This One's for Wendy

Greetings!

This morning, while Sorcha was getting ready for school, I gave her a hug and noticed something different…something I could no longer do. For a long time, when she would run up to me for a snuggle, as she leaned on my shoulder, I would bend my head sideways and lean on her head.  Eventually the “lean” turned into a “rest”. She would run up to me, the hug would begin and since her head came to just below my chin, I would simply rest my head on her head looking forward.

However, this morning while mid hug, I realized while resting on her head, I was looking up and not forward.  I was taken aback! Suddenly, out of nowhere, my little one had become too tall to be a head rest.  She is no longer a head shorter than me—it appears she has quietly snuck into the area of, when it comes to growing taller, catching up. Soon, we will be eye to eye and some day, I just know it, I will become her head rest as I lean on her shoulder.

This isn’t so bad really; Sorcha won’t be the last person to treat my head as a perch for her chin and she certainly isn’t the first, which brings us to the person in the title of this blog entry.

When, not that many moons ago, Sorcha fit under my chin, I told her a couple times, that the height difference between my friend Wendy and I, when we were kids, was a head difference and Wendy would often come up behind me and use me as a head rest.  I remember finding it amusing as my lack of height never really bothered me and I was happy to help with the resting of her head. To me it was sweet and showed the world that we were friends.

Wendy and I met over 30 years ago back in grade 3. She was shy, shyer than I was, and I longed to be her get to know her. She seemed interesting and smart, both traits that turned out to be true.  I’m not sure if it started in grade 3 or if it wasn’t until grade 4, but eventually we started walking halfway home together. We would walk with each other until we reached Aldene Ave, remembering every day to shake hands for luck. (You see, Wendy had been attacked by a big dog at some point, on that street and we figured a “you’ll make it past the dog” handshake would ensure safety. She never got attacked after our handshakes started so I’m thinking it worked. )

For a few years, we were what you would call “school friends” meaning we just hung out together, although not exclusively, at school.  It wasn’t until the summer going into grade 7 that we started to hang out together outside of school. It was a big step in our friendship and with it came sleepovers, cookie making (along with exploding blenders if I recall), Froggie’s Diner and recording ourselves on tape pretending to interview famous people.

We went through a lot together. Wendy was the first person I confessed my love of Michael J. Fox to. (It may not seem like a big deal to you, but to me it was huge!) She and I went to camp T-Bird together and were “Wild Outposts” for two weeks.  I stayed with her and her family while my parents headed to Ottawa to find a house and she was with me when I said goodbye to my cat Rocky before we left Victoria.

During my 4 years in Ottawa she was…let’s face it…the unfortunate recipient of my longest, most tedious, poorly written, letters.  When we returned to Victoria, I had assumed we would be going to university together, but Wendy had decided that SFU, not UVic would be her university of choice; a decision that crushed me at first, but later came to an eye opening experience for both of us. My many travels to Vancouver to visit Wendy changed my life forever. They enabled me to see life beyond Vancouver Island and forced me to live outside my comfort zone. It gave me courage to realize what I wanted out of life and move on to new things.

In October 1997, at my wedding in Ottawa, Wendy (along with a few other very good friends) stood as witness to my marriage to Sean. In October 2001, she held my baby Sorcha and in December 2002 I held her first daughter (after politely turning down the offer to look at the photos of her daughter’s birth).  The miracle of life in my arms, the good friend in the bed in front of me, our spouses at our sides, smiles on our faces;  I marveled at how far we’d come, at how much we’d grown up and changed and been through. We had taken very different roads to get to that moment, but through it all we were still friends.

There’s so much more I could write, but that’s true of anyone who has been a friend with someone for as long as Wendy and I have been friends. I’m not saying it’s all been rosy.  We’ve had our ups and downs, but the fact that we are still friends shows that the core of our friendship, the seed that started it all, still remains.

Wendy, I wish you a very happy birthday. I hope that you have a good year, the last of your (and mine!) thirties, and I thank you for being my friend.

Cin

This One's For My Mum

   Well over two years ago, for a local writing event that used to be held at the shop where I work, I wrote a piece for my Dad. I talked about all the ways he's positively influenced my life even though he spent much of my childhood away at sea. I was happy let him know that he was still a good father, even when he was far away.
 
   Ever since then, I have tried to write a piece for my Mum. At least a dozen times I've sat down at the computer or in front of a blank piece of paper with a pen in my hand and tried to put into words how much she means to me and...the words won't come. Now, I did write her a song, but it was about her relationship with my Dad and not about the person I've become because she is my mother.

   I've tried to figure out why exactly this is and it's certainly not because we aren't close or because I don't have anything nice to say. If anything, I think it's because I have almost too much to say. Also, perhaps I feel that this piece would be a vanity article. My Mum and I are a lot alike so if I started singing her praises would I also be singing mine?

   Even now, I'm having trouble. My heart is beating rapidly, a great feeling of love and respect is swelling in my chest and creating a lump in my throat. I'm a very emotional person and before I can put emotion into words, I have to work through those feelings. I know I am lucky to have a mother that makes me speechless with admiration, but I'm going to put the emotion aside and get on with the words.

   My Mum is a healer. She has been in the field of healthcare since her late teen years. When I was a little girl I dreamed of being a nurse because I wanted to be like her. My Mum looked so professional in her nurse whites and she always looked proud to go to work. She used to come home with funny stories or sometimes very sad tales about her patients. Some of the stories she would tell at the dinner table would make most people blush, but we loved them. Nursing has it's dark side and to get through some of those times, my Mum would use humour. It's a trait I've picked up from her; even in my darkest moments, I've still been able to laugh. Sometimes through tears, sometimes a little manically, but I can still laugh.

   When I was a child, although my Mum laughed and joked and made up silly songs about crocodiles and skipping to school with lunch in a basket, I hardly ever saw her laugh hysterically. The first time I can recall her doing so I was about 11 and the sight of her laughing uncontrollably in the kitchen, head down a cutting board, really frightened me. I thought something was wrong with her and practically begged her to stop. I remember how angry she was with me for thinking that her laughing fit was a bad thing. I felt guilty, but it was at that moment my view of my mother really changed. I realized that this woman standing in front of me wasn't just my mother, someone who was born to take care of me and my brother, cook our meals and keep the house clean. I realized that she was a person, a woman with feelings and dreams not yet revealed to me. She could, if I stopped looking at her through narrow eyes, be my friend.

   I tell my daughter that I am her mother first and her friend second.  Once I stopped thinking of my mother as just my mother, this was the relationship that grew between us. I discovered I could talk to her about anything, silly crushes on boys, the cruelty of the girls at school, my dream of becoming an actress (once I leaned about needles, blood and aiding in many messy tasks, I decided I didn't need to be a nurse to be like my Mum) and she would listen without judgement and with great patience. I loved talking to her about these things and more because when we talked I would feel like a grown up. She would share her own stories, talk about things that some people may have thought I was too young to know about, but that she felt I was ready to learn. She trusted me from an early age to do the right thing and armed me with knowledge that helped me in situations where many of my friends remained a little too innocent.

  However, as I said, she was my mother first. When I took liberties with her kindness, or took her for granted and lipped off or yelled, she would put me in my place with a look, or a well deserved scolding. It didn't always go over well. We are both stubborn people who like to be right and get the last word in. When two people with these traits are arguing you wind up with very loud fights. As a teenager, the arguments between my Mum and I happened often. My Dad would often try to act as mediator, but my Mum would tell him that we would work it out when we were ready. The fight would rage, we would go to our corners and when we were ready we would talk it out once the words had been shed of their raw emotion.

   These were difficult times for us, but they made me stronger. I know that a fight can clear the air and that as long as you have the courage to talk after, to work it out, to forgive the hurt feelings and even boldly admit when you are wrong, the foundations of your relationship will remain strong. I have a very good marriage and I strongly believe that my rocky yet strong relationship with my Mum during my teenage years taught me that the right person will work through all life's problems with you. The right person will still love you and forgive you. The right person will love you for all your flaws and goodness.

   My Mum is independent, friendly, and her compassionate and beautiful soul shines in her eyes. People gravitate to her because she has an energy you want to be a part of.  Her many friends trust her with their deepest secrets and know that she is loyal, honest and will not let them down. I try to be this kind of friend too, and when I feel let down by someone I thought was a friend, my Mum understands exactly how I feel.

   For years I lived far away from my parents, but last year the stars aligned in such a way as to bring a distance of almost 6000km between us down to just 7km. Instead of two hour talks on the phone I can now pop over for coffee, gossip, laughter and long talks about everything. We don't fight anymore, or very rarely, and she still shares stories with me and we help each other through the rough times. She is proud of me and the person I've become. She is one of my best friends which fills me with a joy I cannot put into words. But those feelings fall a distant second to how I feel when I look at her and know that I am truly blessed to be able to say that this amazing woman is my mother.


Happy Birthday Mum. I love you.


Cins