Kiwanis Festival and A New Composition

Tigana, who turned 15 a few days after, took four firsts, a second, and a third in the Kiwanis Festival this year, and was selected to represent Lethbridge in the Provincials in May in her category. Here are her singing performances:

Sabben Crudelle

To Lo Sai

I was very pleased with her progress, especially given that she had had to switch music teachers in January. Since starting with her new instructor, Janet Youngdahl, she has made incredible progress both in her performances and in her understanding of theory.

She also did very well in recitation. Unfortunately, the video for my favorite piece didn't come out: the opening lines got cut off. In this one she missed a couple of words, though I like that she was sufficiently smooth that the two missing words were not immediately noticeable:

Emily Carr's "Doctor" from The Book of Small

Coincidentally, the same week, Kasia (age 9) composed a song, which I then pestered her into performing for your viewing pleasure:

My Best Enemy

Higgins Update

So we signed the papers to officially adopt Higgins.

Mary liked Higgins right away, but was reluctant to confirm the shift from fostering to adoption because Higgins had a few issues at first. He bit me, for example, deep enough to require a quick trip to emergency, and he bit Tigana on the neck, and we couldn't keep Kasia from constantly putting her face an inch from Higgin's teeth because she had gotten so used to Jackie, our other dog, who would never bite her under any circumstances. But I discounted my bites because I definitely deserved to get bitten (I was behaving stupidly with a new dog) and after Mary calmed down when Tigana was bitten, we were able to reconstruct that we had heard a yelp before the dog bit her, so we're pretty sure that Tigana must have accidentally hurt him, either by unknowingly leaning on some part of him that was under a blanket, or perhaps scrapping him with her dagger-like nails (teenager!). And it was not a serious bit, so under the circumstances showed a lot of restraint.

Higgins was a bit tentative about us at first too: besides the usual adjustments to a new home, he was from San Deigo and here I was dragging him out for walks in 40 below weather, so pretty sure he was looking at me with a "why are you torturing me like this?" expression. The weather is milder this week (unseasonably so) but I think Higgins will be okay if it gets colder again. He has been working hard to figure out the new routines and he already trusts me enough to come sit on my lap, so no worries about further biting, unless one of us does something careless again. The one problem with Higgins is that previous owners seem to have trained him not to growl, which is of course extremely stupid because you want a dog to warn you off if you are provoking him to bite. Higgins gives no verbal warning, so we have to constantly watch for body language. But he seems generally relaxed with us already, and gets along with our other dog really well, so we are satisfied he will fit in. Our dog now.

Higgins

I have previously mentioned our dog Jackie. Much as we love Jackie, she is not cuddly. Well, she thinks she's a lap dog, but at 60lbs, this does not work that well for us. Having dislocated my wife's arm and having dragged the 9 year old down the block, even walking Jackie is a challenge. So recognizing that my wife desperately missed Pooka, her departed shih tzu, I gave her a certificate for the rescue dog of her choice so that we could adopt a dog Mary could cuddle and that Kasia could safely walk. Having reviewed hundreds of dogs through the local and Calgary dog rescue agencies, we today brought home Higgins, with a view to adopting him, provided he and Jackie can work things out.

So far Higgins and Jackie seem to be getting along, Mary seems to like him a lot, and the kids are fairly enthusiastic. So we'll give it a couple of weeks, but I think this may be our new/second dog.

Of Cannibals and Mice

My 14 yr old daughter has a test tomorrow over which she is slightly freaking out. As I understand it, the issue is that there is a small risk she might only get, say, 95% on the test unless she stays up for the next two hours studying, as opposed to the 98% which is her stated goal for the average in this course. I give my usual "it's not about the marks" speech, and order her to bed so she will be well rested for the test, but she is still freaking out. Half-way through my second "work/life balance" speech (it's remotely possible that I have a tendency to address my children in professorial lecture mode), she confesses that the proximate cause of her attack of nerves is that a fellow student has shown her a viral YouTube cartoon featuring cannibalism and it is now freaking her out (though she had not thought anything of it at the time).

"You're not seriously telling me you're afraid that cannibals are going to break into your room and eat you, are you?"

She holds up her thumb and index finger separated by a hair. "Little bit."

She allows that the fear is irrational, but that there is nevertheless no chance of her getting to sleep tonight.

I recognize that the cannibalism motif is simply the lightening rod for a generalized existential panic brought on by ridiculous amounts of homework (she is in the pre-IB program) and too much extra curricular activity (three hours of rehearsals every evening, including weekends), and the social challenges of adolescence and high school. So I sit down on the edge of her bed and start to talk her down by taking her fears seriously, and pointing out that (a) we have a good alarm system that will alert security if any cannibals attempt unauthorized entry into our house; (b) we have a large black dog that would likely eat any such cannibals first, and that (c) I will be sleeping right upstairs.

She allows how this is all true and reassuring and starts to show signs of thinking about calming down and going to sleep.

At which point the aforementioned large black dog bursts into the room, smashes into the wall, and begins tearing the shelves apart. She puts her forepaws through a wicker basket, plunges her head inside, and generally goes psycho-killer on Tigana's doll collection.

This, I think, may not be entirely helpful in improving the tone of the evening.

A moment later, a tiny jet-black mouse makes a break for it and sprints across the floor and out the door, while the dog gives murderous chase. From behind me, standing on the bed, I hear my daughter shrieking, "I knew there was something alive in here!"

"Well, it's gone now," I begin, in what I know is likely to be ineffectual damage control, but before I have even finished the sentence, the dog is back, ripping open the wicker basket once again. I pick the basket up and make to move it outside, chiding the dog that the mouse has now gone and what she is smelling is just traces of the departed mou-- But of course, I only make it two feet before I see another (this time grey) mouse racing frantically round the basket as I inadvertently tip it, and I--hero protector that I am--shriek loudly and drop the basket. The dog plunges her head back in and proceeds to smash the remnants of the basket to kindling in an attempt to get the creature. She suddenly snaps her jaws shut, and as Tigana shouts from behind me, "Don't let her kill it! It did nothing wrong!", the dog trots out of the room with the deliberate gait of an executioner. As I mumble something about mouse trespass and the death penalty to Tigana, I follow the action outside the bedroom in time to watch a bullet-fast mouse (I am unclear if this is a third individual or one of the previous two somehow escaped from the jaws of death) scuttle under the sitting room piano -- and my 60lb dog kamikaze into same nanoseconds after. As I call the dog back from battering the piano pedals, I'm thinking my little night-time pep talk could definitely have gone better...

Normally, this is where I call in Mom to take charge of hysterical children, but she's away, so the best I could do as move the kids upstairs while the dog and I slept downstairs in their (apparently mouse-infested) bedrooms. It was restful for no one that the dog persisted in patrolling the floor against further incursions for most of the night, though I suppose it did manage to draw attention away from the cannibal threat.

This is not, I am sorry to confess, the first problematic encounter with mice in the house. About a month ago I had set a few traps to catch suspected intruders in the kitchen, with reassurances to the children that it was a 'catch and release' program. This worked relatively effectively, with my actually setting a few mice loose in the coulees, until I noticed that one trap had inexplicably disappeared. Assuming I had just misremembered where I had placed it, or that the dog had nosed it away somewhere, I forgot about it. A couple of days later I'm playing with my 9 year old in her room, when she reaches behind her into her stack of stuffies to pull out--you guessed it--a dead mouse. Why the mouse dragged itself and the trap all the way across the house to my daughter's bedroom and buried itself in her stuffy collection, I will never know, but Kasia's reaction was predictably 'upset'. It hadn't helped that we actually have three stuffed mice included in her collection and that we both sat there starring at the dead mouse for 10 seconds before realizing that this one was real. (Well the trap attached should have been a give away.) On that occasion I was able to hand my daughter off to spend the night with mom, but it took a couple of days to convince Kasia her room was now mouse free.

Still, could have been worse. Could have been cannibals.

Mary Runté Awarded Woman of Distinction

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Excerpted from the Feb 13, 2012 University of Lethbridge Notices Board:

The YWCA Women of Distinction Awards recognize outstanding women who live and work in Southern Alberta.

Through a competitive process, the honourees are chosen from a group of nominations. The awards are based on the candidate’s accomplishments, commitment and leadership.

The Women of Distinction Awards Ceremony is a wonderful venue to showcase the talent and leadership of women in Southern Alberta. Women honoured have been trailblazers, entrepreneurs, innovators, social advocates, and volunteers.

Mary Runte: Woman of Distinction in the Spirit of Women category.

Mary Runté has a Ph.D. in Management from St. Mary's University and an MBA from York. She is an Associate Professor of Strategy and the Director of Social Responsibility in the Faculty of Management at the University of Lethbridge.

Previously, Mary worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Eastside Young Moms and the Society of Special Needs Adoptive Parents (SNAP). Gender inequity, work-family balance, social responsibility and business ethics are her particular areas of interest and research, having numerous publications and having received major research grants to study these issues.

Mary was honoured as distinguished speaker for the Work-Life Conference at the University of Ochanamizu, Tokyo, Japan in 2007. She is the founding Division Chair for the Social Responsibility Interest Group of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada.

Her tireless support of her students, especially female students in non-traditional fields, and her one-on-one mentoring throughout their academic careers is done on a volunteer basis. She is an incredible role model for students and colleagues alike as she advocates ceaselessly for ethical and principled business behaviour.

================================================================
From the Lethbridge Hearld, Monday, Feb 13, 2012.:

Runté credits her daughters as her inspiration to connect with other women.
"They are very different, unique souls, and to just be able to see that and to recognize that is one of the greatest honours I have in life; to be able to nurture that and allow it to grow without interference, but with support," she said. "And I say that with my students as well. Male and female, sometimes what they need is just to be noticed."

Runte is known for tirelessly supporting her pupils, particularly female students studying non-traditional fields, as well as her volunteer one-on-one mentoring.
"It's really validating when people notice something that you do simply because it's what you do," she said of winning the award.

========================================================
I am incredibly proud of Mary. I of course was aware of the impact she was having before the award, but it's nice to see her get some recognition for the work that she does.

Father's Day 2011

Kasia's portrait of me for Father's day. Not sure if the lack of beard reflects her forgetting I had one or just that beards are hard to draw. Line across my forehead represents glasses, and two extra eyes are ears. Careful examination reveals my bald spot.

Portrait of Her Mom

Kasia's (age 7) portrait of her mom for Mother's Day.

Runte Christmas 2010

Yes, I know the tie doesn't go, but it is a Xmas tie from my 7 year old, so what could I do?

We had a quiet xmas at home this year: no travel.

Tigana mostly got cool clothes and is old enough, and enough of a clothes horse, to think that was fabulous. I gave mary a necklace from the museum of modern art catalog and a dress and shawl from Fairmount boutique; and I got a meteorite from Kasia (WAY cool), various fossils, a joystick driven etchasketch, a book on useless Japanese inventions (which Tigana also fell in love with), and a good winter coat.



Mostly Mary and I wrap up whatever we buy ourselves in Nov/Dec (e.g., dvds) and put those under the tree so it looks like a lot of stuff, but we do try to keep the materialistic orgy down to our usual quarterly purchases. The big present, though, was a Disney cruise for Reading Week in February. We usually need a break in Feb, both from campus and from winter in Lethbridge, and Mary got an unbelievable deal on the cruise -- much less than we'd pay for any other holiday -- about what it costs my brother-in-law for his annual stay in Jasper. Jasper's nice and all, but, you know -- Disney cruise!


Ghost Dancer's Shadow

The other memorable gift this year was that Tigana "adopted" a pony in a wild horse preserve and gave that to her sister, pony-mad Kasia. So Kasia got a photo and adoption package for 'her' pony, Ghost Dancer's Shadow, for Christmas. (Kasia is, of course, only one of many sponsors for the horses, but in her mind, she now has her own pony!)

Galt Museum Saturday Program

Kasia (with help from Dad) and Tigana building 'gopher puppets' at the Galt Museum as part of Napi Tales, one of their Saturday at 1:00 kids programs. Kasia's puppet was a gopher princes (thus the blonde hair); Tigana's is a snake (note forked tongue and the first of the scales being put on). The puppets were designed to pop out of the ground/tin on cue. The Napi story teller was wonderful, and all the kids who made puppets got to be in the show.

Inauthentic Western Food

I'm off to a writer's retreat out of LA this week, but stopped off in Vancouver to visit with my long-time friend and now brother-in-law, Philip. We spent a wonderful day catching up and sharing news from our respective disciplines. Philip is teaching an IB course on "The Theory of Knowledge", which is the sort of course you wish had been available back when you were in high school. Philip is primarily a physics teacher -- indeed, just won the 2010 Canadian Association of Physicists' Award for Excellence in Teaching High School/CEGEP Physics for British Columbia --but is clearly relishing the opportunity of teaching such a wide-open, 'big ideas' course to students at the exact age when the 'big idea' can really capture their imagination. So discussing issues from his course ("to what extent should one rely on experts? Does it differ between disciplines? How do you know who is an expert? ) was a great discussion starter, and inevitably ended with us watching TED videos late into the night. Good times!

But one of the more interesting bits was trying to decide where to eat. Philip suggested going out for some inauthentic Western food, so naturally, I said, "Huh?"

"Remember how when we were growing up in Edmonton and we'd go out for 'Chinese food' at the Bamboo Palace, but it was all pineapple chicken balls and beef and broccoli and wasn't really like authentic Chinese food at all?"

"But I liked the Bamboo Place," I complained.

"Just so! It was often really good food, but I'm just saying it wasn't Chinese food. If someone from China ate there, they wouldn't recognize it as Chinese food at all."

"But I like Americanized Chinese food. 'Chinese influenced' cuisine, if you insist. When you and the others tried to drag me away to what you called 'authentic' Chinese food, it was usually awful. Dreadful! Chicken feet for example. They just hand you this chicken food. And I'm telling you, there is nothing you can eat on that thing. They might as well hand you a stick."

"Well, I'm not a fan of chicken feet myself, actually. But you're missing my point. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Americanized Chinese dishes, or that you should prefer authentic Chinese dishes just because they are authentic. On the contrary, my argument is that they are completely separate cuisines, with just perhaps some vague historical influences.

"Okay," I allow, following his argument, but increasingly suspicious he's going to try to get me to eat Dim Sum.

(The last time I had Dim Sum in Richmond, I almost starved. The servers took one look at me, and didn't even bother wheeling 3/4 of the carts past our table. "What's that one?" I'd shout as the cart shot past. "You not like that one!" the waiter would explain. "I might!" I would argue, game to try anything. And then the waiter would wheel the cart over resignedly, lift the lid, and I would say, "Or maybe not!" or "Oh my god, what is that?" And the waiter would wave off the next 8 carts. "Here, I'll ask the kitchen if they have any steam rice for you." Enough said.)

"So, now imagine that you're growing up in Hong Kong", Philip continued, "and for an occasional treat, you go out for Western food. Only, it's about as authentically Western as the Bamboo Place is Chinese. What they call Spaghetti Bolognese and what you might have very little overlap, except that there are noodles in there somewhere. Or 'borsch' is a red soup, but nothing a Russian or even a Canadian Ukrainian would recognize as borsch. It's still often very good soup, but it's not exactly the Western item its named for."

"Sino-Western food. Interesting concept..."

"So then when you moved to Richmond, you sometimes still want a Western restaurant, but you want the inauthentic Western food you had in Hong Kong, not the real stuff that's just, well, way too Western for your tastes. So there are dozens of restaurants in Richmond catering to that market. And they are often very good, but...different."

So we go to the Kingspark Steak House Restaurant and have...a completely fabulous meal. I would recommend the place to anyone -- though we were the only non-Asians in the place. (As Philip pointed out, there always at least a few whites in the Chinese restaurants, because many Vancouverites have acquired a taste for authentic Chinese food, but if you felt like a steak, why would you go to a Chinese steakhouse for a steak?

Well, I'm here to tell you, you really should! The tenderloin at the Kingspark was excellent; as was the rack of lamb. The fact that they have a tenderloin/rack of lamb combo plate is, to my mind, greatly to their credit! And excellent value for the money -- I could not possibly have bought that much food for so little in any other steakhouse I have yet attended. I had my choice of a regular plate or hot plate, and chose the latter -- my meal came out sizzling exactly the way it would at Ruths Chris Steakhouse. They brought us tea in plastic water glasses and kept refilling our glasses exactly as a regular steakhouse serves ice water. Again, a plus in my mind! Other steakhouses could learn a thing or two here!

But there were some differences. Given Philip's earlier example, I chose spaghetti as my side (again, note how much food is included in the meal here!) and it wasn't. No red or cheese sauce. Looking at it, I thought it would just be plain spaghetti noodles, but tasting it, it was definitely flavoured -- I'm guessing Five Spice. It was both oddly different and oddly good. I really liked it. But I see what Philip meant about it not being what someone who thought they were ordering spaghetti would expect. I also ordered the 'cream soup' -- the fact that the description was a bit vague should have been a hint that this was going to be a bit different too. My least favorite element in the meal, it was still pretty decent. I suspect there was some manner of crab or lobster or something of that ilk, so not something I could eat around my highly allergic wife, and maybe not something I would have chosen given a more precise description, but not bad. Philip had the Borsch with his and pronounced it excellent. And a mango custard thing for dessert that had an unfortunate consistency of Junket but a magnificent mango taste, so I gobbled it up appreciatively, childhood Junket associations notwithstanding.

Weirdest part of the meal was the hot drink (also included in the very reasonable price! I think I paid just over $20 for all that food!) but then I went out of my way to order something I didn't recognize. (Well, they had the Chinese jellygrass drinks, but I knew better than to order those.) Horlicks, Philip explained to me, is actually a British drink, exported as a habit to Hong Kong, and then abandoned by the British. At least, I hadn't heard of it before. wikipedia explains it as a British drink consumed before bedtime to promote sleeping, but became a cafe drink in Hong Kong and Pakistan etc. I drank it all appreciatively, but I'm still not sure if I actually like it. It was kind of a cross between Ovaltine (whatever happened to Ovaltine? Didn't everyone of my generation drink it all the time as kids. Especially before bedtime in the winter.) and cream of wheat. Very alien.

So, I would not hesitate to recommend Kingspark to anyon: excellent quality, excellent value, bit of an adventure.

Georgina Runte Eulogy and Funeral

The funeral for my Mom was Tuesday (April 6) at St Mary's Anglican Church. The Church is small, intimate, and filled with golden light from the yellow windows that frame the half dozen stain glass pieces. About 20 people showed up, which is a lot for someone who had outlived just about all her acquaintances.

Her former boss had long since passed away, but his wife showed up to speak to Mom's working life; a member of the Eastern Star showed up to speak to Mom's long service within that organization (she joined in 1943); a couple of the residents from her condo showed up to speak to her participation in the life of that community; one was also a member of St Mary's congregation and told me how Mom sat in the fourth row each Sunday until she had to stop coming because the timing conflicted with her medications; and how the Minister and the Deacon (both also long passed) had alternated visiting her each week to give her communion. The lady from the Eastern Star described visiting Mom and how Mom had insisted on making and serving everyone tea, long after she had gone completely blind.

My brother Ron spoke with his unique blend of sensitivity and humor, perfectly capturing both my Mom's generosity and her fierce determination to stand up to bullies in two perfectly balanced anecdotes from his childhood. I hadn't heard either story for years, but recognized immediately how perfectly they summed up my Mother's character.

This is what I said:

Yesterday would have been my Mom’s 101st Birthday, so it is impossible to sum up a 100 years in just a few words. And one problem with living to over 100 is that there aren’t many people left who can bear witness to the first half of that life. So I can only speak to the last half of her life, and my memories of her as my mother.

My mom loved the arts and she loved to travel. She had season’s tickets to every symphony and every play in the city; and she read constantly. When her vision gave out, she listened to books on tape. I remember the librarians trying to get a sense of what sort of books she preferred and were confounded when she couldn’t be pinned down and simply wanted more of everything.

She traveled across Canada, across Europe, across China and Japan. When I say “across” Europe or China or Japan, that doesn’t really cover it, because the rule was, starting when I was ten, which means she must already have been in her 50s, we had to climb to the top of every castle, every cathedral, and every monument: the top of St Paul’s in London, the top of the Eiffel tower, the Great Wall of China. Where ever, whatever, she was always game. When my mom was in her 70s she actually fell off a castle in Denmark.

And wherever we went, Mom would seek out the art of that region: an exquisite Swiss clock, a fabulous Flemish vase, a set of Danish glass two decades before it became fashionable in Canada. Of course one of my strongest memories is helping to lug the vase or the clock or the Danish glass all across Europe as we hopped on and off trains, sometimes passing the packages through open windows because the train only stopped for 2 minutes at that station. That could often be quite the challenge, especially with my reputation as the kid who broke everything he touched.

One of my favorite memories was when we were in Denmark one summer having lunch at their version of Zellers when my mom suddenly had a craving for an orange float. She tried to order one without much success, until another customer started translating for us, but he and the man behind the counter were both incredulous at the suggestion of putting ice cream inside a glass of orange pop, so she had to repeat several times with assurances that that’s what was meant; and then watching my mom drink it, and by then I and my brother Douglas had joined her, the counterman and the translator also had to try it... and the punch line is that when we returned to that store on our next visit four or five years later, we discovered that orange floats were a house specialty.

So that was my mom: always game; always rising to meet every challenge; taking from each place she found herself, something beautiful, or meaningful, or significant; and leaving a little bit of herself behind; leaving the Earth and the lives she touched better off for her having been here.



My daughters than each took a brief turn speaking; Tigana talking about her favorite memory of her Grandmother at Christmas Dinner years before; Kasia saying "I love you Grandma" while laying a pink Teddy bear on the table next to Mom's picture (and later into her grave).

After the service, we had tea in the Church basement, as fitting a tribute to Mom as any, tea having long been central to her social life. Mom's favorite niece -- the daughter she never had -- and her husband were there; along with the two of her nephews. And the irrepressible Mrs. V., the woman who half raised me when my Mom had to go back to work full time: she brought my daughters each a doll with hand knitted dresses and regaled us all after the service with her own near death experiences. It was nice meeting her son again after nearly 50 years, as great a joker as I remembered him. And a friend of mine from Edmonton came to be supportive.

Only the minister and the immediate family went to the grave side; we buried my Mom, my brother Douglas, and my Dad Henry all at the same time. A month earlier, I had booked the other two burials for April 6, thinking I'd take care of that matter on the same trip as we came up for Mom's 101st birthday; I'd had no sense then that she would be joining them. Burying all three at once was harder than I thought it would be. I'd thought I'd already dealt with the other losses, and Mom's came at the end of an exceptional life, but it hit me pretty hard. And my kids. Kasia cried out when she realized that they were burying her Grandfather that she had never met. It was a tough moment. The minister asked if I wanted to shovel in a few symbolic shovelfuls but I couldn't do it.

It didn't help that the Minister kept saying my name instead of Doug's or Henry's as she lowered the urns. I can't blame her for getting confused, since she'd only met me a day or two before. She was nice, and it provided a moment of comic relief, albeit in a creepy sort of way. But I'd been nervous about getting everything right throughout the day, even though Mary had kept me organized and relatively sane through the process. I was also grateful for the presence of cousin Mike who kept reassuring me throughout that this was just a family affair and that it was all good. He reminds me a lot of Doug, the way he can reassure and restore common sense with just a few words.

And then we were done. Mary took the kids over to visit her father's grave in the same cemetery while I handled the paper work. Later, Mary and I had supper with Ron and his wife Joan; we determined to see more of each other now that we are the last of the family.

In the end, what gets me through is my wife and kids. I don't know how I could have handled any of this had I still been single. It's not just Mary's organization and support, it's that my kids are so full of life, such an reaffirmation of the life force, the continuance not just of my family but of the meaning of life, that they make it possible to carry on in the face of death. Its hard to explain, exactly, but my Mom and brother carried the memories of who I was for the first half of my life, but the loss of that identity, the absence of any external validation of what I think I remember, is compensated by the potential for new memories to be made with my wife and kids. When I was sitting with my Mom in her final days I kept looking at the photos of my kids on my blog taken at the San Dieago zoo. The life, the exburence that comes through in those four photos got me through not just those last days with Mom, but through the funeral as I kept picturing them in my mind. I miss Mom, I miss Doug, but...life is good.

Georgina Runte (Dodie)

The nursing home phoned me late Monday morning to say that my mother had likely had a stroke on the weekend: her speech was slurred, her tendency to lean to one side was more pronounced, and her oxygen levels had been low. The initial call was framed as an update: they knew we were already planning to come up the following week for Mom’s birthday, and thought that would be fine; but needed to discuss some treatment options in the interim. Mom’s oxygen levels were back up, but she was experiencing difficulty eating and drinking. Was I in favor of increasing her fluid levels?

The second call was more urgent; she had lost the ability to swallow. By 4:30 I was on a plane to Edmonton to be with her.

She was unconscious when I arrived, but seemed to derive some comfort from my being there and holding her hand. I sat with her through the evening and tried to get a sense from the staff what her condition was, but no one was able to be definitive. One staff member I know and trust told me she was growing weaker by the hour; another, more medically qualified, member said that Mom seemed to have stabilized and was resting comfortably, and that it would certainly be safe for me to go home to sleep for a few hours. A third said she could offer no such guarantees.

In the end, I judged mom to be stable and comfortable, and with the nurse’s promise that I would be called if mom suddenly started to get worse, I risked going to Mom’s condo to sleep. I might as well have stayed as I was unable to sleep: restless, I paced and read and distracted myself as best I could, but eventually gave up and returned to the nursing home in the early morning.

I sat with her through the rest of the day, holding and stroking her hand. She would occasionally withdraw her hand briefly: as mentioned in a previous post, if I held her hand too long the blood would stop flowing, so I interpreted this as her hand having fallen asleep, especially as my own hand would sometimes start to have pins and needles after holding in the same position for too long, so I would leave it be for a bit and just talk quietly to her. My impression is that she knew and appreciated my presence, but was too busy breathing to have much energy to respond. The staff kept reassuring me that hearing was the last sense to go and that Mom knew I was there. (I had just read some recent research where the researchers were able to communicate with a man in a vegetative state by asking him to imagine two different types of scenes -- one for 'yes', the other for 'no'-- while in a MRI machine, so I am inclined to believe that they were right about my mom.) So I alternated between stroking her hand when I ran out of things to say (it's amazingly difficult to keep talking to someone who is not responding), and talking when I judged her hand was getting tired. But I made sure she knew I was there with her.

At about 2AM, I lay down for an hour's break. Mom was calm and her breathing had been steady if labored for several hours so I judged it a good time to break; the nurse had assured me Mom was not in pain because she was laying quietly, whereas those in pain tend to wave their arms around and appear agitated. Mom's movements were few and slow. 45 minutes later, I heard Mom say something, halfway between a moan and a call, and woke up. Then I realized I must have dreamt that because the 'quiet room' was well down the hall from her room and it would not have been possible for me to have heard her. So I turned over to go back to sleep when the nurse knocked on the door and told me my mom had gone. I said, "Oh so that was her I heard?" and she gave me this really odd expression and said, "No, it was just my time to check on her. [Name] had just checked on her a minute before, and your mom was fine then; but I didn't know that she had gone in already, so I went again just now, and she was gone. But we didn't hear anything. She just went quietly in her sleep."

I had been sorry I hadn't been with her, but the nurse told me, "Its often that way. The family will sit all day, but when they leave to go to the washroom, the patient will go in that moment. We think that they know and wait to spare the family that last moment. Its either that, of they wait until everyone is there. We had a woman last month, the whole family was there and they were waiting for hours, but when the last grandson arrived, and they all started singing a hymn, she left. It happens like that a lot too. Either way."

So my Mom passed away about 2:45 March 31, 2010. She would have been 101 April 5.

Part of me had kind of hoped she would make her birthday, but I know that's silly: there is no prize for crossing a particular finish line. Indeed the Chaplin had told me earlier in the day that vast majority went just before their birthdays. "You tell them that they are going to turn a hundred and they say, 'No, no I don't think I want to be a hundred', and they'll go a day or two before. So we don't ever mention their precise age unless they specifically ask..."

I was surprised to learn there were four residents older than my mom, two of whom had lived at home up until and only arrived in the nursing home after their 101 birthday. So we are definitely living longer. He related the story of one lady who on her hundredth birthday had announced to her family that she was the oldest person in the building, and when he had looked away not to disagree with her, she had noticed and demanded to be taken to someone older. so he had wheeled her to a resident who was 102 and they had had a long if shouted conversation (both being quite deaf).

A lot of staff told me stories like that over the two days I was sitting there. Each one made a point, on their own and spontaneously to see Mom and to tell me a story about her. Two of them were fighting back their own tears. It was very clear to me that they sincerely cared for my mom. Their support was very important to me, and I know that they had always taken very good care of my mom. I want to say here that I have always appreciated the humor, warmth, patience and above all, the commitment to the care of my mom and the other elderly in that home (The Dr. Gerald Zetter Care Center). Doug had spent months researching nursing homes before permitting himself to place her in one, and I had come up and toured the three 'finalists' with him, and in the end there had been no question in my mind that this was the best one. There was something about the culture of the place that was obvious even on my short visits that made it the place we wanted her to be. Then Doug had gone there to feed mom supper every day for two years, so he had really gotten to know and trust the staff before he passed away. I could only visit for a weekend once a month or so in the two years since, but I got the same impression of the staff, partly because they treated me as they had Doug, and partly because I was able to observe them with other residents when they didn't even know I was watching, and they were all unfailingly great. I know I could not do the job they do.

I miss my Mom, and Doug, a lot.

San Deigo Zoo Wild Animal Park

So this was pretty cool: the Lorikeet Landing exhibit at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park.

Tigana reacts to Lorikeet landing on her.

Kasia with Lorikeets



I love how my kids are enthusiastic about things others find less exciting (e.g., man behind Tigana, who is clearly less pleased with the birds mobbing people).

We were in San Diego over Reading Week in Feb.

Tigana Santa and Kasia

Dolphins Again

Strictly speaking, that's a Walphin that Tigana is dancing with: a dolphin -killer whale cross. But Kasia had so much fun kissing a dolphin on our first trip to Hawaii, we decided that the rest of us should try it.

Back to Hawaii

Following my teaching in Summer Session this June, we took off for vacation in Hawaii. Well, I went to Edmonton to check on my Mom for a couple of days first, and I took the dog with me to confuse the kids. Because we hadn't told the kids they were going to Hawaii, only that they would 'be joining Dad', whom they knew had gone to Edmonton. They understand the need to be in Edmonton to visit family and to attend to all the Estate matters I am still plowing through (even after all this time). Not fun for them, but borne with stoic understanding that the family needed to do this. So Mary picked them up from school on their last day, drove them to the airport in Lethbridge, where they boarded a plane for Calgary, the usual transfer point to Edmonton. Mary had set them up perfectly by telling Tigana that they would drive up, but then giving in to Tigana's asking to fly up instead. (Tigana had used the argument that since I had already driven up earlier in the week, we already had a car in Edmonton, so there was no need for them to endure the six hour car trip. Mary had graciously acceeded to this request, never letting on that it was all a con.) So I flew down to Calgary from Edmonton, and was sitting in the airport Tim Horton's as they got off the plane. Kasia sees me, runs over and hugs me, as Tigana goes, "I thought we would be meeting you in Edmonton?"

Robert: "Ready to start the Grand Adventure of Summer in Edmonton."

Tigana: "Yeah, right."

Robert:" What, you don't want to spend summer in Edmonton?"

Mary: "Kasia, where do you want to go?"

Kasia: "Hawaii!" (This was a safe bet: Kasia always answers 'Hawaii' to questions like 'where would you like to have dinner tonight?' Besides a standing joke, Kasia asks us at least once a week why don't we live in Hawaii. We're having an increasingly difficult time thinking up an answer.)

Mary and I look at each other and shrug. "Okay, why didn't you say so. Let's go to Hawaii."

Tigana: "Whaatt? Youmeanaghghghghghghghghghgyeaahhhwhoooo!"

And so on. So an hour later, three hours after school ends, we're enroute to Hawaii via Vancouver.

Of course, we will be paying for this for the rest of our lives because now every time we take them to Edmonton they're going to be spending the entire trip saying, "Yeah, where are we going really?"

The Last Cup of Tea

Now that Mom is over 100, she had become increasingly frail.

She has become so thin, that her skin is essentially transparent, like those "living skeletons" used in biology classes: her bones and blood vessels, and what little muscle mass remains, are all clearly visible. The cell phone photo below doesn't really capture the effect, since it's hard to tell that you're looking through the layer of skin here; but you can maybe get a sense of the skin if you look at the wrinkles, which are like ripples on the surface of a pond; you only see the medium you're looking through when something disrupts the surface. Or look across the top of the fingers, you can sort of see the gleam of a reflection floating just above the bone; that's her skin. I can actually watch the blood flowing through her arteries/veins.


My mother's hands


What makes this particularly disconcerting is that I also had the experience of watching the blood stop flowing. I was, as is my custom when visiting her, holding and stroking mom's hand. This seems to provide her with some comfort. But on one occasion I happened to glance down as my thumb crossed various veins and arteries, and realized that I was cutting off the blood flow in each one in turn. I could actually see the blood stop moving, back up, and the color draining away 'downstream' as the supply was momentarily cut off. And I wasn't pressing hard; the lightest touch imaginable. That left me in a bit of a quandary, pitting psychological support against blood supply.

Then today, I happened to be watching one blood vessel as she crooked her fingers to take the cup handle to drink her soup, and I watched the blood in one of the vessels struggle to climb the 'hill' created by the bend, and not making it: little droplets of blood would climb half way up, like cars on a train, but roll back at the last moment.... It was unnerving. I also noticed dozens of little bruises all over, which I deduce are caused by blood vessel failure. (Quite aside from the fact that I have complete faith in the staff at her nursing home, the location of these bruises are completely wrong as 'grab points' or bed sores, but adjacent to what appears to be the end of a blood vessel.)

Similarly, whereas I used to rub her neck for her whenever I visited, there simply isn't any detectable muscle mass back there for me to message any longer. Looking at her arms and legs, the increasingly number of bruises, and her general frailness, I worry that her time is running out; but listening to her chatting away and laughing at my jokes, I think she she's good for another four years.

Much of what she has to say doesn't really make sense, at least not as part of our consensual reality. It is perfectly consistent and reasonable if one is prepared to accept that my mother, like the hero of Slaughterhouse Five has come loose in time and is moving back and forth through her life; or that there is an afterlife, and it consists largely of visiting with friends and relatives. Whenever I ask what she was doing today, she answers, "Not much of anything today. I was up late visiting with _____ (fill in the blank -- today it was our wonderful neighbours of 30 years ago, the Whitbreads) so decided to just take it easy today." Sometimes this comes across as her remembering some event from years before; more often, these seem to be current visits with those from beyond the veil. It's hard to explain exactly, but the visits sound to me as accurate projections of how people would have interacted had they been all gathered together in the same room, though most of them had never met in this world, at least not as adult contemporaries, being from different generations. Mom is now constantly with her mother, her sister, my brother, and sometimes one or more of her brothers. These are the people she talks with while I'm with her, and to whom she often attempts to pass the cup I have just put into her hands. "Tea Evie?" she'll ask. Significantly, she never sees anyone in this group or as visitors come to call on this group, who are still alive. When she talks about my visits or those of Ron, my other surviving sibling, it is quite clear that she is referring to our visits to her in the nursing home, and not to the group in the Garden (behind her mother's house in 1948), the usual setting for those visiting in the beyond. If mom were just "confused", wouldn't one expect her to mix up the quick and the dead?

One purpose of my visits serve is to get my mom a cup of tea. She likes a cup of tea of an evening, but it is not included in her official nursing home diet, so she only gets it when I'm there. She is supposed to be drinking an 'Ensure' type drink, which they thoughtfully warm for her, and which she seems to quite enjoy; but ultimately, it's not her beloved cup of tea. I realize that the tea fills her up without providing nutrition, but one has to balance nutrition against the psychological value of a really good cup of tea. And I do use one of her protein drinks as the 'cream' substitute, so I do get something into her. This trip, however, I was forced to acknowledge that the logistical issues had become untenable, and it was with great sadness that I realized that this might well be her very last cup.

I'd noticed on my last few trips that Mom was having increasing difficulty with sitting up straight: she now perpetually leans 35 degrees to the left. No amount of pushing her upright seems to help; she immediately re-adjusts to what must seem level to her, and actively resists attempts to help her hold her cup straight, complaining that I'm going to spill the contents to the right, when I manage to hold the cup level for a second. I've heard about people who've had strokes being skewed from the vertical like this, and given that mom is totally blind, she can't even use visual cues to keep herself aligned. This isn't a huge problem for the staff or I spooning in her pureed dinner, and she can usually manage her cup of (usually quite thick) soup by herself, though some days as much lands on her apron-sized bib as in her mouth, dribbling off the left edge of the tilted cup. But tea is a different matter entirely. Mom likes it hot, and being significantly thinner than the soup, her trembling hand and bad angle inevitably send near scalding tea splashing onto, and soaking through, her bib. Doubling the layers of the bibs helps a bit in terms of keeping her from getting burned, but ultimately, the experience is no longer a calming one. She is aware of the tea dribbling off her lips, and her hand feels around for the lake of tea on her lap, and of course it upsets her that she has spilled. Cold drinks present no such problem, being drunk through a straw, but even if I could keep the tea cool enough to drink with a straw, it is not really the full 'tea' experience anymore.

One minor compensation is that I will no longer have to deal with the problem of Aunt Evie. Whenever I would offer Mom a cup of tea, she would inevitably pause half way to her first sip and say, "but you haven't gotten any tea for Evie!" There would follow several minutes of frantic cup chasing as Mom would say, "Here Evie, take my cup!" and reach out to place the cup in Evie's hands, which did not, as it happen, extend into this world. I was generally able to intercept the cup before it crashed to the floor/spilled over Mom's legs, but this would often engender some conflict as Mom would demand to know "what are you playing at?" trying to grab away the cup of tea she was offering her sister. And it became quite clear over the months that while there is a good supply of buns and scones on the other side, it is apparently impossible to get a really good cup of tea. (In this context, the Red Rose ad campaign, "only in Canada, eh?" takes on an entirely new dimension.) I have the strong impression that Evie, although quite happy with 'life' over there, would dearly like a cup of tea and a cigarette. Asking my Mom or I for a cigarette is a lost cause, but she does seem to feel the prospects for a cup of tea worth pursing. I have not yet worked out the theological implications of all this.

100th Birthday

Sunday, April 5th, was my mother's 100th birthday. It was a small affair, attended only by myself, my wife, and our two daughters. There were several reasons we didn't want to make too big a deal out of it.

First, my mom has good days and bad days, and I didn't much care for the idea of having a lot of people descend on my mom's nursing home if it turned out to be one of the bad days. In the event, she was mostly okay. (The nurse told me that mom hadn't wanted to get out of bed that morning, but that they had coaxed her into her wheel chair because they knew we were coming.) She was awake for most of the two hours we were there, and not in too much pain, and alert and in moderately good spirits, so we could have had more visitors, but you never know.



Mom having a cup of tea as one of the nurses we really like joins us for the celebration.

Tigana, Kasia (just peeking in over Tigana's shoulder), me, and Mary with my Mom on her 100th birthday. Mom is appreciatively cuddling with the extra soft, fuzzy purple blanket we gave her as a birthday present.

 

 

Second, we had had a big reception for mom's 90th, when she still lived on her own, and Mary had catered for about 60 people. But when we looked at the invitation list from that birthday, except for a few relatives, there wasn't actually anyone left on it... Mom has managed to outlive all of her friends and contemporaries. The one niece who still lives in Edmonton offered to come, but had to cancel at the last minute as her husband came down with a terrible cold -- and you don't take a bad cough into a nursing home (unless you're looking for an earlier inheritance).

Third, I wasn't sure how big a deal to make of the fact that mom had made it to 100. When we last discussed her age earlier this year, she thought she was about 92. When I told her she was actually 99, she became very depressed, and said "Well, if that's true, then I'm done!" Fortunately, she forgot the conversation, and when I returned the next day, thought she was in her 80s.

One of mom's surviving nieces (a woman Mom considers the daughter she never had) sent a great card. It's almost impossible to find a card that says "Happy 100th", 'cause, let's face it, there's not that large a market. And being blind, mom can't actually read her cards anymore. So they picked a birthday card that played "The Age of Aquarius" (which Mom could hear if not see); and the card read: "On your birthday, free you mind — it's not the age you are it's the age you believe in". Which is way too funny, given my mom's situation!

Most of the time Mom is in her Mother's back garden, having tea with her mother and her sister Evie, with occasional visits from either her brothers Tom and Charlie, or my brother Doug. It's 1948, she's 39, and her father has just passed away. She spends a lot of her time there, which in my view is a perfectly good place to be if the alternative is bedridden, blind, mostly deaf, and bored in a nursing home. The only problem for me is that mom isn't always clear on who I am, since in her world I won't be born for another 3 years; but she does seem to remember my daughters, Tigana and Kasia. I think their having unusual names helps her keep them straight. She hasn't remembered who Mary is since Mom went to the nursing home.

On my last visit up to Edmonton, Mom had started talking about her aunts, Rose, Daisy and Violet, whom she believed were staying with her at her house. As she chatted away about them, I thought, "say, here's a chance to take some notes!" because it is a part of the family genealogy I don't know well. (Mom was the one who kept all our relations straight, with Doug as our backup, but since her memory has failed and Doug is gone, there is no one left to ask who is who.) So I started jotting down some things and asking mom a few questions, hoping to probe a bit, but had to stop when mom mentioned that her dad had recently died (in her world) as the result of being attacked by raccoons. Oops. I'm pretty sure if it had been raccoons, someone would have mentioned that somewhere along the line, so I had to concede that mom's Alzheimer's makes her an unreliable source, and abandon my note-taking.

Her 100th birthday visit was good. She only eats pureed foods now, so we mashed up a piece of birthday cake with some tea (her drink of choice) and she wolfed that down faster than anything I've seen her eat in the last decade. When I commented that I hoped it wouldn't spoil her supper (her not eating enough being an issue) she responded that the birthday cake was a heck of a lot better than supper! (Actually the food in this particular nursing home is better than most; even pureed, Mom usually says how much she enjoys the food. She's just, at 100, not that interested in eating any more.) We gave her an extra soft, cuddly, purple fuzzy blanket for her birthday present, as she is perpetually cold, and she seemed to really like it, refusing to let go of it for the duration. And I got her a cup of tea, the one thing she can never get enough of.

For us, her reaching 100 is great in the sense that she has had a long and largely good life. She was taking care of herself right up to her move to the home two or three years ago; and was mostly lucid up to my brother's passing last year. His daily visits provided the stability she needed to stay anchored in this world, though she had already started to visit with her mom and Evie on a regular basis. But actually being 100 kind of sucks, and it saddens me to see how far her health has declined this year. Still, as long as she is happy visiting relatives, and she is not in too much pain, well and good.

April Fools

Well, we did a couple of childish pranks on our kids. On our way to bed, at 12:01 AM, we woke Tigana up and told her it was time for school. "You're kidding," she protested, "it feels like I just got to sleep!" which is pretty accurate. She got as far as the bathroom for her morning shower before she spotted the clock. "Oh, you guys! I knew it all along!" Back to bed.

So then we went around setting the clocks an hour ahead. We originally thought we'd get them up an hour early, driving them to school to find the doors still closed, but that would have meant us getting up an hour early, so we went with plan B. The alarm goes off, and mom jumps up shouting, "Oh no! We've overslept! You have to be at school in 20 minutes!" followed by much running around getting ready -- complicated somewhat by Tigana telling Kasia that today was Pajama Day as her prank on Kasia -- jumping into the car and racing off to school. We got about a block before Tigana spotted the car clock, and called us on it. So we just drove to Tim's for breakfast.

Enroute a little voice from the back says, "I knew it wasn't really PJ day either!" "That's okay," says Mom, "We've brought your day clothes to change into at school"
"What? No, I want to wear PJs all day! It will be funny being the only one in PJs." Funny how different the kids are. Tigana would be mortified to show up in the wrong costume, but not Kasia.

Waiting now for the other shoe to drop. What do the kids have planned for us/me? At 11 and 5, the only thing they agree on is their addiction to the show Prank Patrol. Memo to self: get kids to bed by 6PM, before they can do anything....

Jackie Hurt

So I came in from my walk last night and turned around to see this on Jackie's hip. We phoned the vet immediately, even though it was after10:00 already; and then we tried to figure out what the hell had happened while we waited for the vet to call back.

Mary and the kids had been playing with Jackie for an hour before I took Jackie out for her evening walk, and hadn't noticed anything, so it was pretty obvious it had to have happened on the walk. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she could have acquired such a wound while on a four foot leash without my noticing. I rewalked the route in my mind's eye, and while there is one fence on our usual route that has two nails sticking out of it, we always give it a wide birth; and while Jackie had had one of her freakouts barking at one of the neighbour dogs (most days she's okay with his barking from behind the fence, but every once in awhile he must bark something especially rude, because she pulls and jumps and goes nuts, as on this occasion) I could not see how my pulling on her leash could have resulted in a puncture wound like this.

Mary's first thought was it was a gunshot wound. This is a bit paranoid, but only a bit because we had a candidate in mind who is crazy enough to think shooting our dog would be funny. But I would have heard something, or seen someone, surely. Even a BB gun would have made an audible piff. But then, worrying my way through the walk again and again, I suddenly remembered that Jackie had -- on one of the quiet stretches of our route where there are no other dogs --jerked around as if shot, and kept pulling to go back, starring at something. I remembered my saying at the time, "Jackie, there's nothing there, you're jumping at shadows". I thought nothing further of it, but now, in retrospect, I wonder if I had allowed Jackie to be injured without my even noticing.

The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that must have been the moment -- only a block or so before I found the wound, and Jackie had been convinced that there was something there -- what if I had missed some kid in the bushes with a BB gun, and ignored my dog's attempt to warn me? Or even if the gunshot wound seemed far fetched, what if there was some dangerous object sticking out of the lawn or a fence or one of those old garbage can sheds? I let my dog get hurt, and I hadn't even noticed or listened to her. Paroxysm of guilt that such a thing should happen on my watch.

When the vet didn't phone back within the hour, we phoned a second vet who agreed to see Jackie immediately. She was really great, even though it was after midnight when we finally brought Jackie in. She told me that it wasn't a gunshot (which was somewhat reassuring -- it means I don't have to start driving to another neighbourhood for nightly walks); and that it looked older than the timeframe I had indicated. Once she shaved away Jackie's fur, it was obvious the puncture was from above, rather than from the side. The vet nominated a dog bite or a tree branch.

So then it was Mary wracking her brain, trying to think what could have happened. The day before she had taken Jackie for an off leash run, but Mary was positive there had been no dog fights or any other hazards. And how could she not have noticed the wound? We couldn't see how it was possible.

Eventually, we came up with our current theory, which is that there was a barbed wire fence at the off-leash park, and it is remotely possible that Jackie ran into a barb which sliced her open, but that the torn flap of skin remained over the cut, making it invisible -- and that when I had yanked Jackie back off the road during her freakout on our walk the next evening, she had tumbled onto her bum, and that was what rolled back the loose flap of skin, reveaing the wound. It makes sense to us, but we will never really know for sure. I certainly have become very paranoid about hidden obstructions on our night-time walks.

So, the vet treated Jackie, gave her the 14 day antibiotics, gave us doggie equivalent of Advil, and the dreaded "cone" and sent Jackie home. I was very pleased with the vet's bedside manner, very impressed with Jackie's stoic acceptance of the pain, though a very sad picture. Being the hopeless softies we are, he hate having her in the cone so have tried protecting the wound by dressing Jackie in shorts and T-Shirt, but that's only good while we're there to watch Jackie closely -- she undoes the clothes if we aren't. So it will have to be kennel and cone for times we're both out, much as it pains us to see Jackie like that.

Anyone have any experience dealing with these kind of puncture wounds? In their dogs, I mean.