Larry Gibbons' Blog

Thin Walls

20/9/2022

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Mist Dances Over and Around Blueberry Mountain

Mist Climbing Mountain

Mist Moving In

Trail on Blueberry Mountain

I did it. Dominic did it. We both did it. What did we do? We left our home. Went our separate ways, but only for a little while. Five days.

Dominic went to camp. It’s called In Good Hands. He learned to canoe, light a fire, participated in group play time, made doggy crafts and had quite a few good old roll-in-the-dirt sessions

I went to Bridgewater. It’s not far from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Here I hiked two new trails, talked a way too much and attempted to get familiar with being away from the island. It was, overall, a good time and I’m glad I went. I stayed with two of Sue’s best friends, Kathy and Clara.

Baddeck River

But wow, talk about difficult to leave Cape Breton! Hard to explain, and as for dropping Dominic off, it nearly tore my heart out through my head. You see, Dominic has been my faithful buddy and house-mate since Sue disappeared.

I dropped Dominic off at the kennels the day before I left. When I returned home, I couldn’t believe how many times I looked for him and I missed the click, click, click of his nails on the floor as he followed me around.

Losing a loved one, especially a spouse, is like having an emotional bomb dropped into your life. Memories, like bricks and mortar, are strewn everywhere. Everything, to the eyes, looks the same and almost nothing feels or looks the same.

Mount Rushmore In Cape Breton

You try to survive from minute to minute. Like a person in a war ravaged city, you walk around your bombed-out life trying to put your emotional pieces back together. Familiar places and items weep with memories. You look in the mirror and wonder if that person is you. You’re in a battle and it’s not a time to be unselfish, if being selfish is what it takes to survive the emotional and physical storm. The future is too frightening to think about.

Also, you still have to deal with practicalities. Things like money, the estate and all the normal things that keep your life from diving into the dumpster.

You go into a grocery store and watch the shoppers shopping and you try to remember what it was like to have a regular life.

You avoid people because you don’t want to force them, usually uncomfortably, to express their sympathy. You don’t want to put them on the spot and when they do, you want empathy, not pity. Many folks attempt to say helpful things, but often they bring back the grief. You understand that it’s difficult for them to find the right words. Maybe they are also frightened, aware that they too might, in the future, have to deal with a huge loss. Having somebody to love in your life means you are at great risk, in the future, of experiencing debilitating grief.

Some grieving people shop in stores where the people don’t know them. They might wear a hat or sunglasses to disguise themselves. It is so much fun! And it isn’t even halloween, although you are living in a horror story.

Torey's Dramatic Pose

Friends help and when something tragic happens in your life, you will find out who your true friends are. They will let you know, in one way or another, that they are thinking of you. Many have themselves suffered a great loss and are, as a friend said, the walking wounded.

So Pretty

However, gradually, gradually, you put the bits and pieces of your life back together. You search for friends, safe places and therapeutic activities wherever you can find them. You create a retreat from your emotional chaos. However, you never know when you will be attacked by the relentless grief and you’re always anxious that your emotional walls will collapse like a sponge cake in an earthquake.

Good Camouflage out-fit

Now, my biggest fear wasn’t going away, it was returning home. It was coming back to a place where, although I’d begun to know and trust it, was also filled with the bombed out emotional memories caused by the grievous attacks. I’d learned to cope with the emotions, but when I left and then returned would the walls that I had constructed stand up to the dreadful psychological forces that had been almost overwhelming.

Magical Puddle

Well the separation anxiety and all the memories didn’t disappoint. The closer I got to home the more grief, anxiety and disorientation I experienced. The loss of Sue was etched in every once friendly place.

However, in times like this, unexpected miracles occur.

She Thinks She's in Hiding

You see, as I headed over Kelly’s Mountain, I decided to test my miracle theory. I turned on my radio. I hit scan and reached out into the universe. The first station was playing an Elvis Presley song. I think the universe was warming up. The next channel had a man talking about how he dealt with his trauma. So relevant! What are the odds? Who knows? I’ve given up on figuring out probabilities. Whether it was the snow-rainbow I followed to a friend’s house on Christmas morning, only twenty—two days after Sue disappeared, or this sudden radio program, it has to be admitted that they were, maybe more than happenstances, and Sue always gets some of the credit. Anybody need a dime?

Bat Man On a Hike

Finally, a weird thing happened while I was in Bridgewater. I was checking the kennel’s web page. I wanted to see what time I could pick up Dominic. I found a video that they had posted twenty-six minutes before I signed on. I clicked on it and saw all the dogs, every shape and size, running around in a fenced in area. Then, to my surprise, I saw a little black dog pop out from behind a building. He looked into the camera. It was Dominic.

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COINCIDENCES

29/7/2022

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Acadien Trail Look-off

Some times I think that we are characters in a play and have less control over our personal plots than we think.

You see, not long before Sue passed away, I’d booked a septic sucker company to come to our home and empty our septic system. There was, however, one problem. I didn’t know where the tank was.

Anyway, I cancelled that appointment and filed this alimentary system problem away in the back of my mind. There were too many other issues to think about. However, it pushed its way to the front of the line the day that my toilet lost its flushing power.

Acadien Trail

I phoned the plumber and asked him if he could help me find the septic system. He arrived with a long heavy rod which he used to poke and push through the earth.

He’d heard another fella say that the tank should be about sixteen feet from the trailer, so that’s the area he searched.

Let Me In

Well, he kept poking until he located the pipe. He also put a hole in it. I paid him some money for finding the pipe and putting a hole in it. Before he left, he said that the septic tank should be within five feet of the hole in the pipe. This was based on his sixteen-feet-from-the-trailer theory. The plumber had been exhausted and not feeling well and that’s why he stopped searching.

He told me that once I got the septic system emptied he would come over and seal the hole.

I did a little digging myself, but had no luck, so I phoned another fella and asked him if he could find the septic system.

This fella began pick-axing from the hole in the pipe place and worked his way to about sixteen feet from the trailer. No septic tank was located.

Hiking Buddy, Dominic and Me at Corney Brook Falls

Well, the fella just kept on pick-axing. He pick-axed, and pick-axed. Sixteen feet from the trailer, seventeen, eighteen and on and on. He pick-axed all the way to sixty feet from the trailer. Now doesn’t sixteen and sixty sound very similar? Anyway, there it was. The golden chest filled to the gills.

I paid the pick-axe man.

Now, I did make an appointment to get the tank emptied but in the meantime, and it was a fairly long meantime, I wasn’t using the toilet. However, I had my methods. It’s a bit easier to solve when you live where I live. Plus, now that we’re talking coincidences, I found, a week or so later, what I think they call, a commode. It was at a neighbour’s house. I had given it to the neighbour. Sue, had found it and carried it home. We weren’t sure why. Now I think I know why and so I had an unflushable but handy toilet bowl. What a coincidence, eh?

Anyway, one day, to Dominic’s dismay, a poetically big, noisy, septic-sucker truck came to our place.

The nice man emptied the tank, rolled up his big sucker hose and then, well I did what I had been regularly doing. I paid him.

Torey On Little River Beach

However, the toilet still lacked enthusiastic flushing power. So, I had to continue to stay on good terms with my commode until I got the plumber to arrive.

The plumber came with his long, metal, drilling, snake gizmo. He turned and twisted this snake-like machine right down my toilet’s throat, and he did find the problem. Actually, more than one problem.

You see, because of how hectic my life had become, I had been foolishly dumping old dishwashing water down the toilet, without adequately poking around in the murky water to make sure that nothing was hiding under the soap suds.

Mask

The plumber found a fork. Then he found a knife. I was hoping that he may get the toilet to cough up a complete table setting. I do suspect, that my toilet bowl is hanging onto my sugar spoon.

Of course, before the plumber left, I paid him.

You may be wondering what this septic tank story has to do with my being part of a play.

Baddeck River

Well you see, only days after the septic system story came to, what I considered was its conclusion, I went to Tim Hortons to buy an Iced Cap.

I was in the drive-through. When I got to the ordering square I said, “One small Iced Cap.”

Baddeck River

Then I said, “And that’s all I want.”

The servers who all seem to have poor hearing, said, “Any thing else?”

I said, “No thanks.”

Then the server surprised me. She asked me, no, ye verily, she told me to stay put. I was to stay put. Can you believe that?

A Wild Space

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said.

The reason I had to be inconvenienced, and what a coincidence, was because a huge, loud, septic sucking truck was beep, beep, beeping its way in front of me. A man, not the same man who pumped out my tank, got out of the truck, and unrolled a big hose which he hooked up to Tim Horton’s septic tank.

Black River Fen

I waited as the hose sucked out all that Tim Horton’s had to offer.

See what I mean? I was living in a play called, A Seriously Stuffed Septic System. The play unfolded and unfolded and then threw out a surprise ending before the curtain came down. It was as if the universe put a big period at the end of my septic sucking experience. It threw a septic truck in front of me as I was going about the normal business of driving through a Timmy’s drive-through.

Has this happened to you after you’ve just spent over a month dealing with your septic system? Just a coincidence? An annoyance? Or maybe, a well thought out play with all its actors in their right places?

Cabin On Baddeck River

I have written some blogs about my annoyance with and doubts about the over-use of the virtual world machines. Don’t get me wrong. I use some of them and depend on some of them, but I think people should give their heads a shake when they depend too much on them. In other words, they should get their heads out of their machines and smell the roses or at least take a look at them. Not the virtual ones. The real ones.

Baddeck River Critter

The thing is, Dominic is a motorized vehicle chaser. He will also chase bikes. Our road is quiet, but not as quiet as it used to be. That’s because the bridge is out and so there is a detour. Our road is not a detour. However, people who depend on their GPS machines think it is.

Two Yellow Chairs

Now that’s only after they have driven past about five signs saying such things as Road Closed, Local Traffic Only, Detour Ahead, Detour Right in Front of Your Nose, get your F’n sniffer out of your virtual know-it-alls, etc. Two of these warnings have flashing orange lights on a big stand which partially stick out into the road. Doesn’t matter.

Along Baddeck River Shoreline

Last week a driver pulled over and asked me how to get to Margaree.

“You’re using a GPS aren’t you,” I said.

He showed me his phone with the GPS on it while Dominic yapped and yelped, as he tried to gnaw on his tires.

“You’ll have to turn around and go back to the main road. Keep going until you see a huge blinking sign that says, ‘Detour, Road Closed, Local Traffic Only. Make a right there.”

He thanked me and drove away while Dominic wildly barked, as he desperately tried to chase the truck. He is obsessed with chasing cars.

People are obsessed with chasing their GPS.

BADDECK RIVER

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Voices From the Parlour

28/6/2022

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“Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.”
John Muir

Whose Woods These Are

A few days ago, I decided to hike to a little beach. To the wee flat area of sand and rock where I often sit on a wobbly piece of driftwood and listen to the quiet.

This little beach huddles along the Middle River. Here the river is frothy and snappy.

Temporary Bridge Construction Site

I watched a merganser cruise on the water. It showed no fear. I took some photos and then scraped some sand and gravel with my feet as I tried to get the bird to take to its wings. I wanted to capture a bird-in-flight photo. However, I think he saw me as only another piece of uninteresting driftwood or a big, dumb boulder because it just kept merrily, merrily floating along.

Entering Red Island Beach

A few people have told me that in this area they feel close to the spirit world. They sense energy. I have, myself, had some rather interesting encounters on this little beach.

This particular day, I suddenly had rumination. A memory relating to Sue’s disappearance and death.

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

Now I know that many of my blogs have, of late, been about Sue’s death. It’s just that her departure is still pretty fresh in my mind. So, you see, often when I have an ordinary blog subject to write, along comes another Sue soul searing thought and it just seems too potent, as a blog article, not to write about. Besides, it may offer some insight or comfort to others who are also grieving the loss of Sue or other loved ones.

So Fertile

So, there I was, listening to the babbling of the river and wondering where the merganser had taken off to when my mind took a sharp right turn, and began poking around in a past event.

Merganser

It was about a trip Sue and I took approximately fifteen years ago. Sue wanted to drive to Northern Quebec and visit some Indigenous friends that she’d taught with.

I remember the day we visited her friend, Maggie. We were brought into Maggie’s kitchen and were told that her friend was showering, so we waited until she was finished. Maybe had a cup of tea.

At Corney Brook Falls

I was knocked out of my socks, size ten, when I saw the greeting that Maggie gave to Sue. She was super-charged happy to see Sue and Sue was just as joyful. They were tearing up and I was fighting back my own. I could see that these two people really, really loved each other.

Another Forest Critter

On a sad note, I learned that Maggie wasn’t well. When we went blue-berry picking, she had to sit and watch because she ran out of energy.

One evening, maybe a year after we’d visited Maggie, Sue and I were, like every night around 11 pm, tucked into our bed. Suddenly, coming from the downstairs, was the sounds of women’s voices. It startled us, as we lived in the bush, with no winter road access.

I thought our cats might have turned on the radio. It’s amazing how the scientific mind will desperately seek to find an explanation that makes scientific sense. Not that I have anything against science.

Dominic and His Buddies

Well, the cats hadn’t turned on the radio and the voices had come from downstairs and the next day there were no tracks in the snow to indicate that we had visitors. So, we put this event in the category of, we haven’t a clue as to why we heard women talking downstairs in our parlour.

Red Island Trail

A day or two later, we received a phone call from one of Maggie’s daughters who had managed to track us down. She told Sue that Maggie was dying and that she didn’t want to die until she saw Sue.

The next day we drove the many miles to the hospital where Sue visited her. I believe Maggie died a day or two later.

So, I’m still thinking these thoughts, even after the merganser had left the area. I’m thinking about the women’s voices, the phone call and then Maggie dying.

View From Red Island Trail

And then, I was struck in my solar plexus and heart area with a strong comforting thought. Which caused me to choke up a sob, but not a sad sob.
Sue did not die alone.

“What is essential does not die but clarifies.”
“Thornton Wilder”

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Forest Full Of Stories

7/6/2022

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View From Red Island Beach

“All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposes, and luckier.”
Walt Whitman

Hikers On Red Island Beach Trail

On one of our hikes, a friend mentioned a quote she’d heard. It was “The universe is not made of atoms, but is made of stories.”

Another fella, at another time, told me that he sees each person he meets as being like a forest.

In my mind the forests are constructed of stories.

I got thinking about this story statement after I received a particular phone call. You see, I had been waiting for about two years for a specialist to see Sue and help us cope with her dementia. Covid was the reason it took so long. Anyway, the receptionist phoned last week and I had to tell her the sad story. Of course, she was shocked and when I tried to give her a little bit of a positive outlook on the event, well in her mind it was a tragedy and nothing else.

Happy Hiker After Hiking Red Island Trail

It was a tragedy, but more than that because the universe is made up of stories and they add deep insight to the simple idea that it was just a terrible tragedy.

Foggy Hiking Trail

Here’s another quote.

“A rainbow is an arc of colours formed in the sky by the refraction and dispersion of the sun’s light by water droplets in the atmosphere. This is what it is. But that’s not what it means.”
Kaleeg Hainsworth, An Altar in the Wilderness

On Friday I went to a book launch for Shauna MacKeigan’s new novel. It’s called ‘THE LIGHT AMONGST THE GREY’.

Forest creature

Shauna read a passage from her book. It was about a father whose son fell out of a fishing boat and was never seen again.

Well, you can imagine that I found the reading difficult to listen to as she read about how the father imagined his son’s death and how horrible it must have been. Thought about how he’d never see him again. Lost in the ocean’s depths just as Sue is lost in the forest’s depths.

Red Island Trail

One day, the father fell out of his fishing boat and almost drowned. He described feeling a sense of great peacefulness as he approached his death.

Luckily, he was rescued. However, this near-death experience helped him look at his son’s death and disappearance in a more positive way.

House And Barn In The Highlands

I also felt a lifting of my stress and sadness as Shauna read the passage. I’m glad I went and I thanked Shauna for reading a part of her story. It was cathartic.

So, what I’m trying to say is that some people look at Sue’s disappearance from the aspect of the atoms. Not the story. And it is hard for many of us, including myself, to realize, to really get it into our thick noggins, that we are made of stories and not atoms.

So, when a person can’t see around the idea that Sue’s disappearance, while very sad, has a story and that it has positive elements, well then, the only way to look at it is that it is a tragic death of a bunch of atoms in the shape of Sue.

Take Off

“Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.”
Elie Wiesel
And, Sue died with dignity. She escaped what she had feared for so long. Being institutionalized. She is in a place that mimics the stories in which she lived on this side of the veil.

Painting The Highlands

You see, Sue would laden our kitchen table and other surfaces with bird feathers, stones, snake skins, leaves, bark, hornet nests, twigs, tiny pieces of driftwood and other earth-related specimens. Tangible representations of her story and her close ties to the natural world. Now she is part of the forest.

A day or two after Sue’s story ended on this earth I was amazed, while standing by the bird feeder, to see a large flock of blue jays who were making no sounds nor were they making any effort to fly away. It felt like a solemn time. My story told me they were having a moment of silence for Sue.

Taking A Photo At Red Island Beach

So, although Sue’s atoms are changing, the story is going on and this blue jay tale is one of many parts of the story. It makes her death feel much more mysterious and comforting than only being a tragedy.

Cool White Pants

“Anyone who tells a story speaks a world into being.”
Michael Williams

Dominic In His Squirrel Hunting Blind

They're Everywhere

Spring Ferns

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DEAD AND NOT DEAD

11/5/2022

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Fungus?

One of the reasons I believe that Sue, who has been my greatest writing supporter, is still on the scene is because of the title of my book. The novel is called, “Dead and Not Dead.”

When Sue disappeared most people were pretty certain that she was deceased. However, in the eyes of the legal world she was still alive because they hadn’t found her body.

Therefore, I couldn’t do anything to settle the estate until I got a Presumption of Death Certificate from a judge.

So, she was Dead and Not Dead. That’s the title of my novel.

MUSHROOMS ON HAY

Well, I was walking into a store this afternoon and ran into a fella and we discussed the amazing coincidence that my book’s title would be so relevant to what happened to Sue. He mentioned the rumour mill.

Ah yes. The friggen rumour mill. The undercurrent that runs underneath the condolences and sympathetic words.

Apparently, some people think that I picked the title after Sue disappeared. Why I would do that is far beyond my understanding, but there it is. He suggested I clear things up by sending out a post.

Here it is. The post. The blog.

WOODS

I originally planned to call my novel, “An Eagle’s Dance”.

Well, the publisher didn’t particularly care for that title and suggested I think up a different one.

The publisher proposed that I look at the book and try to find a title by seeing if something in the novel’s text might look promising. I did that and one of the titles I suggested came from a character who would occasionally say that he was “Dead and Not Dead.”

Now all of this title-picking occurred months before Sue disappeared. And this title which was among a list of many titles, was spotted by the editor. She is very sharp-eyed. She pointed the title out to the publisher. The publisher liked it and mentioned it to me. I loved the title. The cover of the book was thus designed with the title, “Dead and Not Dead” on the cover.

Now get this. Sue also liked the title. Because she was alive. She was breathing, in and out, just like I was and so, like me, she was able to like the title.

So, what I’m saying is that the title is a miracle. A zillion in one coincidence.

Yes, Sue became Dead and Not Dead, but she was very much alive when the title for the book was chosen. Selected by others and accepted by Sue and me.

It’s a miracle.

COLTS FOOT

This is why I am convinced that Sue is still playing a part in my life.

It is a big, rather overwhelming and gosh darn miracle and the rumour mill has it about as wrong as rumour mills seem to be mistaken about most things.

MIDDLE RIVER

And that’s the story. The title was chosen months before Sue became dead and not dead and I wish she was still here and that the title was just a good title.

Miracles happen no matter how rational we might think we are. Wonders never cease. They’re everywhere. Inside and outside the church and we can’t presume that all miraculous occurrences are caused by low blood sugar.

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PRESCRIPTIONS AND WEEDS

5/5/2022

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BECKONING

In December, after Sue disappeared, I took an on-line crash course. It was called ‘Becoming a Doctor’.

It was a strenuous course and required a lot of reading. I graduated the day after I enrolled and immediately prescribed medication for myself. It was one to three cans of Big Spruce Beer per day. I prescribed plenty of re-fills.

However, over time I discovered that this prescription was too strong. So, I decided to drop the dosage.

HE SURE CAN MOVE

I’ll tell you this. The pro-beer-drinking lawyer in my mind is always trying to up my prescription dosage. He’s a match for any top notch city legal professional.

For example, I decided that I would make a certain day per week, beer free. My sneaky lawyer didn’t like that.

On one beer-free day, I visited a friend. We went for a long healthy hike and after we got back to her house, some folks dropped around. I was asked if I wanted a glass of beer. This would be a half dose. My lawyer nudged me into saying, “Yes please.”

CLOUDS OVER HIGHLANDS

On the way home I didn’t have to pass the liquor store. However, a few minutes later I was walking through my alcohol purveyor’s front door.

Here’s how that happened. Blame my lawyer.

“Listen,” he said to me. “You’ve already had a beer and blown up this beer-free day.”

It made sense in a deeply esoteric way.

So, I bought two cans, but am happy to report that I only drank one that evening.

DOMINIC ON A BALE OF HAY

Word quickly got to my lawyer that I had only consumed one of the two cans. So, the next day, he convinced me that this day should not be looked at as a no-drinking-beer day just because I blew up yesterday’s plan. It wouldn’t be fair to me or to any other person who loved justice. I had to stick to my plan even if I hadn’t stuck to my plan the day before.

I therefore bought two cans of beer for that day. Legally, before things got all bumbled up, this day was slotted to be a two-pint-dosage day. Now I would have three beer in the fridge. Two to drink and one to spice up my dosage consumption with some exciting temptation.

You see, I have two very special days where I have three beer, but this day was a normal two-beer day. However, my lawyer had more to say about that.

“Oh Larry, for ‘F’ sake. Yesterday turned out not to be a no-beer day, as you planned because you had half a dose and then another full pint dose which made it a two can day, even if you didn’t drink the other one. Therefore, to fulfill your prescription for today, which is, legitimately, a two can day, you should most certainly drink the two beers you just bought and then drink the other beer because, you may have forgotten, but you were going to allow yourself three beer days during every statutory holiday. Do you have any idea how many of those days you have missed?”

“Oh cripes,” I thought. He had me against the ropes.

See what I mean. This character is really sharp and he knows where to hit my thirsty spots.

I decided, that the next day, beginning at twelve am sharp, I’d be strong and no matter what my beer besotted lawyer said, I’d only prescribe what I had decided to prescribe.

STARTING POINT OF TRAIL TO ESKASONI CROSS

I made this decision while I sat in the woodshed, drinking one of my drinks and while Dominic poked and prodded his nose about the woodshed as he tried to find a rascally squirrel.

I mentioned this decision to my lawyer and waited to see how he spun out his arguments. I planned to hang tough.

My internal lawyer is no dummy. He changed the topic. He distracted me and didn’t try to change my mind.

You see, he started to blab on about weeds. Not weed. Weeds however, for a brief moment I’d thought he was going to get me toking and drinking. I thought he was branching out, but no, he was actually talking about the plants that many of us call weeds.

Good Friday PILGRIM

He mentioned that some people think certain plants are weeds and certain plants aren’t weeds.

So now my damn lawyer is a horticulturist.

He showed me, in my mind, exhibit one. It was a photo of a massive field. It was covered in dandelions. Bright yellow dandelions.

“What do you think of all those dandelions?” He asked.

THEY"RE EVERYWHERE

I swallowed a portion of my prescription, thought about his question and then answered.

“I think the dandelions in the photo are out of control,” I said. “They’re probably suffocating out some of the prettier plants.”

My addiction lawyer pounced. He pulled out exhibit two.

“Take a good look at this photo.” He pushed the photo right up close to my frontal cortex.

It was a photograph of a major city. The city smothered kilometres and kilometres of acreage. Not a dandelion in sight. Roads, concrete, concrete and more concrete and steel.

JENNA HIKING ESKASONI TRAIL ON GOOD FRIDAY

“Who’s out of control?” He said.

I suddenly felt mighty thirsty. My lawyer suggested I have another beer.

Then he pulled out exhibit three. It was a photo of a massive clear cut. My damn lawyer was a rubber booter.

“Do you know how many diseases that dandelions can help cure?”

I said I didn’t. He therefore rattled off a list of their benefits.

MORNING HIKE WITH DOMINIC

“Well then, stop bad mouthing them and drink your beer before it goes sour. Respect the dandelions ability to withstand human depredations. Let’s drink to that.”

Later on, I whipped off to my purveyors, after I decided to make this day a four-pint-beer day. A really, really special day. My lawyer was pleased.

Back in the woodshed, I got thinking, wouldn’t it be great if all those internal lawyers who continuously work at talking us into addictive behaviours, were able to get together and argue for saving our planet from our uncontrollable addictive consumption.

PUDDLE ICE GOES TO CHURCH

Suddenly, while I was sitting in the woodshed chair, trying to tie these tenuous thoughts together, so that this blog wouldn’t look totally out there, young Dominic plunked himself onto my lap. A piece of a red squirrel’s tail dangled from his mouth. He dropped the tail onto my lap and gave me a kiss.

SNOW GHOST

I realized what his addiction was and wondered if he had a lawyer as smart as mine.

And that’s when I decided to take a drive and buy myself three beer-tonic cans for tomorrow. I like to be prepared.

OUR MORNING HIKING TRAIL

The purveyor woman told me it would be cheaper if I bought a four pack. My lawyer sent me a quick wink wink. I bought a four pack.

Did I mention that Dominic has a squirrel addiction? He has set up a blind under the deck and will sit in the blind for hours shaking and waiting as he watches for squirrels.

The shaking worries me a wee bit, but he seems to be in control.

LAVERNE LOOKS AT VIRGIN MARY STATUE

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Even the Best Plans

3/4/2022

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MULTI-COLOURED HIGHLANDS

Sue loved living in Cape Breton where the multi-coloured highlands were only a few minutes away.

Sue would not have been happy in a synthetic and tired-aired, dry-walled institution. No siree! She would not have been happy at all.

Some time ago, I wrote a little story. Sue enjoyed it and so I’m putting it in this blog. What the heck, eh?

FOREST SECURITY

Their daughters’ scary words had resonated with danger and the two of them were returning this evening.

The dark clouds had cooled off the afternoon air as Beth and Jason retreated to the wooden bench under the ancient and twisted oak tree. It had been old before they’d built their tiny cabin. Here, in its shade, they could talk, look out over the lake and its island and feel safe.

Beth loaned Jason her sight. He could only see a few feet in front of him.

“What colour is the lake, dear?” Jason asked.

“Colour of Theresa’s greying hair.”

“Is it all stirred up like we are?”

ICY TUNNEL

“Calm and patient.”

“Is Mica Island still out there?”

“It’s staying put.”
***
Beth’s knees ached as she bent over to place folded tea towels into a cardboard box. Years of hard outdoor labour had disfigured her fingers and toes. She chuckled when she thought about how the packed boxes, disturbed furniture and vanished knickknacks would send their daughters into a busy chatter-fest. It was always good to be a little bit ahead.

That evening the chatty daughters arrived in the elder daughter’s black SUV. Jason sat on the couch and watched the

SUE'S FAVOURITE OLD TREE

ghostly colours and forms enter through the old wooden door. A tight-faced nurse tagged behind. She worked in the ‘Halfway to Heaven’ Home.

Theresa, their eldest daughter and Melody, their youngest, perched themselves on the edge of the frayed sofa. The nurse sat on Jason’s friendly rocking chair.

The nurse, after being introduced, leaned forward like a robin poking for a worm. Jason and Beth huddled together on their tiny love seat. A gift from their family thirty-five years ago.

“Your family tells me you’ve lived here for over fifty years,” the nurse said.

“Fifty-three,” Jason replied.

THICKLY FORESTED HIGHLANDS

Beth gazed out the window. Her emotions felt like an unfinished cake. Mix her love for the family with four cups of threat and unfathomable change and she’d never get it into the oven. A hummingbird flitted around the empty feeder.

“You must have wonderful memories of this place.”

The nurse expertly guided the conversation towards an already agreed upon, reasonably guilt-free arrangement which suited their family members’ lives. Their daughters nodded each time the nurse asked a leading question.

“You live here and you get a different view on things,” Jason said.

“All of us will reach an age when we won’t be able to manage the kind of life we lived when we were younger. You’ll be safer and in the long run, happier in the seniors’ residence.”

Beth leaned on her cane and struggled into her slippers. She shuffled over to the wall and removed their deceased cat’s collar from where it hung over her daughters’ wedding pictures. Pokey’s body was buried by the large oak.

The strange thing was that when Beth had awakened, in the early morning hours, she’d found Pokey purring on her pillow. Beth placed the fur-embedded collar into one of the half empty boxes that crouched on the floor by the front door. Aware that she was being clinically observed.

GUARDING THE WOOD

Their elder daughter, neck stiff from nodding, pushed herself up from the couch, walked over to the dining room table and began checking the medication bottles that littered its shiny but aged surface.

“You’re not taking all your pills, mom.”

Beth stared out at the lake. She could smell the aroma of pine gum and waves. She spotted Melody, her younger daughter, paddling their green canoe towards Mica Island. How did she manage to get Pokey to stay in the canoe? He hated water. She chuckled until she saw Theresa, her oldest daughter rowing after Melody in their rowboat. An eagle watched from the sky’s ceiling.

A ROCK-EYE VIEW

She hoped they’d taken their life jackets. Oh dear, Melody wasn’t wearing a hat. The sun could get terribly hot.

“Something worrying you?” Theresa asked.

Beth didn’t answer. Things could get confusing.

“There’s an opening coming up in the seniors’ home. Should be ready for your mother and father within the month,” the nurse said.

They’d been dismissed.

“Perhaps one of us should drop in each day and check up on them until they can get into their room,” Melody said.

“My, my, but Melody should have left her hair long and not dyed it red,” Beth thought.

INCOMING

Jason had visited in one of those homes. He remembered the zombie-like meal chimes. He feared the condescending and over-worked institutional employees who could softly kill their dignity.

“Mom, mom, are you listening to what we’re saying?” Theresa said.

She hoisted her weight, walked over to Beth and gave her a restrained hug. Beth was relieved to see that both girls had made the island safely. She smiled.

It was decided. Tomorrow, their daughters would begin rotating their way through the manufactured schedule of operation babysitting.

LITTLE RIVER

Jason tried to spoon up next to Beth. She wasn’t there. She’d wandered to the tiny parlour couch. There, under the unpainted drywall, she wept and listened to the mice peeing in the ceiling. Melody and Theresa were still not back from the island. The wind had picked up and it made the lake mean and unforgiving.

Jason was startled by a loud crash. Along with his eyesight problems had come to the situation where he was never sure whether any loud noise he heard came from outside or inside his head.

ASPY

A light stabbed the room’s darkness. A white blob stood at the end of it.

“I heard a noise,” Beth said. “Maybe it’s the girls returning?”

“They went home,” Jason said. He pushed himself out of bed. His old friend, who’d been killed in a car/transport collision, had dropped by after their daughters had left. They’d talked about installing metal roofing on the cabin. The words had come from outside his head so he must have been mistaken about old Mort having been killed in that crash in 1998. Hard to remember things nowadays.

VIEW FROM BLUEBERRY MOUNTAIN

“We should take a look outside,” Jason said.

June bugs knocked against the living room window. The door squeaked as they opened it. Beth linked her arm through Jason’s.

They hobbled along the side of the cabin. Last fall’s dead leaves rustled. Some creature was digging under their cabin. The flashlight illuminated the spectral forms which acted as trees and sumac bushes during the day.

“We’re having the same dream, aren’t we,” Beth said.

“Must be, if you heard the noise too.”

“Melody left, you said?”

“She left with her sister,” Jason said.

WIND-BLOWN WOODS

“We should go down and make sure they properly tied up the boat and canoe,” Beth said.

Beth and Jason had always been true to their vows.

MIRACLE OF ICE

Theresa arrived in her black SUV, but had to stop on the poorly maintained dirt road. A white pick-up was squeezed to the side of the lane. A tall, stringy looking man, wearing a grubby feed-store cap, was chain-sawing a mammoth branch. She got out of her vehicle and walked towards him.

“Morning,” he said.

She responded with a constipated half smile.

“Old oak tree came down last night. Not a speck of wind. Must have been his time.”

She pushed her way through the tangle of branches. The cold lake wind pulled at her perm as Theresa walked down the path towards the cabin.
The cabin door was open. She called. Nobody answered. She called again. A raven squawked at the lake’s choppy waters. The wind teased an old shingle.

Her parents were not in the cabin. Fear replaced worry. Followed by the birth pains of a guilt she’d been trying to avoid.

She left the cabin and leaned against a maple tree for support. The tree whispered, but she didn’t understand the prayer her soul heard.

The chain saw screamed. A hummingbird whirred by her nose. The earth remained unselfish in her gifts as the daughter watched two tiny wisps of mist swirl and dance on Mica Island.

She grabbed for her cell phone.

SO MUCH BEAUTY!

Painter-poet Kuo-his once wrote of mountains:

“Inexhaustible is their mystery
In order to grasp their creations
One must love them utterly,
Study their essential spirit diligently,
And never cease contemplating them
And wandering among them.”

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NOT ALWAYS THE WAY IT SEEMS

23/3/2022

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WILDERNESS TRAIL

“———May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys
tinkling with bells,
past temples and castles and poets’ towers
into dark primeval forest where tigers

WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME

belch and monkeys howl,
through miasmal and mysterious swamps
and down into a desert of red rock,

GHOSTS HANGING AROUND

blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and
grottos of endless stone,
and down again into deep vast ancient
unknown chasm

SLITHERS

FACE IN THE WATER

where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled
cliffs,

ICE AND ORGAN MUSIC

HOWLING

where deer walk across the white sand
beaches,
where storms come and go

WINTER GREEN

as lightening clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams
waits for you—--
beyond the next turning of the canyon
walls.
Edward Abbey

DOMINIC AND FRIEND

I’ve learned that events that may at first look bad can in the long run be good.
For example, I’m reading a book called,”An Altar in the Wilderness” by Kaleeg Hainsworth.

WATCHING DOMINIC

You see, I own this book because of Dominic. I was taking a shower and Dominic didn’t want me to be taking a shower. So while I was taking said shower, Dominic scurried to the living room and chewed on the book’s spine.

SPOTTED FOREST

SPRING ART

I explained to the librarian that my dog had gnawed on their book because he was miffed at me. They told me I had to pay for the book. They said I could keep the chewed up copy.

TOREY ENJOYING BIG SPRUCE GARDEN

Now I can read it at my leisure. Now I can highlight portions I like. Basically, Dominic did me a favour. Bless his furry little soul.

LINED UP AND READY TO GO

Things might not always be as bad as they appear.

A TRAIL TAKEN

TAKING TIME FOR A FEW PUFFS.

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GREATLY MISSED

30/1/2022

7 Comments

A PLACE TO MEET

“God can bring great beauty out of complete devastation.”
Olga Michael

SUE'S HOME

This is the hardest blog I’ve ever written. Sue’s presence everywhere, my grieving emotions, my pondering over the what-ifs, my knowing that Sue has still not been found, and my understanding that there are a few, who are criticizing how I cared for Sue while she was struggling with dementia.

I’m certain that for the most part, Sue was very grateful for how I cared for her and loved her.

DOMINIC AND SUE

Because, in the midst of Sue’s dementia battle I did what I could to keep her life and my life above the dark frightening waves that living with dementia brings and which sometimes threatened our union.

And each time that our relationship had to be re-adjusted to the complexities of the disease there was, usually, an emotional price to pay. Sue was not one to give in easily. I’m pretty sure she knew that I was trying to help, but her pride and strong independence would not allow her to easily accept that she was losing more and more of her memory. So, it took a little while for things to calm down after most re-adjustments. It was our love for each other that kept us chugging along.

RELAXING

One a Sunday afternoon, I met a fella in a Baddeck parking lot. He asked me if I was okay.

I said, “I’m hanging in, but it’s tough.”

It was as if he’d been sent to give me a message.

He told me that I should not let anybody put me down. He said that I had given Sue freedom and dignity and that she had been a happy person and had had a good life. He said that he’d often talked to Sue and that even though she usually told him the same story, he loved hearing it each and every time.

He brought tears to my eyes.

This kind fella was an engineer who worked on the Cabot Trail.

SUE AND BUSTER ON COUCH

I remember Sue returning home after walking the dog and often telling me that she had been talking to her friends. Many of them were working on the Cabot Trail. I didn’t realize just how many people she talked with and how many of these people now miss her.

LITTLE SHRINE ON SUE'S TABLE

I knew what the fella meant when he said, “don’t let people put me down.”

ENJOYING NATIONAL PARK

I have this little game I play when I’m driving in Cape Breton. You see I pay for satellite radio. The problem is, it only works part of the time. So, if for example, I’m driving from my house to Margaree, the radio goes off and on. It’s off almost half the time. It loses its signal. So, when I’m listening to a song and the radio goes dead, I try to keep singing the song in my head and when the radio comes back on, I like to find out if I’m still in synch with the song.

SUE HIKING IN THE FOREST

What I’m saying is that Cape Breton isn’t wired to the hilt. Heck, we’ve only had cell phone coverage for a few years and I there are dead zones all over the place. The mountain forests are thick and criss-crossed by lumber roads which are mostly over-grown and things are hard to see from the air and cell phones often don’t work on the highlands.

SUE ENJOYING WINTER

Things here, aren’t like many other places and that’s why we loved Cape Breton. We enjoyed the casualness and genuine-ness of the people and its sense of freedom and down-to-earthiness.

We loved its beautiful wild places. The freedom that blows in the wind. The power of the river. In winter the landscape crammed with stunning snow sculptures. The weather’s amazing shows.

I’d worry about a flood and she’d tell me not to fret. Sue wasn’t hog-tied to worry and tight-assed security although she could be very organized. She did, however, have one fear that she would often talk about. The fear of ending up in an institution and losing her freedom.

ENJOYING WINTER

So, even though I’m sad as hell that she isn’t here, I’m happy that she escaped the hell that so many have to go through and that she died in a wild place, surrounded by her beloved forest.

SUE AND BUSTER

Our relationship began in a profoundly spiritual and nature-related way and the ending was just as unique and powerful. Both happened in the forest.

So she didn’t end up like one of my friends. Incontinent, under constant watch and asking to be killed.

That is the silver lining amongst the sorrowful knowledge that I’ll never see her again. Yes, she had a dignified death. Yes, she escaped a bullet. Now I have to deal with her absence. Deal with the thick sadness.

SUE WEARING BUG HAT

I have so much respect for Sue. She was strong-willed, high-spirited, powerful, dignified, brilliant and indomitable. Even when she had dementia.

She was my hero. She was my battling partner who I watched every day with amazement. Deep to my core was my sense that she needed and deserved her freedom to live the way she wanted to live until dementia became too much for both of us. My seeing her as a poor suffering soul who needed my constant, care-giver’s attention wasn’t the way I could operate and it would have caused Sue much dismay and anxiety.

Sue was my greatest supporter. She was always encouraging me and she is one of the main reasons I have a novel coming out soon. She is still part of it. Coincidentally, the novel will be called, 'DEAD AND NOT DEAD'. Isn't that strange?

ROAD SUE LOVED TO WALK

Sue was almost impossible to defeat. She overcame severe rheumatoid arthritis, lived with constant nerve pain in her hands and valiantly fought the battle against dementia.

DOMINIC

She still read the paper, kept a little journal, passionately discussed the news, walked the dog three or four times a day, did the dishes, the laundry, swept, watered the flowers, started many of the fires in the wood stove, checked my blogs over for grammar errors and many other chores that showed me that she hadn’t fully signed her mind over to dementia.

SUE AND LIBBY

She loved going for drives. So did Buster and I. We’d often go to North Sydney where we had a routine. I’d go into Walmart and Sue would walk Buster around the whole mall. When I’d walk out of Walmart I’d often see Sue and Buster waiting for me or they would be sitting in the truck. We’d then go to Tim Hortons. She’d use the washroom and then would take Buster for a walk while I went in to buy us Iced Caps. I’d come out holding our drinks and she would often be talking to folks who were sitting at the picnic tables.

SUE, JENNIFER & BUSTER

It gave me much joy to see Sue happy in the now. Walking her dog. Walking tall and straight and proud and joyfully. Her mostly unlined face shining with happiness.

LOVED WALKING HER DOG. I LOVED WATCHING HER WALK THE DOG

And so, I went backwards and forwards and sideways to allow her to keep her sense of dignity and to live a joyful life in the present.

FACE IN TREE

Some people may question this, but I saw her the morning after she’d disappeared. It wasn’t an hallucination. At first I thought I was looking at a hunter or a searcher. The figure was walking along the tree line. It then disappeared by the trail-head. The trail where the searcher found her glove. I remember the figure stopping and looking at me. That’s when I realized I was looking at Sue. No tracks in the fresh snow, but it was Sue. Her final good-bye. So amazing that she would leave me with this powerful memory.

SUE AND DOMINIC

Although I believe that the last while, what with my truck hitting a deer, the huge flood, having to evacuate our trailer because of the flood, her fearful emotions at seeing the bridge near our place having been destroyed by the river and our landscape changed by the flood waters which roared over our property, I’m pretty sure that the sad loss of Buster was the main event that changed the course of our lives.

BRIDGE THAT RIVER DESTROYED

When Buster died from bone cancer, myself and others thought it was essential that we get another dog. That way Sue would have a dog to walk and the dog would be company when I was away from home. So, our friends and I searched all over to find a suitable dog. Not easy.

I MISS BUSTER TOO

We found one, but maybe it would have been better if I’d picked a smaller one. Dominic, although only twenty pounds and ten pounds lighter than Buster, is young and strong and not always easy to manage and he is a passionate car and truck chaser.

BUT HE'S SO CUTE

DOMINIC ENJOYING FALL COLOURS

Also, Dominic immediately bonded to me. That was a problem.

Anyway, I believe that it’s possible that Dominic pulled Sue onto a lane that goes into the mountains and then later on he broke his leash. All sad water under a fading mystical bridge.

SUE IN BLUE HAT

So, presently, I live with the fear, sorrow, guilt and claustrophobia that comes with grieving. The loss of purpose and routine. Not having Sue to talk with. Not having Sue to help as we both fought her dementia battle. Not having Sue and Dominic to go for drives with. Not having Sue trying to subdue my uncontrollable hair.

FROM ON HIGH

However, I know she is still in my life, but in a different way.

As a friend said, “Over time, she will become tender in your heart.”

I often feel her presence and know that she wishes me, her family and her friends well.

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It's Pouring Down Blog Material

28/11/2021

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Busy Lewis Mountain Brook

When I finish a blog, I often ask myself, “What’s my next blog going to be about? What slings, arrows and roses does life have planned for me?”

I usually don’t have to wait too long. Sometimes I get more than I wanted.

Equipment Manager

So there I am, it’s ten am on a foggy, rainy, night and I’m driving down Kelly’s Mountain.

I approach St. Anne’s Look-off and there he is. About fifteen feet from my truck. A buck. An eight pointer. I slam on my brakes and sadly, hit him.

I feel sorry for the buck, my truck and me. Only a year and a half ago, I was in a similar situation feeling sorry for a doe, my truck and me.

Hanging In

I phone 911 and a nice lady asks me if I’m hurt.

“No,” I say.

“Is the truck drivable?”

I say that I think it is.

“Is the truck leaking radiator fluid?”

Tree and a Mountain

I can’t tell her if the radiator is leaking because it is pounding rain. Liquid everywhere.

She phones the police for me while I attempt to get home before 11pm. I told Sue I would be no later than 11pm.

View From New Kitchen Window

Installing Kitchen Window

The truck seems okay. It gets me home. However, later on I find out that my lights are cock-eyed. One points up and one points down. I’m good at averaging things out.

When I get home I talk to a constable. He tells me that he will phone to give me my accident report number on Sunday. I will give it to my insurance agent on Monday.

Lane Through Woods

On Sunday morning, I’m sitting in my truck. I’m attempting to change my speedometer from miles to kilometres. My analog speedometer is in kilometres, my digital is in miles.

While I frig around with the modes, Sue and Dominic jump into the truck. Sue’s carrying her purse and Dominic’s tail is furiously rotating. It looks like they think we’re going for a drive.

Woodland Magic

Oh what the heck. I figure I can keep an eye on the dash and see if any warning lights act suspicious.

Sue asks, before we leave, if she should return to the trailer and change her foot-wear.

Morning Frost

"We’re only driving, so no need to remove your beach-wear runners,” I say.

The truck runs like a top. I’d roped up the front grill so the truck didn’t look crooked.

I decide to check out my two deer-kill sites.

We whip down the highway towards kilometre marker 99. That’s where I hit the doe.

Three Cows and a Manure Pile

We pass this marker and head towards the next incident report. I look at my temperature gauge and it is rising towards the red. So is my blood pressure.

We turn around and head back home. Unfortunately, a little too late.

The gauge enters the far edge of the red-zone and my truck beeps out a warning. “Engine over-heating! Engine over-heating! Dive! Dive!”

Lunch On Lewis Mountain

I pull over and park along the Trans Canada. I plan for us to all go for a walk up a scruffy trail while the engine cools.

Oh dear. Sue is wearing Speedo Beach Shoes.

Dominic and I leave her in the truck and head up the trail.

Sue, Dominic, Me and My Hat

Suddenly, Dominic’s third retractable leash snaps. He has been doing some undercover chewing. It’s free-willy time as transports and cars whiz by.

One of My Favourite Trails

I grab him, with memories of a few weeks ago, dancing in my head. That was when we were leaving our little beach which is close to the Cabot Trail. A few days before he had led us, unleashed, home and I was proud of him. This day he probably would’ve led us home also, but a squirrel popped up and the next thing we knew there was Dominic running, full speed, along the side of the highway while fully loaded logging trucks and other vehicles roared by.

An Autumn Field

Anyway, we go back to the truck and then do our drive and stop dance. Drive and stop. Drive and stop.

I figure we will never get home, so I stop and phone a friend.

He comes and puts fluid in the radiator and it gets us to his house. It was very kind of him.

Walking Along the Busy Highway

The next day they towed the truck to Port Hastings.

We now have a vehicle with all-weather tires and we live in a snow-belt.

Little Bells With the Leaves

The back of the rental vehicle is loaded down with plastic to protect the back seat from Dominic’s occasional upchucks and his muddy feet. It is also filled with towels.

Dominic Looking At the Peaceful River

AND THEN WE HAD A FLOOD!

Tool Shed After Flood

Bridge After Flood

Our trailer survived. Many people think it was a miracle.

The concrete Middle River Bridge didn’t. It's close to our trailer.

Don't Tick Off Our Cute Little River

Downed Oil Tank

I’m going to stop worrying about what’s going to be in my next blog. The deer one wasn’t in my plans, nor was the flood.

Actually, I was going to write something about how proficient the beavers have been at building a massive dam across the river. However, as you may have guessed, the river ate the beaver dam and the human-bridge.