Stricken

As I recline on the couch, Dr Phil or Ellen or local news droning on in the background, my anemic toes stare up at me. 10 white reminders that I am not myself, I am uprooted, I am in crisis. Tanned skin retreats from crisis. Pale is the colour required.

The mirror is not my friend. Two tired eyes stare back. They are gathering baggage. Heavy, dark bags and the strain of their weight is showing. Gone is the glow, the energy, the fire that has kept me fueled for all these years. In it’s place a gaping wound. A reminder of life’s fragility. A monthly parking pass to a hospital.

My mom - the fiercely independent fireball role model of my life - lies in a bed there, in that hospital. Defenseless, vulnerable and afraid. The regal swans whom she has loved, companions by the lake’s edge, swim by. They are looking for her. They gather and make terrible noise. They cannot believe she has left them. And neither can I.

All of us have been drowned. Whisked into a dark vast cavern by a force of nature. Unexpected, uncontrollable, a stroke takes lives and knocks them sideways. Like dominoes in a storm, we all fall down.

They say it’s the most common cause of long term disability in North America. They say it’s the leading cause of death. They say someone has a stroke every 40 seconds. Those are just statistics.

They don’t say you will lose sleep. There will be tears. You will lose your independence, your free will, your health, your happiness. Your life. They can’t possibly write down what this ‘common’ occurrence will do to us all. It’s too hideous. Too morbid. Too gritty. They will tell me this post is the same. Harsh, negative. Ugly. And they will be right.

Unthinkable decisions to be made, lawyers to be consulted, forms to fill, belongings to discard, depressing facilities to be toured like holiday spas. Social workers, wheelchairs, hospital food. The smell of that. The reality is overwhelming.

How do you put this one in a box? Get it all settled and move on?! How do you protect your heart and soul from something so engulfing. Where do you find yourself again? It doesn’t exist. Not for my mother, not for me. Nothing will be the same again for any of us. And all by a tiny build up of blood, coursing through a vein, up into a brain. A tiny biological malfunction that ripples outward like an atomic bomb.

The frivolity of our lives in the sun, the coarseness of sand between my toes fades in my mind. I feel guilty at even the thought of it. Instead I reflect the grey around me. The sky cries onto the windows and her tears hit the cold lake, mixing with the weary waters of a Canadian spring day.

There is only one thing that keeps us all going. Pushing through the sludge. It’s the hug from my nephew. Warm, soft, beautiful in it’s innocence. It’s the hand squeeze from JW at the end of a trying day.

The friends of my mom who bend and stretch and reach out, far beyond what I could have imagined. It’s a testament to the amazing character of Jan. My mother is so loved. And it is love that shines through. It has proven to be the only force stronger than tragedy.

It’s what allows my sister and I to find laughter somewhere in all of this. Just to know that we are here for each other, for our mother.

So for now it’s the currency I’m working with. It’s the boat in a hurricane. And I’m just trying to hold on.

My sister is practically a body builder

My sister is practically a body builder. I live chicken wing to chicken wing fix. While she holds down a high power job, two awesome kids enrolled in everything from gymnastics to hockey, a hubby AND works out at the gym like mad, I can barely figure out where each week disappears. 

While I opted for a completely off-the-wall life, taking off to volunteer in Africa years ago, getting an expat job there along the way, and retiring at 42 to live on a sailboat, my sis is sticking it out in the ‘real’ world. A world I know almost nothing of.

She likes designer bags and high heels but she’s no airhead. She might look like Pamela Anderson on a night out on the town, but at heart, she is as down to earth as they come.  And smart. Very smart.

She’s got more than her fair share of charm and gusto too - she could sell meat to a butcher. In fact, she does sell meat. Like a boss.

She has always looked up to me – the big sis, the role model. But what for I’ll never know. I’m not the highly ambitious type. I enjoy bargain hunting in Walmart and I did live for 5 years in Africa quite happily on $200 a month. AND I was a mother of a 4 year old at the time. Some say I’m crazy. Maybe they’re right. Irresponsible, wayward, a drifter. But not my little sis.

She doesn’t see my lack of self control around fresh cut French fries or 3-for-$10 t-shirts. She thinks I’m great.

While she’s pumping big iron in a gym at 6am after prepping kiddies lunches, I’m sound asleep, only hours later rubbing the sleep from my eyes and wondering which bar has the best happy hour deal today.

She juggles a mortgage and temper tantrums. I helm a catamaran around Bahamian beaches and bays. And she thinks ‘I’ do something to admire.

Letter to my little sister:

You are a wonderful woman. You are far too hard on yourself and somehow somewhere along the line you came to believe you need to be superwoman. You are doing a great job.

But I love you behind all the muscles and the beauty and the promotions and the amazing kids you are raising. I love you for you. The pudgy blond baby I used to push around our 70’s shag carpet in a car seat/speed machine. Back then I told Mom that you were MY baby, so she should get pregnant again and have another one for herself.

You were determined even back then – to a fault. Holding your breath in the supermarket until you turned blue – if you didn’t get what you wanted. Your skills at moving your life in the direction you want have improved immensely over time. But I still see those eyes squeezed shut. That spirit has not changed. You are ambitious.

You are worth looking up to.

I not only love you with all my heart, I respect you. I have no idea where those genes came from - the dedication to a goal, the motivation to succeed, the positivity you bring to it all -  they missed me completely.

I am me, so very different. And you are you. 

I wish for you everything you want in this life. I wish this with every fibre of my being. But what I wish even more than that is for you to look within and see how amazing you are. And believe that. 

You have enriched my life and made it whole. I was an only child. A lonely child. You made it both a challenge and you brought the rewards. To this day I've never laughed so hard, until I am bursting, red faced, spewing, snorting REAL LAUGHTER as I do when I'm with you.

Thanks for being my little sis, and mostly thanks for being you.