Light in Her Eyes

Background: my mother was admitted to hospital with Congestive Heart Failure on April 6, 2015. Read more here. On April 13, my husband and I drove from Ottawa to St. Catharines to visit her. 

This was the first trip I have made explicitly to see my mother in about 20 years. I have seen her and spoken with her in the interim, but I have not made an effort to be with her in particular.

On our trip down to southern Ontario, I bit off almost all my finger nails. I knew it might happen -- I nibble when I'm nervous or bored -- so I had made a point of filing them before we left the house, and I made sure there was a nail file in my purse. It made no difference. I was anxious.

True Love

Chris and K.B., May 25, 2013

A year ago I was absolutely thrilled to squeeze in a trip to Regina, SK, so I could be at my friend K.B.'s wedding. Mere months later, I hopped on another plane to attend her funeral service. Today, I am crying for her husband.

One Month

K.B. with her horse

It's been a month since my friend K.B. died. In some ways, I can't believe so much time has passed already. In others, it feels like it was just yesterday.

If you knew K.B. well, you would know that she really loved animals, especially horses. For a time, she part-owned a horse in Regina. I, myself, haven't been on a horse since I was in early high school.

You might also know that she was fascinated by dreams. (Dreams really are a strange phenomenon, I must agree.) The fiction she had begun writing on her blog concerned "dream guardians."

Here is her first entry in the story she was working on:

Time to say goodbye

I flew all the way to Regina, and K.B. didn't meet me at the airport, didn't even text me.

I stayed with her best friend for three nights, and still never heard from her. (Though her ears must have been ringing because, Lord have mercy, did we talk about her!)

I talked to all sorts of people who loved her. I even saw her body, but she was not there. There is no way they could have contorted her face into one of her full-body smiles. It would have been horrific.

I saw her children and was helpless to mend their hearts, because she didn't tell me what to say. She would have known.

I listened to the children's eloquent and profound eulogies and thought: oh, K.B., you must be so damned proud of these two, they do you such honour.

I hugged her bridegroom and wished that things were different, tried not to be angry on his behalf that their honeymoon had really only just begun.

I was regaled with stories of kindness, generosity, and weirdness ("How many teapots in her cubicle? Eight?! All with matching cups?").

I spoke to her ex who seemed only just to have really added up the costs of his choices, of what he had let slip through his fingers.

One friend cried as she asked, "How did I not know?" How did she not know that K.B. was really a sister, a twin. And I felt the same: everybody else knew how much she loved me. I didn't give her nearly all the love she deserved.

I saw the home she loved, touched her dance shoes and glittery scarves. I walked through the tiny kitchen and imagined all the love she had cooked up, but there was no yeasty smell of rising bread. I pictured her dancing in the dining room.

I packed a bag full of her shoes, because we shared a ridiculously small foot-size, and I pondered the metaphor of "walking in her shoes." It means I will have to dance more.

And all this time, after these hours and hours of obsessively picking at the wound of my grief, she didn't come.

Because she's gone. And all that is left are the bits of her that are in me, and the bits of her that are in these wonderful, wonderful people. And now I miss them, too, but I'm glad to add them to the circle of my friends. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves:,

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away.'

My life has been augmented in so many ways for having known K.B. This last one - the gift of more friends, is a surprise to me, and I am so grateful.

Too Soon

K.B. in high school

I have a stomach ache. Not because of any bugs or food gone bad. My stomach is roiling because I just learned that my dear friend, K.B., died in the wee hours of this morning, January 9, 2014. Her death was sudden and shocking, from an extremely rare allergic reaction.

UPDATE: It may not have been an allergic reaction. 

Last spring I shared with you that I was delighted to attend K.B.'s wedding. In her fiftieth year, she was in love and full of optimism about the future. She'd found a soul mate in Chris who understood her passions.

Back in July 2012, she had sent me an e-mail before her first kinda-sorta date with Chris - a weekday lunch with a group of people, but the one that had her heart racing was Chris.

"Do we ever stop being 17?" she wrote. "Why 17? Because I’m so nervous I’m nauseous. And just thinking about it I’m blushing. AT 49!!! It’s just lunch! And thank heaven, too, given the state I appear to be in."

She was beautiful, wasn't she? She always had been.

K.B., me, my cousin Ruth

She was fearless, witty, sharp as a tack, and so very, very generous and kind. In high school, when she slept over at my house, we sometimes snuck out to Tim Horton's for donuts. We double-dated and played endless hours of Euchre.

I have to elaborate on the "generous" adjective. Generosity is one of my deepest values and K.B. knew how to give like no one else I've known. And I don't mean in big, flashy ways. Her best gifts were rarely expensive (as a single mom, she watched every dime), but were always surprising. One time, in late winter, when it felt like the sun had abandoned us forever, she gave me a styrofoam cup in which she had sprouted some tiny blades of grass: spring is coming.

She even gave (well shared) her [other best] friend with me. After K.B.'s wedding Bronwyn (who blogs over at I, Mayb)  and I connected over social media through a shared interest in writing and humour.

I originally titled this post "Proudly Flying Her Freak Flag" because she was one of those people who was brave and saucy about doing things just a little differently.

Yup. Barefoot. At her wedding. At first I thought she didn't like her shoes or her feet were sore, but, no. She just wanted to be barefoot. And why not? She had adorable tiny feet.

That same quirky and wonderful spirit passed to her daughter. As a wedding gift, she gave the happy couple a star. How amazing is that?

I'm going to share a few more of the pictures I took at her wedding, the last time I saw her.

K.B. with her son Alec and her daughter Maddy

K.B. and her husband Chris, and his two children

K.B.'s sister Susan and their father, Mr. Sterling (I can't bring myself to even type his first name.)

That picture is heartbreaking because two important people are not in it: K.B.'s mother, Joan, who died of Parkinson's, and her brother, Cullen, who died in his teens, of cancer.

But this is my favourite picture of that day, possibly even of all time.

Just a little girl, basking in her daddy's love.

Goodbye, K.B. I miss you already.

Goodbye, Scooter

I realized that, although I've told my family and friends, I did not share here that our dog Scooter's struggle with cancer ended rather abruptly on Sunday, December 22.

As I shared before, Scooter was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, called hemangiosarcoma. Although we could have spent thousands of dollars and put her through abdominal surgery, there was no assurance that she would recover. (At one point the vet said that if he opened her up and found the cancer on both her liver and spleen, he would recommend not waking her up.)

On Saturday, December 21, I gave Scooter the toys that her "aunt" Lori had sent her for Christmas. When Lori learned that Scooter was sick, she asked us to give Scoot the toys immediately, rather than wait. So I did.


That is a happy dog.

It was always a major achievement to remove the stuffing.

She enjoyed those toys for the rest of Saturday. On Sunday morning, December 22, I came down to see this.

Something had changed overnight. Steve was down before me and saw that Scooter had pooped on the carpet and was hiding in the sunroom (which was much colder than the living room). She held herself stiffly and shivered.

Steve cleaned up her mess, then brought her back into the living room, covered her with a blanket and lit a fire. When I came down, she seemed to be in pain, so I tried to feed her a pain pill; she refused it.

She tried to stand, but was wobbly on her legs. She was breathing loudly. Her gums were pale. A few minutes later, she suddenly stood up and vomited a virtually undigested meal (including the last pill we had given her the night before), then she flopped down right next to it.

I cleaned it up and covered her with the blankie again. I didn't try to move her.

Murphy's Law colluded to make the morning even more stressful: Steve had taken the small car to church (where I couldn't reach him) and it had snowed heavily overnight, blocking the van in the driveway. It was also a Sunday and our regular vet was closed.

But with help from my sons, I got the van free, turned the blanket into a stretcher and got her loaded up. A short drive later, we were at the emergency animal hospital and I explained what was going on.

They took Scooter immediately and inserted a catheter into her vein. They showed me to a room with a big, comfy couch and brought Scooter to me.


The vet explained that Scooter's abdomen was distended, probably filled with blood from a leaking spleen. She was in pain.

After injecting a mild anesthetic (to reduce Scooter's anxiety), the vet slowly injected the overdose of anesthesia. She stopped breathing. The vet told me I had made the right decision, then she told me to knock on the door when I was ready, and she left us alone so I could hold her and do the ugly cry in privacy.

I held her and cried for a while. I didn't want to let her go, but then I touched her ear and it was cold, and I thought: she's not here.

So I called in the vet and did the necessary paperwork. I opted to have Scooter cremated and to receive her ashes so that we could have some kind of memorial when Pat and Ross are back next summer. Most of the members of her first family had not been able to say goodbye to her, so I felt it was important to give them an opportunity for closure.

Grief is unique for each one of us, and it is helpful to remember that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to experience loss. I find that each new grief brings echoes of all the others I have loved and lost. There is a sort of recognition to the feeling now: ah, yes. Grief again.

Many people are reluctant to adopt a new pet again, at least in the short term. For me, however, I think I want a new dog sooner rather than later. Scooter really opened my eyes to the experience of being a dog owner -- it is a surprising and wonderful thing.

I still have Elly, of course -- and she is a wonderful cat. (I'm totally gaga over her!)

Phew! That was a hard nap!

But it's no secret that, no matter how much you think your cat loves you, dogs are the ones who really show attachment. It's an entirely different relationship as shown in this experiment.


So after the dust has settled from the Christmas-New Year's frenzy, I'll be scanning shelters and pet rescue websites for a new member for our family.

A loss

Our Lady of the Wayside, Ireland [Photo copyright Wynn Anne Sibbald]

Have you ever noticed that, the more profound your feelings are, the more trite your sentiments sound when you try to put them into words?

Moving kind of sucks.

As a military family, we've moved a lot. We've had nine homes in the 26 years we've been married. When we were newlyweds and when the kids were youngsters, it was every two years. Consequently, we have a whole collection of children's books that deal with moving, from Mr. Rogers' Moving to Heather McKend's Moving Gives Me a Stomach Ache. One of our favourites was Cindy Szekeres' Moving Day - we still have it, and still read it.

For me, moving is usually a time of great excitement: a new place to decorate, new friends to meet, a new job opportunity. When the kids were little, they mostly took it in stride. Katie, especially, would have a new best friend within hours of our arrival at the new home.

But I have to say that these moves have been hardest on Emily. Emily's friends are vitally important to her. But unlike her sister, who leaps into new friendships like a Golden Lab puppy, Emily's more like a cat: she takes a while to really warm up and trust her friends. She makes new friends quickly, but it takes a while before she really lets them in.

At one point when Emily was about 10, we thought we were going to be moving to Germany - a really exciting opportunity for our family. When we told the kids about it, Emily was so distraught that she ran to the bathroom and was sick to her stomach. That move fell through, but a year or so later when we told the kids about our move to Colorado, she took it hard.

She actually toilet-papered our bedroom and used some of my expensive lotions to smear the bathroom mirrors. She was huffy and angry. She sulked, but she didn't talk to us about it. And we didn't pursue it.

What I didn't realize was that the emotional trauma of the move sowed the seeds of a major depression for Emily. Two years later (I'm so sorry it took us that long!) we finally got her into therapy after she ran away from home one evening. The police found her at two in the morning.

And here we are again, facing another move - the last one, we hope. Emily's 17, going into her final year of high school, and she has a really great boyfriend here whom she loves. Could there possibly be a worse time for her to move? I don't think so. It just totally sucks.

Yesterday, Emily took down all the pictures and posters she'd plastered on her bedroom walls. I think, for her, that made the move just too real. Today, she's grieving. She doesn't want hugs, doesn't want to talk about it (with me, at least). She's made a little blanket-walled fort under her craft table and is snuggled there "chatting" with her friends. She just wants to be alone and work through it, I guess.

All I want to do is hold her and make it "all better." But I can't because, really, moving totally sucks. Especially when you're 17, going into your last year of high school, and have to say goodbye to your boyfriend.

Some of the best things about parties

Usually, Steve has to drag me to parties. I don't like noise and I don't like crowds, especially of people I don't know. I don't always feel like getting "done up" to go out. (Hey, it takes some effort - and a fair amount of concealer - for this gal to look presentable!) Sometimes, I'm just lazy and antisocial and would rather stay home in my stretchy pants and veg. At least, that's how I feel before he drags my sorry arse out of the house.

Once I get there, it's a different matter. I almost always meet someone I really click with and discover a yummy new food that I hadn't tried before. I have a good time and am glad I went. I feel energized.

And, although we only do it once or twice a year, I do enjoy hosting a party. The great thing about hosting a party is that we know everyone there! Well, almost everyone. There are always some new people to get to know - spouses or the kids' friends. When I'm doing all the food, I enjoy finding new recipes (yes, I use my guests as guinea pigs) and getting all fussy with the presentation. When doing a potluck, I have less work and get to try new dishes again. And, when all is done, the food and drinks are cleared and the last guest has gone home, I get to enjoy a really clean house for a couple of days before all the crap I procrastinate about putting away starts to pile up again.

But I will confess to one deep anxiety about hosting our parties: no one showing up. This has actually happened to us a couple of times. Once, only two couples showed up to a party when we were prepared for about 20. (Lesson learned: ask for RSVPs.) (At that same party, all four guests turned their noses up at the home-made liver pate, which I hadn't considered all that exotic.) Another time, we had lots of RSVPs, but an ice storm blew through and only a few souls braved the slick roads to join us. They were treated to LOTS of food and drink!

Yesterday, we hosted a potluck to say farewell to our neighbours and friends. As "party hour" approached, I worried again that no one would show up. I reminded myself that most guests will courteously arrive a few minutes (at least) late, to allow the host those last few minutes of preparation. (They should know that an OCD couple like us was surely ready 15 minutes early.) Sure enough, within 15 minutes, the doorbell was ringing steadily and there was a cluster of people around the "bar." The music was playing, people from the different spheres of our lives were meeting each other and exchanging 30-second CVs. We caught up with some people we hadn't seen in too long and exchanged news and funny stories with people we'd been working or drinking with mere days earlier.

Steve, Peter, Emily, Brian and I had a great time. (Emily even had two of her girlfriends stay overnight afterwards.)

Today, the dust has settled. The house looks tidier than it has in many weeks. There are the silent echos of laughter and lively voices. And the inevitable leftovers. Reminders of the good time we had, and the good friends we'll miss.

Run away! Run away!

Confession: despite my sentimental (and genuinely heartfelt) post about the wonderful farewell party thrown by my colleagues at NORAD and USNORTHCOM and about how good the military is at saying goodbye, I myself am a wuss when it comes to saying goodbye.

It's shameful, really. And it's all because I just feel awkward. All my social skills (at least, as much as I do have) seem to vanish.

I never know whether to shake hands or hug (especially when it comes to the guys). And I feel bad if I want to hug some people, but don't want to hug others, so I just opt for no hugs, but then someone holds his or her arms out for a hug just as I put my hand out for a shake, and she or he pulls both arms back just as I change my proffered right hand for a two-arm hug ... Awkward.

And I feel really uncomfortable when people say nice things about me - it's like that feeling you get when you're walking past someone who you just KNOW is watching you, and suddenly, you can't walk smoothly - your feet are two inches too long, your hips are all stiff. You feel like you're a two-leg amputee using your body weight to fling each prosthetic leg forward in turn. THAT's how I feel when people speak well of me. Just profoundly self-conscious.

Probably something pathologically neurotic about that. I'll ask my psychoanalyst.

So, when it comes to the final act of Saying Goodbye, I behave like the knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when faced by the man-eating rabbit of Caer Bannog (sp?): I run away. (Can't you just hear whatshisname yelling, "Run away! Run away!" as they scramble over the rocks, leaving decapitated knights behind them?)

And that's what happened today. I worked my last day in the Public Affairs office. I gave hand-over briefings, I sent papers to be shredded, I cleared out my drawers and cabinets, I moved all my electronic files to a shared location, I burned a CD of my old e-mails. And then I was done.

Since I no longer had any badges or security identification, a colleague walked me to the exit. As we were leaving the office, she asked, "Did you want to say goodbye to anyone?"

GAAAH! Of COURSE that's the Right Thing To Do. The Right Thing To Do is to walk by each of the divisions in the office, pop my head in and call a cheerful, "Well, it's been great, guys. Take care. Don't forget to shred those papers." Exchange a final handshake or hug (you see where my problem is). Is that what I did? Nope. Here's what I did.

I stood near the exit to the office and called out a cheerful and loud, "Well, goodbye! I'm leaving!" I received a chorus of goodbyes in return. Phew. We escaped into the corridor.

But one brave soul scrambled after us and called, "Wait!" It was Kyle - a colleague who is possibly even more introverted than I am. It really was good to see her, and it was actually nice to have a sort of private hug goodbye with her. We've come through some challenges together.

So now I'm kind of wishing I'd taken the five minutes, made the rounds, suffered the hug/shake dilemmas, and done The Right Thing. But, ah well. They know I've really enjoyed my time there and that I'll miss them. Right? Hope so.