~ the chicken coop ~

I am not looking forward to BC summer. Winter, sure ... if there is any sunlight to speak of. Those melty springlike days all winter ... what's not to love about those. But right now, I would shrivel without air conditioning.

My sister Karen has taken her daughter Danielle, 13, and gone out there now and is staying with my youngest sister, Joan. Joan's daughter Jordan has chicken pox so Karen is babysitting her (as she can't go to daycare) when Joan works, and staying at Joan's until she moves into her basement suite.

The two of them are looking for a place for me. It's good to have them on the job. They were house-hunting on the weekend. One place would have done but was in a rough-looking area, they didn't feel comfortable with it. One place had too many stairs outside for Emil in the winter, with snow and slush and ice and all. (Not that there's a lot, perhaps, but surely sometimes there is; they get plenty of snow, as I recall.)

The condo so close to Mom and Dad's was not given to me because I only earned about $3000 last year. It didn't matter that I have lots of cash in my savings account and can work virtually as many hours a month as I want to, so can easily make $ for rent if I discipline myself a little — shoot, I'll have to work a 30-hour week — boo hoo, poor me. Hmph. I think I can handle it.

It didn't matter that my dad said he'd be a co-signer on the one-year lease and guarantee the rent, and that he is well-set financially. I think secretly the property manager prefers tenants without children, but doesn't want to come out and say so. Instead he said I'd have a better chance at the main floor of a house 15 minutes away, where the rent had come down from $1100 to $950. Dad went to look at it and said no way: too junky looking, and too many stairs for Emil.

I am trying to be ready to leave early Friday morning so that the boys can have a couple nights in Edmonton with their dad, who has been a real dear through all this. It will complicate his visiting arrangements with the kids, and perhaps I'd have to ask him for some child support (though I don't plan to) because of the expense of living out there, but since he is still treated as part of the family he completely understands how I feel and knows that it has made Mom and Dad very happy that we are going out there to be with them. And of course he was with his mom a lot before she died from cancer, so he can empathize.

Cathy called me last night. She is a massage therapist in Saskatoon, and said "Your mom's cousin was in for a massage yesterday, and her aunt" and proceeded to tell me this cousin was named Blythe. I knew she was talking about Aunt Evelyn, my grandpa's sister (who married and divorced two "womanizers," as she calls them), but for the life of me I couldn't recall anyone named Blythe who had grown up in my home town and would know all this detail about what is happening with the family. After some thought I realized it was Mom’s cousin Beryl.

"Grace was always my favourite cousin when we were growing up," she said. "She was always so bubbly and bouncy!" and "Kathy is having a hard time with all this" and "Doris is very upset that Kathy is moving away; she will miss the regular visits with her and the boys, and Kathy is the only one who does anything for her."

Right. It's not true by a long shot that I'm the only one who does stuff for her, but her saying such things is why others get irritated with her — they mow her lawn and run her here and there and do stuff for her all the time, but she doesn't remember! and then she complains as if she is ungrateful.

I offered to take her with me to see Mom, but no, she can't leave her cat. Aunt Jean plans to fly out in the fall and invite Grandma along but no, she can't leave her cat. "He's all I have," she told me, "he's what keeps me going, especially in the winter."

Your cat on the one hand, your daughter on the other, I think to myself. It's hard for me to understand your priority ... I say well, Mom could be gone very soon ... ah but so could I, she says, I'm 87 you know!

I talked to Aunt Jean about this. "She's not thinking right," Aunt Jean said of her younger sister.

Maybe she isn't facing the facts? Maybe she can't? Or maybe her cat really is more important to her? Or maybe she has accepted the inevitable and is focused on what keeps her own daily life stable and liveable? She is 87, you know ... and surely has figured out what is important to her, by now, and how to view things so that she can live with life as it is.

I hope that if Mom doesn't live long, Grandma won't regret her choice not to go see her at every opportunity. It would be a terrible blow to lose your child and maybe she just can't imagine how she is going to feel after the fact. I already know she doesn't have any empathy for others who are expressing grief — too much, inappropriately, for too long, is her attitude. It was the common attitude when she was growing up in the 1920s — you carried on as usual within a few days of a loved one's death, with a stiff upper lip, as if nothing had happened — that's what was expected and that's what people did. You were not to be upset by anything for long. So Grandma has a tough-as-nails veneer ... "we have to take what comes" ... which I sure as hell do not have. I know we have to take it, accept it, but it is a painful struggle for me.

Last night I called Mom, as I do most every day now — oh yes, things have already changed a lot — used to be I called once every couple of weeks and usually she'd phone me first — and told her about the gathering of the Likeminded Ladies and the gifts and kindness shown me — and she said isn't that nice, boy you don't realize how much people care about you until there is a need, do you, and then they come out of the woodwork, people you haven't heard from in so long they're practically forgotten are phoning and driving hundreds of miles to visit you. She is deeply moved by that; she never knew how loved she is by so many people, until this happened. It is unbelievable, she said.

Well, I'd best get on about the day. Gotta go to the farm just beyond where I usually walk, and buy some fresh cream and butter. Later I'll take some of that to Grandma's when I drive Everett there to spend the night. My Aunt Reta (visiting from Phoenix, staying with Grandma) loves cream just like my Grandpa Emil did, and she just picked a bunch of fresh raspberries, so they'll go good together. Me, I'm going to make fudge with the cream, and caramel sauce for pancakes and ice cream.

Our neighbour grew chickens for us, and butchered them the week before last. I took them to Grandma's deep freeze so that our two would be free for beef and pork that has just been slaughtered. I don't help with any of the killing or processing and can't stand to be near it -- the distress calls of the frightened chickens make me want to run in there and put a stop to it all, and I can pass out at the sight of blood, and can't bear the thought of plucking feathers or handling guts or feet or heads or — yuk; yuk!! — but Emil loves chicken and so I will bring one home to roast up for his supper tomorrow after we get him home from Camp Easter Seal. They are large plump roasters, they'll be absolutely delicious compared to the tasteless cardboard you get at the grocery store.