It's a rough week: Six months ago today Ken died. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, we interred his ashes along with his brother's--at least the urn that we had, which is only part of his remains.
The thing about interring the ashes on Ash Wednesday--an appropriate day, we thought, is the impact it had on me when at church that evening the priest marked my forehead with ashes saying, "Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you will return." It was more meaningful than ever before. We had just been there and done that. Our children were dust and have now returned to dust. Just like the rest of us, eventually.
Furthermore: February 8th, Ken would have turned 54, February 16th would have been his brother, Frank's, 56th birthday, and on the 17th their dad, my husband will turn 80. And, today, Valentine's Day (something we've never celebrated) was my husband's mother's birthday. And the list goes on. All the memories, happy and so very sad, all piled up in the shortest month of the year. My dad's birthday on the 20th, and so on. Just name it "Roller-Coaster Month". But not a lot of fun.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
New Year 2013
This time last year I posted here that I planned to ... well, it doesn't matter what I planned. The year went ahead as one of the worst in my life. Soon after that post, my second son was diagnosed with lung cancer, and for the next eight months I struggled with trying to deal with his needs--up to and including holding his hand as he drew his last breath. His elder brother died of cancer in 2005. No, it doesn't get easier; no you don't get over it. Getting through it is the best you can hope for.
Ken died on August 14, 2012, at 2:05 pm. I still keep looking for him, expecting to see him or hear from him. Now we have three surviving children, all living about 500 km away. Thank God for grandchildren!
This coming Saturday, we'll be celebrating Epiphany (1 day early) and I'm expecting one son and lots of grandchildren to come for our usual festivities: brunch & silly gifts. Ken will be conspicuous by his absence because he's always been front & centre with his special gifts for the kids.
Praying for a better year this year. No resolutions. (Although, I'm back on my Jenny Craig regime and have already lost 10 lbs.)
Ken died on August 14, 2012, at 2:05 pm. I still keep looking for him, expecting to see him or hear from him. Now we have three surviving children, all living about 500 km away. Thank God for grandchildren!
This coming Saturday, we'll be celebrating Epiphany (1 day early) and I'm expecting one son and lots of grandchildren to come for our usual festivities: brunch & silly gifts. Ken will be conspicuous by his absence because he's always been front & centre with his special gifts for the kids.
Praying for a better year this year. No resolutions. (Although, I'm back on my Jenny Craig regime and have already lost 10 lbs.)
Thursday, December 27, 2012
A Different Christmas
It's a good thing we don't really celebrate Christmas the way we used to. Once upon a time, when the kids were little, we did all the traditional things--big Xmas tree, big Xmas dinner, lots of gifts under the tree, and so on.
Then things changed over the years, and eventually we went from fake tree to no tree at all. No special dinner. No gifts. Instead, we moved the feast to Epiphany, January 6th, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family. Gifts were woven into a couple of games, but no one was allowed to give us (my husband and me) anything. Brunch instead of dinner.
For the past couple of years, some friends of ours have invited us to have turkey dinner at their home. This year, that happened again. But there were differences.
First of all, and most important, our son Ken was not here. Usually he decorated his suite with little houses and trains, making a quaint village, decked with Xmas lights. Even our Epiphany brunch, which we have yet to have, will be different because Ken is no longer with us. He always brought gifts for everyone--especially the kids. We'll miss him terribly this Epiphany.
Another difference: We haven't had a Xmas tree for at least six years. This year, I went and bought a box purporting to contain a 4' tree. I got it home and found it was marked "porch" and contained not one but TWO trees! So one is in the small foyer and the other is in the sitting room. They have white lights woven in the branches. Quite pretty, but very simple. Ken would have loved them, and would have had the foyer tree in his suite.
The third difference: My husband and I haven't exchanged gifts for many years. This year, he gave me one. He left it on the table in front of the Advent candles, and about 10 am Xmas day I finally noticed the gaily wrapped parcel. It looked like a box of chocolates. It had my name on it, from "The Magi". I don't eat chocolate, so I thought maybe it was a box of candies. Or a framed picture of the family. No, it was exactly what I'd been voicing my desire for--a Kobo Glo.
Not being very computer savvy, it took me several hours to get it set up, but I still have trouble using it. I'm sure it's very simple once I get the hang of it. But tomorrow I'm going to take it to the shop where he bought it and get the clerks there to explain why it isn't doing what I want. My main problem is that all the instructions on the tablet are in Portuguese!!! Go figure!
I've bought one book and loaded it on the Kobo, now I'd like to read it.
The book? It's called The Giver, by Lois Lowry (I think). A young adult fantasy novel.
Then things changed over the years, and eventually we went from fake tree to no tree at all. No special dinner. No gifts. Instead, we moved the feast to Epiphany, January 6th, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family. Gifts were woven into a couple of games, but no one was allowed to give us (my husband and me) anything. Brunch instead of dinner.
For the past couple of years, some friends of ours have invited us to have turkey dinner at their home. This year, that happened again. But there were differences.
First of all, and most important, our son Ken was not here. Usually he decorated his suite with little houses and trains, making a quaint village, decked with Xmas lights. Even our Epiphany brunch, which we have yet to have, will be different because Ken is no longer with us. He always brought gifts for everyone--especially the kids. We'll miss him terribly this Epiphany.
Another difference: We haven't had a Xmas tree for at least six years. This year, I went and bought a box purporting to contain a 4' tree. I got it home and found it was marked "porch" and contained not one but TWO trees! So one is in the small foyer and the other is in the sitting room. They have white lights woven in the branches. Quite pretty, but very simple. Ken would have loved them, and would have had the foyer tree in his suite.
The third difference: My husband and I haven't exchanged gifts for many years. This year, he gave me one. He left it on the table in front of the Advent candles, and about 10 am Xmas day I finally noticed the gaily wrapped parcel. It looked like a box of chocolates. It had my name on it, from "The Magi". I don't eat chocolate, so I thought maybe it was a box of candies. Or a framed picture of the family. No, it was exactly what I'd been voicing my desire for--a Kobo Glo.
Not being very computer savvy, it took me several hours to get it set up, but I still have trouble using it. I'm sure it's very simple once I get the hang of it. But tomorrow I'm going to take it to the shop where he bought it and get the clerks there to explain why it isn't doing what I want. My main problem is that all the instructions on the tablet are in Portuguese!!! Go figure!
I've bought one book and loaded it on the Kobo, now I'd like to read it.
The book? It's called The Giver, by Lois Lowry (I think). A young adult fantasy novel.
Friday, November 16, 2012
short story submission
Struggling to write, I thought I'd try nanowrimo again. However, writing 2000 words a day hasn't happened. No surprise there.
Yesterday, though, I did finally write a short story I'd been trying to write for a couple of months with no success. The characters I tried to get going refused to cooperate. Then a couple of days ago a character popped into my head and the story got going. I completed it yesterday in time for the monthly critique meeting that meets in my home. I got some feed-back and before I went to bed last night I had brushed up the story and submitted it to the Children's Writer competition. It's a Young Adults short story called "Waves", about 1300 words. The competition required a maximum of 1500 words, and today was the deadline. So, I was within the word maximum and before the deadline. Now--I just have to wait until (forget when) to find out if it met the rest of the requirements. Hope.
Maybe one day soon I'll be able to get back to writing on my novels and my non-ficiton book that's been in the works for a few years.
Yesterday, though, I did finally write a short story I'd been trying to write for a couple of months with no success. The characters I tried to get going refused to cooperate. Then a couple of days ago a character popped into my head and the story got going. I completed it yesterday in time for the monthly critique meeting that meets in my home. I got some feed-back and before I went to bed last night I had brushed up the story and submitted it to the Children's Writer competition. It's a Young Adults short story called "Waves", about 1300 words. The competition required a maximum of 1500 words, and today was the deadline. So, I was within the word maximum and before the deadline. Now--I just have to wait until (forget when) to find out if it met the rest of the requirements. Hope.
Maybe one day soon I'll be able to get back to writing on my novels and my non-ficiton book that's been in the works for a few years.
catching up again
Apologies to all those who have checked this blog in anticipation of finding something new. As you may have noticed, it has been a hard year.
After losing Ken, I tried to carry on as normally as possible. Writing was the most difficult because it requires concentration and imagination and hard work. It was easier to do simple housework (my least favourite thing to do).
The first thing I did to try to help heal, was take a brief trip to the Okanagan to visit family members. It was a brief respite, but too short.
Then, in October, I travelled to New York to attend the Franciscan Chapter meeting with my husband. After 5 days with the friars and other Franciscans, I was much more relaxed. However, we no sooner got home when we learned about "Sandy", the monster storm, hitting New York City and surrounding areas. I still haven't heard how the storm affected the friary.
Then, because our home was so empty--the cat died, Ken died, Dave left--we really felt we were rattling around here. The only thing we could do was to get another cat.
So that's what we did. Our new cat is Mona, age 2 years & 7 months and a couple of weeks. She was a stray in Prince Rupert, then in the SPCA shelter there, then moved to West Vancouver shelter, then moved to Burnaby shelter. I saw her on the SPCA website and fell in love with her. So, October 20th, we brought her home. No more cages for her. She is still a bit strange with us, not ready for sitting on laps, not ready for cuddles, but she loves to be petted and she purrs all the time.
Home is beginning to feel almost like home again.
After losing Ken, I tried to carry on as normally as possible. Writing was the most difficult because it requires concentration and imagination and hard work. It was easier to do simple housework (my least favourite thing to do).
The first thing I did to try to help heal, was take a brief trip to the Okanagan to visit family members. It was a brief respite, but too short.
Then, in October, I travelled to New York to attend the Franciscan Chapter meeting with my husband. After 5 days with the friars and other Franciscans, I was much more relaxed. However, we no sooner got home when we learned about "Sandy", the monster storm, hitting New York City and surrounding areas. I still haven't heard how the storm affected the friary.
Then, because our home was so empty--the cat died, Ken died, Dave left--we really felt we were rattling around here. The only thing we could do was to get another cat.
So that's what we did. Our new cat is Mona, age 2 years & 7 months and a couple of weeks. She was a stray in Prince Rupert, then in the SPCA shelter there, then moved to West Vancouver shelter, then moved to Burnaby shelter. I saw her on the SPCA website and fell in love with her. So, October 20th, we brought her home. No more cages for her. She is still a bit strange with us, not ready for sitting on laps, not ready for cuddles, but she loves to be petted and she purrs all the time.
Home is beginning to feel almost like home again.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Reading
As I've said before, I'm finding it very difficult to get back into writing mode. However, there's nothing stopping me from reading. So, at the moment, I have three books on the go (none of them in the genre I want to write--no kidlit at all). One is about writing. While going through possible links to possible publishers for my books, I came across one with the admonition to read a book called Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, (second edition) by Renni Browne & Dave King, published by HarperCollins in 2004 (originally in 1991). I got it from the library.
The second book is a mystery by one of my favourite authors, Sue Grafton. This one is O is for Outlaw. I haven't read all the letters A to N, nor have I read them in any special order. They're good relaxing reading. I have several of Grafton's books--most recently I bought "N" at a garage sale.
The third book was given to me by the wife of the author, so it's even autographed. It is Climbing Jacob's Ladder, by Alan Morinis--about the Mussar tradition in Judaism. Well-written so that it's hard to put down.
Today I was reading some of "O" by Grafton, and found this quite amusing. In the self-editing book, there's considerable criticism of authors who break certain rules. An example is a quote from The New York Times Book Review, which goes as follows: "Mr. [Robert] Ludlum has other peculiarities. For example, he hates the 'he said' locution and avoids it as much as possible. Characters in The Bourne Ultimatum seldom 'say' anything. Instead, they cry, interject, interrupt, muse, state, counter, conclude, mumble, whisper (Mr. Ludlum is great on whispers), intone, roar, exclaim, fume, explode, mutter. There is one especially unforgettable tautology: '"I repeat," repeated Alex.'" The book may sell in the billions, but it's still junk." --Newgate Callender.
Well, the section I've been reading in Self-Editing has been going on against lengthy descriptions. It's the chapter on proportion. It warns against boring the reader to death with extensive passages about the scenery and the weather, etc. So that brings me back to Grafton's book. I really had to laugh--three whole pages (pp.99--108) of driving the 101 from Santa Teresa to Los Angeles, taking the offramp...paying for parking...looking for a parking spot...going up the elevator...shops on either side...the receptionist's wrinkled old face...etc., etc., etc. And yes, she did go on about the temperature, the fire hazard, the winds (the Santa Anas, etc.). Was I bored? Not really--I hoped she was building tension, but I don't know yet. I closed the book.
The second book is a mystery by one of my favourite authors, Sue Grafton. This one is O is for Outlaw. I haven't read all the letters A to N, nor have I read them in any special order. They're good relaxing reading. I have several of Grafton's books--most recently I bought "N" at a garage sale.
The third book was given to me by the wife of the author, so it's even autographed. It is Climbing Jacob's Ladder, by Alan Morinis--about the Mussar tradition in Judaism. Well-written so that it's hard to put down.
Today I was reading some of "O" by Grafton, and found this quite amusing. In the self-editing book, there's considerable criticism of authors who break certain rules. An example is a quote from The New York Times Book Review, which goes as follows: "Mr. [Robert] Ludlum has other peculiarities. For example, he hates the 'he said' locution and avoids it as much as possible. Characters in The Bourne Ultimatum seldom 'say' anything. Instead, they cry, interject, interrupt, muse, state, counter, conclude, mumble, whisper (Mr. Ludlum is great on whispers), intone, roar, exclaim, fume, explode, mutter. There is one especially unforgettable tautology: '"I repeat," repeated Alex.'" The book may sell in the billions, but it's still junk." --Newgate Callender.
Well, the section I've been reading in Self-Editing has been going on against lengthy descriptions. It's the chapter on proportion. It warns against boring the reader to death with extensive passages about the scenery and the weather, etc. So that brings me back to Grafton's book. I really had to laugh--three whole pages (pp.99--108) of driving the 101 from Santa Teresa to Los Angeles, taking the offramp...paying for parking...looking for a parking spot...going up the elevator...shops on either side...the receptionist's wrinkled old face...etc., etc., etc. And yes, she did go on about the temperature, the fire hazard, the winds (the Santa Anas, etc.). Was I bored? Not really--I hoped she was building tension, but I don't know yet. I closed the book.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
grieving
I'm looking again at Ken's obituary. My daughter wrote it, and it's quite beautiful. I can put the link to the memory book, too. It's four weeks ago today. It'll take a while before I stop doing this. Everyone grieves differently, and there is no right way or wrong way. That's what I'm told, anyway.
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