couple and hold the rest in my heart.
It’s been a good long while since I put up a blog. I’ve had something to say but honestly was reeling at the idea that it had to be said. And it was going to be so darn long.
Let’s talk about ageism.
I always knew it was a bit of a “thing.” Sure.
But COVID has brought to light the fact that our seniors are incredibly devalued in our society. It isn’t helped by an Alberta premier who declares in the legislature,
“It is critical as we move forward that we focus our efforts on the most vulnerable, on the elderly and the immunocompromised,” adding that “the average age of death from COVID in Alberta is 83 and I remind the house that the average life expectancy in the province is age 82.”
Factually accurate at the time (we now have an average COVID death of 82), it was nonetheless unsettling. That average age of death includes people aged 27 to 105, remember. Every one of them matters to me. Let’s look at COVID deaths in our province. Out of 318 deaths:
2 were age 20 to 29
2 were age 30 – 39
3 were age 40 – 49
Then we see things begin to climb a bit, around triple for each decade older:
8 were 50 – 59 (Hello Granny18, mild asthmatic)
26 were 60-69 (Hello Grandpa18, heart attack survivor)
79 were 70-79
And yes,
223 were over 80
So he’s not wrong; it does affect the elderly more than the rest of the population. Now let’s unpack,
“…It’s critical we focus our efforts on the most vulnerable, on the elderly and the immunocompromised.” Many people have taken that to mean that anyone over 60 should stay home for months while they blithely go about their lives. This guy. Stay home for months, stay away from our family.
The “elderly” go hiking.
Me too, because I can’t bring it home to him right?
They attack me when I suggest those people have a right to feel safe in the community, feel that their community might be interested in protecting them as much as they are able, help THEM to continue living THEIR lives. Yes, we’ll act responsibly in our actions to protect ourselves, but help a sister out, okay? I’ve been accused of being “scared” and told to “go hide.”
I’m not scared when I put a seatbelt on, and I expect others to belt up too. I’m not scared when I don’t drink and drive, and I expect others to do the same.
To protect others.
One fella posited that drunk driving killed more people than COVID has. He was in the U.S., so I looked up the U.S. numbers. 10,000 people were killed by drunk driving in 2018 versus 229,000 U.S. COVID deaths as of this writing. Why is it that people are okay with drunk driving laws but think a mask or gathering restrictions are horrific? Why? Because it’s mostly “old people” who are dying.
Damn it. Old people hold our history; they hold so much wisdom we could learn from; I love several of them and lost several “too soon.”
Who are these “old people”?
My husband is 66. Please don’t make him the 26th death in his age group.
Don’t write off someone’s Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma because they are over 70 or 80 or 90 or even, by jove, 100.
70’s
My Dad, a huge volunteer with the Alberta Council on Aging while still running a company, died from Cancer at 76. The Premier of our Province presented him with a volunteer award just four months before he died. In the month before his death, he received the Queens Jubilee medal to recognize his efforts for his community. I still remember thinking he had so much left to do.
My brother in law retired from politics at the age of 70.
80’s
Rachel Wyatt published her first novel at the age of 82. I have an article about her up on my bulletin board to remind me there’s still time to get my book published.
An Ontario man named Bill Wall began riding in the Ride to Conquer Cancer in his early 80’s. He rides tandem because Bill is blind.
90’s
Bill turned 92 this year. He is still riding in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, raising $21,168 for Cancer.
Byrony Burrell is a 94-year-old British Twitter phenom (@lifeofbryony) with 67,000 followers. She shares humour,
“If I could go back in time to 1947 when I was 21 and speak to myself about life in 2020, the talk of a global virus would probably scare my younger self less than hearing her older self describing talking to a doorbell, surfing nets and webs on an apple and typing on tablets.”
And wisdom,
“You know nothing about a person when you first meet them. You may see age, race, gender or clothing, but what does that really tell you? Nothing. Assumptions pop into your head because your brain likes to categorize things, but that way of thinking limits your outlook on life.”
100
Her countryman Captain Tom celebrated his upcoming 100th birthday by setting a goal to raise money for the National Health Service during the onset of the pandemic. The Captain walked the length of his garden back and forth 100 times, in 10 lap increments, assisted by his walker. He planned to complete the laps by his 100th birthday on April 30. His goal was 1000 pounds. Cute right? 24 hours later, he had raised the equivalent of 11,666 Canadian dollars. As his fundraiser wrapped up, Captain Tom had raised almost 33 million pounds (almost 57 million Canadian Dollars.)
100-year-old Captain Tom was knighted for his efforts. The youngster who laid the sword upon his shoulder was the 94-year-old Queen of England.
Some seniors are in care, who won’t be able to hike, volunteer, write novels, join Twitter or even do laps in the garden. They matter too. We owe it to them for what they did for us before their minds or bodies gave out. My mother in law was a phenom, walking every day and babysitting Great-grandchildren into her 70’s. Dementia found her. She was still valuable to our family. We remembered all her years of helping us, and dementia brought us the unexpected gift of her talking more about the war years in England.
Will many of these people over 80 have died anyway? Maybe. But not like this. Not. Like. This.
This is not a painless slipping into the night, and they deserve better from us.
Alberta cases are rising rather alarmingly these days, with Edmonton already cancelling elective surgeries as they near capacity. Yesterday’s report from our Chief Medical Officer Health told us we had 15 deaths since Friday. We added 581 cases on October 30, 525 October 31, 592 November 1, 570 November 2. More concerning for me are the increases in hospitalizations and ICU admittance. Alberta overall has 167 (27 in ICU) in hospital, 100 of those in the Edmonton zone. What we need to worry about is two weeks out. A majority of the cases have untraceable origins. Someone out there spread it, and we don’t know who they are or who they were in contact with.
The young won’t necessarily be alarmed, but they should be. Although the young rarely die unless they have comorbidities, it does happen. Even those with a mild case are still sometimes taking a long time to get back to their pre-COVID selves. This thing spreads so easily. We have outbreaks in hospitals and nursing homes despite extreme measures to prevent spread. One nursing home outbreak was traced back to a family gathering. Dr. Hinshaw once said we shouldn’t fear COVID, but we should RESPECT it.
What does respect look like?
Stay home if you’re sick.
Limit your circle.
Practice Physical Distancing.
Wear a mask where physical distancing might prove difficult.
Sanitize or wash your hands frequently.
Try not to touch your face.
Sanitize high touch surfaces regularly.
It’s such a simple way to show respect for the seniors in your community.
The kindness themes for the past few weeks have revolved around being present in our interactions with others, finding good homes for things we no longer need and being kind to yourself.
The one that resonated was “Be Present.”
One of the unexpected gifts of this COVID19 physical distancing is a renewed connection in some relationships. We used to be next to each other regularly, checking our phones while talking, focused on what was coming next instead of the moment in front of us.
That precious moment.
If we had known how long it would be before we’d be sharing dinner again, hugging good-bye, having a long face to face conversation…might we have been more in tune with each other? In that moment?
When we get together for our social distanced visits now, we listen more than we used to. We are aware of each other as we never were before.
Nobody checks their phones as we talk. (Though there is some distraction caused by the kids at times…)
Every visit with my children ends with eye contact, real eye contact, and I’ve discovered there are messages in those eyes that speak to, and heal my heart and theirs.
I ache to hug again. Children, grandchildren, friends. It will be a prolonged hug; I am certain. I am hopeful we will end those hugs when they return, with eye contact … exchanging messages between our souls.
The Theme for Week 16 of The Kindness Project is “Stop Comparing Yourself”.
The Kindness book speaks about focusing less on external things and more on our own hearts and minds, worrying less about whether we’re “better than” or “less than” the people in our circles. Those of us following the “Social Distancing” protocol pretty closely would, you might imagine, have an easy time not comparing ourselves to others when we only see our own families every day.
But, at times of isolation like these, we are drawn to Social Media, especially Twitter and Facebook, to find information, to connect, to find some small part of this we can control. What we see instead is a myriad of misinformation and panic-inducing partial data and…a few people who seem to be doing self-isolation just a bit more creatively than we are.
As if the mere fact of being apart from loved ones, being unable to enjoy a hike in the forest a change in work or loss of income wasn’t enough to cause depression, here’s another factor.
Research has shown a link between social media and depression brought on by comparing our lives to someone else’s.
We can’t control being apart, being banned from provincial parks or our employment situation. Still, we CAN be selective in our social media exposure, and when we do engage, be mindful of what we are thinking when looking at someone else’s posts. It’s important to remember that what they are showing you is the BEST version of their lives. They don’t post themselves weeping in frustration, close-ups of their wrinkles or the explosion of temper their frustration brought them. (You don’t know my dark…or wrinkly…side…) Not because those things aren’t real, but because it’s not what we post on a platform like Facebook. Kind of like the old Christmas letter, we left out the embarrassing bits.
Twitter runs its own risks as misinformation is RAMPANT. I’m beginning to realize I need to get information only from reliable sources and quit reading the comments. QUIT READING THE COMMENTS!! You will be tempted to correct someone sharing some misinformation, but you will NEVER WIN!
I tried. I’m exhausted.
On Twitter, a comparison might just be okay. I’m feeling comparatively intelligent these days…
If you’ve come to me via social media, know this, if you are doing your best, if you skid to the end of the day alive, you are doing just fine in these tumultuous times. You’re doing okay, friends. Just keep doing it another day.
And another.
And another.
One of these days, we’ll lay some face to face love on those social media friends, those who seem to be perfect, those who seem to be losing their minds, because deep down, we know all of us are just doing our best to be…”okay”.
Not long ago, I was blogging about a Kindness Project. I left off at Week 7 and 8. The next post was a bit of middle of the night COVID anxiety but I think it’s well time I started focusing on kindness again. I’ve been going over our weeks since then and reflecting on Jamie Thurston’s book,Kindness the Little Thing that Matters Most, and how it has lessons to teach us, especially in times like these. From where I left off, until today, our world has been changed.
Credit Michael de Adder Halifax Chronicle Herald March 24, 2020. Follow Michael on twitter @deAdder
Week 9
February 23 – 29
“Pay for Someone’s Journey”
By the end of February, COVID19 had exited Asia, travelled within Europe and had now landed in North America. At this point, all cases in Canada related to travel outside of the country. It became a certainty that I wouldn’t be paying for any journeys outside of Canada, for a while.
My son and his family had a Disneyland trip booked for the end of May. If they lose anything in having to cancel the trip…I guess I’ll help them out a bit with that journey when they can finally take it. “Pay for Someone’s Cancelled Journey” is still kindness.
Week 10
March 1 – 7
“Remember Where You Came From (and where you are going)”
This theme stresses empathy for the different places people might be in their lives. The young families, like we once were, the seniors in long term care as we will someday be. The same day the first case was announced in Alberta, the first community transmission in Canada recorded, my niece had her first baby. I reached out to her and tried to support her from a distance as neither of us were comfortable with visitors to wee Parker. We still haven’t cuddled my great-nephew. We knew my brother, who passed away in 2004, would miss the opportunity for that cuddle. We didn’t think we would.
The age demographic of COVID’s victims across the world was heavily into the senior years. My husband turned 65 last year; I’m approaching 60. Although not the highest risk, our daughter, as a nurse, was starting to think about the possibilities of poor outcomes due to age and the “co-morbidities” of heart disease and asthma.
We thought about the lost wisdom as so many seniors fell to the disease around the world.
Week 11
March 8 – 14
“Be A Seat Vigilante”
This section resonated in an entirely different way than it would have before March 2020. The book talks about giving up your seat to someone who might need it more than you. At this point, Alberta’s cases were returning travellers, but our observations of other countries made us wary. My ED nurse daughter had now asked us to stay home. She was actively planning for the virus to arrive and knew enough about it that she didn’t want us out and about. Universities in Alberta began to cancel their lectures due to class sizes.
“Giving up your seat to someone who needs it more than you”…started to become “giving up your activities to save someone more vulnerable than you.”
Week 12
March 15 to 21
“Apologize”
I had my final outing on March 16. My brother was having a procedure done at a hospital in Calgary, and as his guardian, I was there to support him and sign his documentation. My daughter works at this hospital, and she popped up to hug her uncle. I asked for a hug too because we just didn’t know when the next hug would be.
Alberta got our first case of “community transmission” this week, bringing anxiety levels a little higher.
On my way home, I picked up prescriptions to limit excursions, and the Costco was insanely busy. We were hearing about “social distancing,” and running the gauntlet to the pharmacy in that crowd had me thinking it was time to change pharmacies. I apologized as I asked people to move aside to let me through, and as I spoke with the pharmacist, I had a feeling that a lot of people would be subjecting her to some behaviour that should get her an apology. The stress was evident. I wished her well, apologizing in my head on behalf of any who would not show her patience over the next while.
People would begin working from home this week and attempt to homeschool their kids as classrooms shuttered their doors. Recreation facilities would close, gatherings above 50 people were not recommended, and a state of health emergency was declared. Our first COVID19 death was recorded this week.
There was not going to be much room for patience.
Week 13
March 22 to 28
“Be Nice to Parking Attendants”
The message here was, “When we judge people by their profession, we cease to see them as individuals.”
By March 27, we had started to see closures of non-essential services. Who was staying open? Grocery Stores. Trucking Companies. Food Delivery, the people getting us fed and making sure we got our essentials. Suddenly, jobs with little social standing were “essential,” grocery clerks, truckers and delivery drivers were lauded as heroes as they placed themselves “out there” while we stayed safely home.
Be kind if you are in the grocery store even as you feel the stress brought by waiting in line, one way aisles and picked over shelves.
Buy a trucker a cup of coffee and a meal at a drive through. Give them the fist pump for an airhorn blast. (My husband was a trucker for a while. Trust me he LOVED when the kids did that!)
Yell, “Thank you!!” to the delivery driver (from a distance) when he drops your online order at the door.
We are all in a better place than we would be if not for our new heroes. Be kind.
Week 14
March 29 – April 4
“Speak Up”
Be strong for those who can’t be, and a voice for those who need it.
This week there were 20 patients hospitalized in Alberta, 8 in ICU and another death. It was time to “speak up,” and what we began saying was, “stay home if you can, wash your hands frequently, practice social distancing.” We were speaking up for our elders, for our immunocompromised, for those with pre-existing conditions…protecting them by staying home.
Week 15
April 5 – 10
“Share Good News”
We needed this more than ever, as day after day, we have been subjected to constant coverage of skyrocketing death tolls in Europe, New York City and a creeping of death tolls in Canada. What’s the GOOD news?
I guess the good news is the concerts put out on Twitter by celebrities and choirs, the puppy videos, the hilarious isolation challenges.
For some reason, more than one family member sent me the video of a couple of seniors trying to catch snow in their mouths as their garage door opened…thinking it might be an activity we could do. Lord knows we can’t sing.
The good news is people seeing truckers and cashiers recognized as essential, health care workers receiving ovations and lights and sirens drive-bys as they change shifts.
The good news is the creativity coming out of people stranded at home.
The good news is the discovery that the human touch is a superpower. We didn’t know it was a superpower. Now we do, and boy will that superpower be launched in full force when the time comes.
The good news is my son’s test for COVID 19 has come back negative. His wife and I have never been so happy to see a man-cold.
The good news is…this will end, and many of us will be changed for the better.
Occasionally nothing gets written when I can’t think of anything to say. These last few weeks, while it is true, nothing has been written, this time it’s because I have too MUCH going on in my head, and I haven’t known where to begin.
The doodle on this page was done around 1 a.m. as I tried to “capture” some of the thoughts clanging around in my head so I could sleep.
First thoughts were for my daughter, an Emergency Nurse, running INTO the fire of COVID 19 while the rest of us shelter.
Secondly, my daughter, a mother, working long hours and not seeing much of her kids. There may come the point where she will have to isolate herself from her kids and her husband. These little ones age 1, 3 and 5 will wonder where she’s gone.
Lastly, the two groups of people who will influence the conditions my daughter will face.
Will she work in an overwhelmed health system making decisions such as Italy has had to make, around WHO to treat, rather than HOW to treat?
Will she become ill herself from ongoing exposure to the virus? Admittedly this is probably more a matter of “when” than “if.”
Will she be among the health workers that have…died?
Who influences these outcomes the most?
Me.
You.
We can be people who chose to ignore recommendations from our Chief Medical Officer and don’t practice social distancing. We can contribute to an exponential spread of the virus and a health system unable to keep up with the onslaught. We can be those who pour fuel on the fire my daughter and her colleagues must enter.
Or, we can be people who chose to follow recommendations from our Chief Medical Officer. Don’t visit, keep our distance while out and don’t go out and about unless we need to. We can decelerate the fire my daughter and her colleagues must enter.
Being apart is hard, so hard, I get it. My further away grandkids were coming for their first sleepover last weekend. It had to be cancelled. An Instagram video call had to suffice. We have been babysitting the closer grandkids once a week and were really starting to settle in and enjoy this scheduled time. That, too, is gone for now. For them, it was a Facetime chat that will have to be enough.
The worst part is all the unknowns. How long? How bad? I’m a planner, and it seems there is nothing I can do.
But
I CAN stay in as much as possible, get my groceries delivered, do the video calls. It is my contribution to saving our health care workers from the horror experienced in Italy.
We had warning; there’s no excuse for us allowing this to happen. As people, as a government, as a country…as a society.
May you all stay well. Those of us 50 and up have an increased risk of complications and death; those 65 and up even more so. If you have people in your life who are immunocompromised (as I do), they are also at significant risk, no matter how young they are.
As my daughter and I exchanged, “I miss you” messages, I promised her a party when it’s all over.
“You’ll come over for dinner; we’ll eat all kinds of “sh*t” we shouldn’t. You’ll drink too much wine and have to stay over. In the morning, we’ll have mimosas and waffles (with bacon!) for brunch.
It’s a date. We don’t know THE date, but it’s a date.
I’ve still been on board the kindness train the last couple of weeks, still a “Kindness Ambassador” as described in my last post, “The Kindness Project”
I thought of several people in my circle who could surely use some kind thoughts…and then I “met” Candice George @candiceaartist on twitter. Candice is Wetsuwetsen. You may have heard of the Wetsuwetsen people in the last couple of weeks. Protesters. Against a pipeline. The media was focusing only on these protesters who opposed the pipeline and out of the chaos came a young woman attempting to bring a voice to the majority in her community who supported economic development and sought a peaceful resolution with those opposed.
We all have our reasons for supporting or not supporting either side of this issue and there have certainly been “unkind” thoughts all over twitter. Through it all, Candice has remained calm and tried to share another view to Canadians. I came to respect her and her approach. At one point, Candice was attacked by someone claiming her followers were white supremacists. (For real)
To which I replied,
“Sweetheart, I’m a white, rather supreme, Grandma to 6 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild who carry indigenous blood. This Supreme White lady thanks you for being a positive role model.”
Was that kind to throw a lighthearted thought her way amid a trying time? Perhaps.
What was REALLY kind was her response.
❤ Snachaliyah “I honour you for honouring me!” Keep on rocking as a supreme atsoo!!
We were kind to each other. One “settler”, one “indigenous”… kind to each other as human beings. While presenting her elder’s side of the story I have yet to hear her swear or call another disrespectful names. This REALLY stands out on twitter, especially when in dialogue about such contentious issues.
Support her side of the story or not, this is a stellar human being, and she should be admired for her leadership. Be kind to Candice, or you’ll have to go through the supreme atsoo!
Week 8’s kindness theme hits closer to home. “Give a gift to a local school.”
I send plenty of money to local schools with 18 grandchildren passing through with various fundraisers. I eat a lot of cookie dough, popcorn, pies, pizza and chocolate, own a variety of cards and Christmas wrap. I wanted to do something unique to this week, though and chose Breakfast Club Canada who is active in High River. I had to fend for myself sometimes as a kid, and I know that there’s an impact when kids aren’t well fed. Turns out soda crackers and peanut butter isn’t exactly rocket fuel…and some kids show up at school with less than that. You can’t think of anything else when you’re hungry, so I’m hoping my wee contribution will help a kid through.
The book I’m hoping to publish by the time I’m 80 (It’s good to have goals) talks about the villagers who kept me afloat during my “fending for myself” moments. Now I’m a villager and I hope it helps.
Tell me what you have done, or would do following the week 7 and 8 markers. I’d love to hear from you!
One of the things I notice when exploring the virtual world of social media is the unkindness. Twitter is the worst, to the point I had to quit looking at comments for fear of becoming horrified. I peeked back in the other day and saw a local traffic commentator posting what someone had said to her.
“omg, you seriously have to get rid of that senile old bat Leslie Horton.”
Leslie is quirky and fun and brings joy to my day and the day of many others. If this individual doesn’t like her, the city does have other morning news shows. So why? I have no idea really but have made two observations:
The anonymity of platforms like twitter give courage to the unkind.
Unkind, low-brow posts by those in authority (you know who you are) seems to have lended legitimacy to those who used to hide in the shadows..
What can we do about it? Be kind.
My new community in High River, Alberta, Canada, has embraced kindness by dubbing several of us “Kindness Ambassadors” based on Jaime Thurston’s book, “Kindness – the little thing that matters most.”
I jumped on that bandwagon pretty quickly after a month of social media hate speech. Kindness. The word SPOKE to me.
I’m catching up a bit here because I’ve become a little “unretired” (A whole other post) but here’s where we are at so far.
Week 1. Give kind comments. No Leslie does not enjoy being called a senile old bat. If you don’t like her style change the channel. If you do enjoy her style, tell her so. (I love you Leslie!)
Week 2. Be Kind to Unkind People. Oh, there’s Leslie again. She’s been known to be kind to unkind people by assuring they get themselves a Snickers bar. The Snickers company themselves have participated in her quest to sweeten the world a little when it gets a little sour.
Week 3. Share Your Food. We’ve always been active supporters of our local food bank but when I moved to this community I came across a local organization known as High River Food Rescue. These folks redistribute edible food to our community that would otherwise go to waste, through markets held twice weekly. Seriously, how cool is this?
Week 4. Do Something for Nothing. Now I know sometimes it’s hard to become an official part of a volunteer organization because of other things you’ve got going on. Sometimes life is hard. I GET it! Oh boy, do I get it. Sometimes though, you offer to pick the grandkids up at school, or you shovel the neighbour’s walk, or you make sure a Mom of a newborn has some ready-made meals, or you paint someone’s basement because they can’t physically do it themselves and they can’t afford to hire someone. Whatever it is, do it and expect nothing in return. My best “do somethings” have been things I’ve done in secret. My Dad won a Volunteer award from the AB Government back in 2013, and in his speech, he told a story of harvesting a sick neighbour’s field. When he asked his Dad if they were going to tell the neighbour they had done it; his Dad replied, “Getting credit is not why we do it.”
Week 5. Smile. That one is easy when someone is smiling back, a little tougher when faced with a scowl. On week 5 I threw myself out there and smiled at many very unhappy looking people. Very rarely was the smile returned. I had chosen the pick of the litter. The bottom line is, I don’t know why they are miserable. I don’t know why one particular lady got so upset so quickly at such a small thing. I don’t know. So I smile at them. Maybe it confuses them but maybe somewhere deep down it is better than being ignored.
Week 6. This week. Switch off and disconnect. Face to face conversation allows us to connect as human beings. I used to have face to face conversations with students, staff and faculty daily. I have formed lifelong connections with some of them.
Now I am a contract worker, writing from home. Beyond the undeniable attraction of working in stretchy pants and a -40 commute that does not require me to go outside, I miss these connections. My team and I meet via video conference or phone, and it’s just not the same as having those co-workers who grab you from your desk to go for a popcorn run or those who stop by with a cup of coffee and a chat. I’ve decided the occasional drive to connect with the people I “work with” is going to be integral to my survival.
Until then, this week’s “switch off and disconnect” will be about my grandchildren. I’m babysitting all day tomorrow. No tablet, no movies, no Facebook, no blogging…just some good old face to face with some of the most entertaining folks in my world.
And if they act like little horrors…I will try to be kind. 😉
Black Friday. The real sign that we have swung into the Christmas season. As we are inundated by appeals from the Mustard Seed and Salvation Army among others, the dream I had last night isn’t all that surprising. I was at a Tim Hortons (how very Canadian of me) and a down and out fellow shuffled into the place and rattled enough change onto the counter to buy a large double-double. He eyed the doughnuts on display, the menu above the cashiers, and he sat down with his coffee. At some point in the dream, I bought the fellow breakfast to the disapproving stares of others in the building. As I paid for his meal, something compelled me to tell them why I was doing it. I can still feel the emotion of my response.
This is Bill. Bill is why.
Homelessness often starts with mental illness or addiction. Our home growing up had one which led to the other. Our mother didn’t become homeless, only because her husband took “for better for worse, in sickness and in health” rather seriously.
I won the genetic lottery, not in looks but mental wellness… for the most part. (The name “Crazy Woman” given to me by a couple of our indigenous instructors notwithstanding). My brother won a good dose of charm and a propensity for addiction. Nothing he chose, nothing he wanted, just the luck of the draw.
Best Friends
His struggles began to see light in his teenage years and for many years he struggled. Lost licenses, lost marriage, lost respect.
Finally, he moved from hospital to a treatment facility and came out with the addiction pushed to the background. He got married again and had three beautiful children who he loved to the moon and back. One with the family dimple, one who looked a lot like him and one who possessed a natural joy. He went above and beyond for a Dad of this era; after a full day of work, his evening often consisted of bathing the kids, getting them into their PJ’s, folding laundry and choosing their clothes for the next day.
He loved every minute of it.
For 12 years, he worked, supported his family, rejoined society and loved those kids. Then one day it slipped a little when he got a taste of a new addiction. Often it isn’t the original addiction that gets someone who has walked that path before…
He slipped completely after our Dad died. Dad had always held him up when the going got tough, just as he had with my mother. I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to lose that safety net entirely. I know it was painful to watch him fall.
One thing remained constant. He loved those kids.
He wasn’t able to see his children during those tough times. He sunk deeper; that loss was the toughest of all. As his addiction took more control, he ended up living in his truck in the parking lot of our childhood church: this good looking happy child, this handsome outdoors-loving teen, this loving father… was homeless.
It seemingly ended on a train track in Southern Alberta one night. What Bill didn’t know was he still lived in the hearts of his kids, especially the oldest who remembered the good times best. She remembered him still when she got married last summer, and I was honoured to join her other auntie walking her down the aisle in his place.
My niece had given her uncle a picture of her Dad to take throughout the day, to the ceremony, awaiting her at the altar, to picture taking, and at the reception, joining us at our table. At one point in the evening he even joined her and uncle in a dance.
She never stopped missing him. Addicted or not, homeless or not…she missed who he had been in their lives. This oldest girl has tried to help the younger two know him the best she can.
As her sister plans a wedding and her brother reestablishes his relationship with his sisters, she misses who he could have been in their lives.
Next year Bill becomes a Grandpa and I know what a special thing being a grandparent is. (The baby will call me Grauntie! )
I’m a Grauntie!
My brother wasn’t at his best during his moments of crisis but I loved him too (even when I didn’t like him) because I remembered the entirety of his journey.
As many communities face an opioid crisis and are repelled by lost souls more visible than ever, it’s hard to remember their humanity. Their previous lives may have included parenthood, home ownership, satisfying work…Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. We remembered this during my husband’s birthday party at a park in Calgary, AB this summer.
Behind this photo is a fellow who entered the park, pushing a shopping cart. One of my girls brought him food from our barbecue, he rescued our ball from the river, and we expressed our heartfelt thanks. (It was rather amazing what he could invent from the contents of that cart.) The most important moment of that day for this guy? It was probably when my husband turned to him and asked, “So what’s your story?” Hubby told him he didn’t have to share, but my husband caring to hear it was likely a humanizing moment. He did share, and his journey wasn’t far from my brother’s. By the end of the day, the grandkids were asking him if he wanted the plastic tablecloths, and we left him some more food for his next meal… not because we pitied him but because we were just helping a guy out who joined our party for a while.
We all thought of Bill.
When next you see someone camped out or existing in some marginal way, I would never ask you to approach, some addictions are truly scary. I only ask that you adjust your mind to their humanity, to this face of homelessness.
Path to Pasture 