#365: Learning from Loss

Last week was hard.

This past Wednesday, we lost Bruce's colleague Gerald Adams to pancreatic cancer.  We had been blindsided when we learned of his illness because, of course, we knew the outcome.  Such a diagnosis was not one that could be argued with or negotiated. Gerald did have wonderful hospice care and an amazing, supportive, loving family so in that sense, I suppose, he died a "good" if inevitable death.  But it is all so sad. He was such a lovely man.

Then on Friday we attended the funeral of Janet Wardlaw -- Bruce's former dean (and, incidentally, the first female dean at the U of G).   For the last 15 years she was also our regular companion at the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony.

When I learned that Janet was in the hospital as the result of a fall at Christmas, I was aghast. I did argue. Janet couldn't possibly fall!  How could that happen? (I have to admit that I felt somewhat betrayed.  Janet, how could you?  And I am not alone-- others have sheepishly confessed to having the same initial reaction.)

Because Janet really did seem invincible. She was a role model for her younger friends; we all wanted to be just like her, perpetually youthful and active.   She went swimming several times a week.  She walked downtown. She was so fit that I never once thought to suggest that we take the elevator to our second-balcony symphony seats!  She kept her brain fit playing Bridge and Scrabble and serving on many committees where her intelligence and administrative skills were highly valued.  An international traveller, she always seemed to be going to the States to see former students and colleagues, or to Europe with tour groups from her church.  Even last September as the symphony season recommenced, we asked the usual question, "Janet where did you go this summer?" She told us that she hadn't intended to go away, but that friends or family had talked her into this or that adventure. Friends were always asking her to go along on trips because she was the best possible company -- agreeable, upbeat, curious, and energetic. She was also very sensible, even pragmatic.  Perhaps she developed this habit as a single woman, although I prefer to think that decisiveness was in her nature.  Nevertheless, it was a lesson to us all when, at 80, she sold her beautiful two-storey stone house with its lovely garden and moved into a nearby condo.  Physically she had no need to move and she admitted it.  But she had decided that it was time.  "Less bother eventually for my nieces and nephews" is how she explained it."

When I read Janet's obituary I learned even more about this remarkable woman, including her actual age. I came across the phrase, "Janet Wardlaw in her 90th year..."  . 

What?

A few months ago I had a conversation about death and age with "Hetty" one of my retirement home readers.   Hetty has had a bad year -- two bouts of cancer along with the usual surgeries and radiation. Just as she was between procedures, I visited her and remarked on a bouquet of her favourite yellow roses.  The blooms looked a little droopy, but they had been very pretty when fresh. "Well, Nancy", she observed, "that is the way of the world.  Flowers die.  Old ladies die."  She wasn't being gloomy -- she was telling it like it is because she wasn't really sure I had it all figured out. Hetty knows me so well.

 Janet, how could you?    

But I think I now understand my astonished reaction to Janet's death.  I just never thought of her as OLD.

Of course, Hetty was right.  "Old ladies" of 89 do die, but if they are like Janet they will be well and healthy right up to the finish line.

Janet, forgive me. In your 90th year, you betrayed no-one.  Ever the educator, you were still teaching us about life--and death--even as you left us.  And we won't forget.

#363: Anniversaries: The Bitter and the Sweet

November 22.

Now there is a date to conjure with, especially for those of us who vividly recall the events of 50 years ago.

Such was power of the Kennedy mystique, that even out on the Canadian prairies we were shocked to learn of the news from Dallas.  It was a 9/11 moment for my generation. (And for the record, I was having lunch in a U of A classroom with my friend Alexis Dryburgh when another student burst through the door shouting “Kennedy’s been shot!"  It is a testimony to the significance of the pronouncement that I do not remember what I was wearing.)

But, powerful as this memory is, I would not likely have commented on the 50-year anniversary except that falls on a much happier occasion: my grandson Erik’s birthday.  Our busy little boy is one year old today.

We won’t be there to celebrate, nor do I think his parents are planning a birthday extravaganza.  The little guy had his big moment a few days ago when he and a group of year-old friends participated in an over-the-top shared 1st birthday experience—a cake smash. 

I had no idea what this entailed, but it is apparently the coming thing for 1^st birthdays.  The ingredients are simple: one or more babies clad for cake combat (diapers and not much else) and an iced cake (nothing too special because this cake is destined for a bad end).  The instructions are equally basic: put the babies on the floor with the cake and let the smashing to begin. 

That is the way a cake smash is supposed to unfold.  But there is no accounting for baby behaviour; at Erik’s event most of the birthday celebrants were not terribly interested in the cake, and the mothers, chagrined at this turn of events, had to demonstrate technique.

Curious Erik, however, apparently needed no such urging.  He was covered in cake in short order, to my daughter’s dismay. (Jenny says she felt somewhat embarrassed by his enthusiasm.  She had been a bit iffy about the cake smash from the get-go.  She didn’t even take photos.)

I thought about this shared birthday party on Wednesday when I went out with my ladies’ hiking group.  One of the members had very much enjoyed a 75^th birthday planned by her grandchildren.  “There were kid games and kid food!  It was a hoot”, she enthused.

I was 19 when Kennedy died so I have a significant birthday this coming January, and I can’t help but think Erik should be the party planner.  We would have a cake smash of course!  I can imagine the scene: Nancy and her age mates (I could invite my entire book group) attacking a supermarket sheet cake emblazoned with an appropriate message: 70 SUCKS!

Take that, symbolic representation of my aging mind and body!  SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!    

Aaaah, but could we do it?  Could we wantonly waste food and create a sticky mess that someone would have to clean up?  I don’t think so.  We are, after all, children of the 60’s.  We still hold on to Kennedy values.

What would Jackie do?

I rest my case.