The mourning after

Stella is the proprietor of my favourite coffee house, a gentle lady, glowing warmly at the regulars.  She could be anywhere between 35 and 60.

She's busy at the sink in the back corner, as I drop off my coffee cup and plates, along with those of elder daughter, who is reading her Kindle back at our table, awaiting my return from the washroom.

"You'll miss her," says Stella over her shoulder.

"I will," I reply.

"It's so nice she was able to have a long visit."  The penny drops.

"Oh.  You mean my daughter."

I then have to explain that my daughter hasn't remained in Victoria since mid-December.  She flew back to London, as scheduled, on Twelfth Night.

Demeter fell, catastrophically, four days later.  We spent that day and the next in Emergency.  Double-Leo Sister came down with her husband and her younger son, who texted his cousin during the "night watch" from the private room set up for palliative care.  "End-of-life care," he told elder daughter, who phoned me at midnight.

I'd been deeply asleep, exhausted.  She told me her cousin had said to come.  "Is it all right if I come?"

"Darling," I mumbled drowsily.  "You must do what's best for you."

She arrived the following evening, having thrown her things in a suitcase, still jet-lagged from her previous flight from a few days before.

I didn't tell Stella all this, of course.  But she was chagrinned.  I assured her that it hadn't been written across my chest; she was not to know.  

While I was in the washroom, Stella sought out elder daughter to apologise. Earlier, Stella had called out cheerily to elder daughter, placing her order with the barista, saying how nice it was that she had been able to stay so long.

Elder daughter hadn't wanted to call out, across the coffee shop, that her grandmother had died.  That she had been the one alone at the bedside, when Demeter drew her last breath.

Maybe we should bring back the custom of black armbands.

Turned turtle

 "I didn't fall down."

The voice came from an unfamiliar place.  Entering Demeter's apartment for the second of my three daily visits, I could see she wasn't in her usual seat at the far end of the loveseat.  I could also see her walker near the corner of the living room, and just beyond it, two bare feet, toes facing up.  One thing I've learned, over years of teaching, parenthood, and working with differently abled people:  panic helps no one, so I shoved the instinct aside, and strode over to find my mother, flat on her back in the space behind two armchairs which back the bookshelves, with a small cushion pillowing her head.

"I didn't fall," she repeated.  "I was down on my hands and knees, and I couldn't seem to get up this time."

"Why were you on your hands and knees, Mama?"

"I don't remember."

Silently, I reasoned that she couldn't have passed out; the Lifeline monitor hanging from her pendant would have registered a fall, and I would have been notified.  I started moving the armchairs, so I could position myself behind her head and draw her to a sitting position.

It soon became apparent that that I wouldn't be able to lift her to her feet.  Demeter isn't heavy, but she was too tired to help, and thus a deadweight.

Thinking quickly, I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, and called him away from his customary Sunday lunch with younger daughter.  They had just started, so arranged for the food to be packed.

In the meantime, I braced Demeter's back against my shins, and leaning, managed to turn one of the armchairs,  a bit of a struggle against the carpet pile, but now Demeter could rest her head and arms in the seat.  

It was a muggy afternoon, and Demeter doesn't like the windows open; the traffic noises resound in her hearing aids.  Able to step away now, I turned on the fan, noticing it was plugged in a different place.  I usually plug the fan in a multisocket behind the couch, where I'm far less likely to trip over it.  It was now in a rather difficult-to-access cubby, hidden amid the bookshelves.

After her weekly shower, she had dressed and gone into the kitchen to make lemonade, because "I know we're out of Ribena".

(We're not.  She had seen me recycle the previous bottle and assumed I hadn't bought the replacement some weeks ago.  I had.)

After this exertion, she felt warm, so attempted to turn on the fan, which I had turned off before leaving after my morning call, because Demeter finds it chilling and noisy. When, for some reason, the fan didn't seem to work, she decided to replug it.  On her hands and knees.  Demeter is 94.

Then she couldn't get up, so she lay on her back, exhausted, for an hour.

I finally was able to help her to roll to her knees, by supporting and raising her buttocks, then, bracing myself against her right side,  she pulled herself to a crouch, and I guided her into the chair.  I went to retrieve one of the lemonades from the fridge.  They were uncovered, and she had left the stirring spoon in one of them.

I phoned the Resident Fan Boy, now hurrying down from Harris Green.  While still on Yates, a cyclist rolled up behind them and barked:  "Choose a side!"  As he rolled past, something in the RFB snapped.

"You're riding on the sidewalk!" he shouted.  To his consternation, the cyclist stopped, tossed his bike to one side, and strode up to the RFB.  "Now it gets real!" he snarled.  Probably more like surreal, the RFB thinks he was drunk or high.  Younger daughter was terrified, and stepped forward to protectively grab her father's arm.  The cyclist did not come within six feet.  My husband and daughter turned and walked off in the opposite direction, hoping that he was in too much of a hurry to turn and pursue them.

I was reiterating to Demeter (gently, I hope), how trying not to be a bother winds up with more worry for  everyone, especially when I'm a two-minute walk down the street, as the dynamic duo came, flushed and frazzled, through the door.

Younger daughter grasped Demeter's hand in concern, something very unusual for her.  It had been a frightening afternoon, especially for someone on the spectrum.  

The RFB helped me get Demeter safely to her accustomed place in the corner of the loveseat, before helping younger daughter set up the restaurant lunch on the dining room table, while I steamed a corn on the cob for Demeter.  

There was plenty of Ribena for everyone.

Making waves

There are waves of fatigue, and waves of fear.

The Resident Fan Boy was awash in a tide of terror in the wake of a too-close-for-comfort encounter in the park. 

While I was mixing flour and lard for tourtières this afternoon while battling off the fatigue of a slowly healing arm, elder daughter hastily did some last-minute Christmas shopping through a haze of jet lag, then met up with her father and sister for lunch, followed by a walk in the park, where younger daughter loves to feed the ducks.  She told me this story first, with the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter supplying details later.

As they walked along one of the small lakes in Beacon Hill Park, a man approached, bellowing at all he passed.  Sadly, this is not that unusual an occurrence, but usually shouty, deranged people in Victoria are not screaming at people we can see.  This guy was making eye contact.

Swearing vociferously and continually, he observed the Resident Fan Boy looking anxiously at younger daughter, and spat, "Don't look at her; that won't protect you!"

Elder daughter and the RFB closed ranks, and guided younger daughter past. Younger daughter, her high clear voice ringing out from the spectrum where she lives, declared:  "That was unacceptable!!"

Her father and sister gently hushed her, and she protested:  "But he shouldn't be using those bad words!"

The deranged bellower was now walking away, but with each of younger daughter's comments, stopped, turned, and glared.

Walking steadily, and speaking softly, elder daughter and the RFB explained that the man wasn't well.  Younger daughter accepted that, but when I asked her about it on her return a couple of hours later, she repeated solemnly:  "It was unacceptable."

"I know," I nodded, "but his mind isn't working very well.  Every day must be pretty scary for him."  Perhaps even as scary as it was for the Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter for that one awful moment of being taken for the enemy.

Intervention (write of passage number fifty-four)

The Resident Fan Boy was zoning out on the bus, so at first didn't hear the voice from the seat behind him.

"Hello?  Excuse me?"

A waving hand appeared near his ear.

The woman, having his attention, leaned forward.

"There are lots of free seats on this bus."

The RFB turned slightly, so as not to disturb younger daughter, who was gazing out the window, and fidgeting slightly.  The bus was, indeed, nearly empty. He fixed the woman with a quizzical gaze.

"And your point is?"

"Well, you're making people uncomfortable."

While the RFB was processing the implication, younger daughter spoke up.

"No, you're not!" she declared, ignoring the woman completely.  "You're my dad!"

Nothing further was heard for the rest of the trip.

On hearing this story (and having been questioned by strangers more than once myself), I gently pointed out that if younger daughter had been on her own, with an unwelcome man sitting next to her (which has happened), perhaps someone should issue a challenge.

The RFB agreed - a tad begrudgingly - and younger daughter called warningly from her bedroom.  She doesn't like being discussed, and her hearing is acute beyond belief.

September is the schoolest month

 The light is misleading these mornings.  

Through most of the summer, I can tell if it's a sunny morning when I rise at my usual time, between 6:30 and 7.  Now the light is pre-dawn grey; the summer is slipping away.

Today, I get out of bed, and for the first time in weeks, reach for my cozy robe against the chill.

First day of school in most of Canada; it was yesterday in the UK, where they don't observe the Labour Day holiday.  My social media feed is full of children and adolescents, offspring of younger relatives, friends and acquaintances, lined up in their front halls, or in front of their houses.  The English students are in school uniforms; the Canadian ones in brand-new ensembles.

My former neighbour in Hades posts a photo of her boy, born after our retreat from Ottawa. With a shock, I recognize the school in the background.  It's my daughters' elementary school, towards which I made the daily climb, about a kilometre up the hill, twice a day for the better part of eight years:  the four years elder daughter attended it, and the four years younger daughter haunted it.

Well, I knew my neighbour's son would wind up there eventually.  It's just that in the pre-dawn shadows three time zones away, I find myself re-living memories - most of which I don't treasure.  The years of volunteerism scoured away any rosy notions about school days that had survived my own less-than-stellar experiences. I briskly remind myself that I don't have to do that, nor go there.

The sun is bright and high, when I emerge, on the way to setting up Demeter's breakfast.  A phantom appears at the corner of the block which separates my home from Demeter's.  It's a mother, escorting a young pupil, while pushing younger sibling in a stroller.  They're bound for elder daughter's former elementary here in Victoria.

 I spent three years on that trek, twice a day, with another young scholar and sibling in a stroller. The confronting vision and the accompanying memories are poignant, but palatable.

I cast a brief thought to the excited little boy pictured by his mum outside of that other school in Hades.  It's all I can afford, but I do wish him well.

Times like these

It was a long weekend like this one, except that it was in the spring. I was heavily pregnant.   I lay across our bed, watching the televised footage of the memorial concert for Freddie Mercury being held at Wembley Stadium.

I didn't know it at the time, but elder daughter would be born five days later.

Today, I wondered if she could hear all those Queen tunes from the womb, because, three decades later, she was at Wembley with a cousin and a room-mate, sitting up in the gods, attending the Tribute Concert for Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer, who died suddenly last March.

And technology being what it is, I was alerted that the concert had begun, by an Instagram picture posted by the cousin and tagging elder daughter.  Sitting with my early morning coffee at Moka House, I soon discovered that I could stream the concert on my laptop via the MTV YouTube channel -- with the sound muted, of course.  My iPhone earbuds are incompatible with my Mac.  (Gee, thanks, Apple.) When I had to leave to set up Demeter's breakfast, I followed the line-up via blog updates, until I could hurry home mid-morning.

I'm not a true-blue fan of the Foo Fighters, but elder daughter has been enthusiastic about them for the past five years, and so I'm reasonably conversant with about half a dozen of their better-known songs and familiar with a lot of their biographical details, having been exposed to documentaries about them during each of elder daughter's visits.

The real thrill for me was watching this Wembley show, knowing elder daughter was there -- much like her visit to three Court One games at Wimbledon, when the summer began.  I know a little about the Foo Fighters and far far less about tennis, but I knew she was in the crowd and excited beyond belief to be there.

The show had a bit of everything.  Hawkins' connections were everywhere in the rock/pop scene. When I got home, I was confronted with the very early-Seventies-style of interminable guitar solo, supplied by the James Gang, reunited after decades for this concert only.  (Not a criticism, I rather like "Closet Queen" with its variations on Ravel's Bolero, and Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".)  

While getting Demeter's breakfast, I had missed the legendary Chrissie Hynde (totally in control at 70) and the Pretenders, Liam Gallagher, and Niles Rodgers, to name a few.  I caught what I'd missed later, before the lawyers hauled the YouTube video down, as I knew they would.

There was a seam of bereavement running through the performances, as well.  Wolfgang Van Halen played songs by his late father Eddie;  AC/DC lost Malcolm Young some time ago. Rush has lost Neil Peart, and tonight were playing to a politely bewildered crowd of Brits born in the nineties and "naughties".  I'm not unsympathetic - Rush has bewildered me for years.  Taylor Hawkins was a fan, though.

And then there was Queen - what's left of them.  And elder daughter now saw them in the flesh, from her seat up below the rim of the Wembley. Dancing with vicarious glee in the living room, I shared the moment with her - via texts, of course, this being the 21st century.

After a long parade of well-known musicians playing some of Hawkins' favourite music, the Foo Fighters took over.

At this moment, it became crystal clear that, for all of the variety of songs and musicians preceding this moment, it was a Foo Fighters crowd, come for a Foo Fighters concert. The singing had, up until this moment, not been as loud and cohesive. The thousands in the stadium now knew every word. 

And then Paul McCartney showed up. 

I thought he might, since he's a close friend of Dave Grohl's, but I still leapt to my feet in shock, texting an expletive to my daughter at Wembley, while  swaying eight times zones away.

The Foo Fighters were backed by a series of notable drummers, including 12-year-old Nandi Bushell, and Taylor Hawkins' 16-year-old-son Shane, in a frenetic and emotional performance that stood out among a day of many such moments.

I know just enough about the Foo Fighters to guess that the concert, which had last nearly six hours, was drawing to a close, when Grohl, standing alone on the stage, with half a dozen empty drum kits behind him, accompanied himself on guitar, while the vast crowd sang along to the quintessential FF song "Everlong".

I felt rather jet-lagged afterwards.

Maybe it was the stimulation of so much music.

Maybe it was because a piece of my heart is residing in London.  She got home long after midnight.

Over easy

 I've managed to wrench my knee a bit while climbing the stairs to Demeter's apartment.  (I could take the elevator, but I figure I need the exercise.)  I limp in, while my hamstring grumbles in response to the sting in the inner corner of my kneecap.

There are a couple of rashers of bacon on a plate on the kitchen counter.  I put on the kettle, and manage to walk normally to the living room, where Demeter is writing up her monthly budget, a habit that got her through years of single parenthood.

"I take it you'd like bacon and eggs for lunch?" I inquire.

"Yes, but you only boiled one egg yesterday."

"That's because you asked for a boiled egg."

"I always have two boiled eggs, so I can make a sandwich later."

I've been setting up her meals since her fall in mid-January of 2021, more than eighteen months ago.

"I've never made two boiled eggs for you. You've never asked me to."

Her voice has taken on a gentle, resigned tone.

"Oh well, I guess you didn't hear me."

I match the gentleness (I hope), but skip the resignation.  

"I can't hear something that you didn't say, Mum."

I wince my way back to the kitchen, and fume quietly, but futilely.

I'm sorry, I don't have a queue

There are a lot of things I don't understand.  Tennis is one of them.

I once had a friend "kidnap" me to a tennis court.  Minutes later, we climbed back in his car.

"You're right, you can't play tennis."  I'd been telling him that for years.

What I know about tennis could be written on a scrap of paper.  In large letters.  I do know that if the Resident Fan Boy is watching it on television and the court is red and dusty, it's the French Open, and that if they're playing on grass, it's Wimbledon. Also that there is a long-standing (pun not intended, but applicable) ritual of waiting in line for same-day tickets at Wimbledon.  It's called the Queue.  Not sure of the reason for the capitalisation; they also capitalise "the Grounds".  Maybe to make it more hallowed?

Anyway, I awoke before 6 am to a string of texts from elder daughter, who had evidently braved the Queue with her flatmate (said flat is in South Wimbledon) and was now seated near the edge of Court 1, behind the umpire (referee? judge? I don't know nothin' about tennis.). I had to look up what Court 1 was, and worked out which game she was watching.  (Maria vs Ostapenko - never heard of either). 

Tatjana Maria - perhaps you've heard of her

I mentioned this to the Resident Fan Boy, who leapt out of bed and ran his bath.  As I dressed, I tuned in the game -- and totally failed to understand what was going on, except that the crowd seemed riveted.  When it was evident that someone had won -- Tatjana Maria -- I sat down and suddenly glimpsed my daughter for an entranced instant.  Texted "Saw you!", and the RFB's identical text appeared a split second after mine, as he watched in the living room.  

I'm in the coffee shop now, and the RFB just saw elder daughter again.  In slow motion.

Ain't technology something?

Still clueless about tennis, but it's all about love, for me. (Pun intended.)

Evocations of COVID

I've been checking my 2018, 2019, and 2020 journals to see what I was doing in mid-October in various years.  

It's been very instructive.  For one thing, I realised with a start, that in the past three mid-Octobers,  I had already begun addressing Christmas cards.  (So I started.)

I also realised that, at this time last year, my cousins caught COVID.

In a cruel twist of irony, elder daughter was exposed because she was in quarantine.  She had gone straight  from Heathrow to my cousins' home in Wiltshire, where she was isolated in a self-contained bedroom belonging to one of her second cousins, who was miles away, attending university.

Unfortunately, the other second cousin was attending secondary school, and he brought the virus home with him.  (This was long before vaccines became available.) First, we heard my cousin's wife had been troubled with migraines.  Next, elder daughter reported that her teenaged second cousin had "a cold".  Our hearts sank.  Nobody was getting colds any more.

The second cousin at university urged his parents and brother to get tested.  All three of them had COVID.  Five days later, elder daughter FaceTimed me to tell me that her senses of smell and taste had vanished.  

We were terrified and helpless, eight time zones away.  As it turned out, all four had completely different symptoms, and all four recovered within days, although they were locked down for longer.  The secondary school, as you can imagine, was thrown into turmoil, as the younger second cousin's classmates were isolated and quarantined themselves.

We didn't tell anyone but close friends and family.  As it was, cousins on both sides of the Atlantic had weighed in with their opinions on elder daughter's move to the UK.  The most vocal of the dissenting cousins have no children themselves, and seemed to forget that elder daughter is a fully fledged adult.

And besides, this hadn't been her fault.  She had followed protocols to the letter.

Today, elder daughter returned to Canadian soil for the first time in over a year, in order to attend a friend's wedding.  The ceremony has been postponed three times.

COVID touches and smears everything.

 

Why must you go and make this decision alone?

Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) has haunted me through the seasons, but mainly in autumn. 

Eleven years ago, I saw elder daughter off to university and his song "Oh, Very Young" nearly did me in.

Later, as school became more of a trial to younger daughter, "Don't Be Shy", the song that opens the film Harold and Maude, became my prayer for her.

One year ago in early October, after nearly six months of sheltering with us from the pandemic, elder daughter left Victoria, stopped in Ottawa at a friend's empty condo to pick up her things, then flew to England.  She had given notice on her Ottawa job a few days after the death of the Accent Snob in October 2019, planning to fly to the United Kingdom the following spring, in pursuit of a long-cherished dream: to live and work in London.

Then the pandemic hit, and she came to us instead.  Not so secretly, I was thrilled to have my family members close and safe.

Elder daughter, however, was itching to go.  She continued to work online at her own job, after negotiating a contract, but, as the months passed, she wanted desperately to make the break for which she'd planned and planned, especially as her work visa for the UK was sifting away like sand in an hourglass.

Finally, unable to bear it, she purchased plane tickets.

The morning of her departure, I awoke at 2:40 am, when the Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter had been up for about forty minutes.  I lay quietly until 3:15 am, remembering the long-ago October crack of dawn, when my father departed for the final time.  I had written a tearfully detailed entry in my diary, then, not much later, meticulously blocked and blotted out every line, unable to bear having the record of my preteen grief.

Back in the present, I rose and cleaned myself up a little bit, putting in eye drops, then carefully drying, lest elder daughter think I'd been weeping.

I found her perched tensely on "her" end of the couch, claimed during her not-quite-six-month stay with us.

"Dad," she murmured.  "Please call the cab."

The Resident Fan Boy returned shortly after 5 am.  COVID protocols had barred him from waiting at the airport.  He curled up on the bed and wept heartbrokenly.

I rose and headed for the coffee shop, feeling as if the earth was pushing back on the soles of my feet, and I just had enough strength to push back.

I sat at the table, looking out at the sun beginning to hit the tops of the trees, and Cat Stevens pounced, with a song I've heard for years, with lyrics that now stuck into me like nails.

And, finally, I began to weep.

But, you know, I've been a mother for a while now.  I can weep silently, my body still.

Nobody noticed.

I always thought I liked October.  Maybe stuff like this would be worse in an unkinder month.

Getting miffed

October is usually one of my favourite months.

This one will have its challenges. 

Younger daughter had her first in-person recital in over two years last Sunday.  The event was masked (including the singers, who wore special "singing masks"), carefully spaced, and our British Columbian vaccine cards (mandatory the following day) were checked for admission.

At lunch, following the concert -- which went well, thank you for asking -- elder daughter's godmother remarked that she had a number of friends still refusing the vaccination.

"In the beginning," she said, "I was willing to see this as a difference of opinion.  Now, I'm getting a bit annoyed."  

Coming from a very conservative, and, to be honest, rather eccentric lady, this was a remarkable statement.

She was concerned about the surgeries, procedures, and treatments being deferred by the number of COVID cases in hospital, the vast majority of which are the unvaccinated.  I'm getting a bit antsy myself.  The Resident Fan Boy needs treatment for a condition that is not life-threatening -- yet.

Yes, we've heard of him

Elder daughter, who has been resident in England since last October, is discovering the delights of bank holiday weekends.

For this last one, COVID restrictions have loosened enough to allow a visit to my cousins in Lincolnshire.

Let's be clear.  These are delightful cousins.  They are gracious, well-educated, kind, and hospitable.  Elder daughter has visited before on previous trips to the UK.

They moved to Lincolnshire recently, and live in what elder daughter describes as a "gated community" just outside Lincoln.  They met elder daughter at the train, and gave her a tour of Lincoln.  They didn't let her pay for anything.  Elder daughter figures she ended up 60 pounds on this trip, because they also insisted on paying her train fare.  "I can't ever repay them," she moans to us on Skype.  "They'd never accept it!"

There is a small price to pay, however.  My cousins have told elder daughter how astounded they are that she's managed to get a job in London.  After years of working for a major cultural organisation in Hades, elder daughter has taken a full-time job with a heritage organisation in Greater London (after securing interviews with such organisations as the Old Vic, the Royal Academy of Music, The Rose Theatre, and after a job offer from the British Library).  She's done this during a pandemic.  

My cousins are astonished at her grasp of British politics; she has a First Class Honours degree in Journalism and History.  They are amazed that she can navigate England by train by herself.  She is twenty-nine. 

Bless their hearts.

After a wonderful weekend visiting other cousins, sightseeing, catching up, even doing some baking, my cousin asks elder daughter:  "Tell me, is Christopher Plummer a big deal in Canada?"  

Elder daughter assures him that this is so.  She doesn't mention that Christopher Plummer was born in Toronto, raised in Montreal, and was the descendant of a Canadian Prime Minister, because my daughter surpasses me in diplomacy, as in most other things.

Ambush

Two anniversaries - two life-changing events. 

Two years ago, we brought younger daughter to this condo, and told her we were moving. We braced ourselves; she had told us adamantly since our return to Victoria that she was never moving again.

However, she took the news calmly; we had deliberately timed the tour to take place en route to an outdoor screening of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Beacon Hill Park, to cushion what we felt sure would be a blow. 

As we departed, unbludgeoned,  to catch the film, we saw a young couple with a dog, and younger daughter suddenly asked: "Can we have pets here?" 

We affirmed this, and she announced she wanted a cat this time, a male cat. 

Male cats apparently are fewer on the ground, so it was a year later that the SPCA phoned us and told us they had the fellow for us. He conquered us quickly and rules absolutely - and stalks us from the closet. 

This evening, I find myself wallowing in apprehension - and it's not because of paws suddenly lunging at me from amongst the Resident Fan Boy's apparel.

Don't these things come in threes? Are we trembling on the brink of another future anniversary?

Do I belong there?

The long months of pandemic have us reaching for comfort in familiar movies and television shows. This is particularly true for younger daughter, whose burden of autism and anxiety is a bad match with the threat of a global virus. 

We invite younger daughter to view DVDs (yes, we still use DVDs) in the living room. It's an effective way of chivvying her out of her bedroom. 

This means we've seen all the Harry Potter films in order and reverse order, all ten seasons of Friends (reminding me how rubbishy the final four seasons were), and the various Muppets films. 

I've learnt that I still rather like The Great Muppet Caper, and that I truly loathe The Muppets Take Manhatten. The original Muppet Movie is okay; it doesn't drive me into the bedroom, or out of the house entirely. 

So, one late afternoon, I'm sitting on the couch doing Sudoku, while younger daughter is perched on the Resident Fan Boy's raised seat cushion (originally made by Demeter for the RFB's late father).  She's watching the scene where Gonzo is singing wistfully in the desert, dreaming of earlier in the day, when he was hoisted skyward by a bunch of helium balloons.

Sun rises; night falls/ Sometimes, the sky calls/ Is that a song there?/ And do I belong there?/ I've never been there, but I know the way/ I'm going to go back there some day.

I'm thinking of when I originally saw the movie in a cinema, long before the advent of my daughters.  I remember the dreaminess of it -- had I nodded off?

Then I realize that younger daughter is softly singing along.  Part heaven, part space/ Or have I found my place?/ You can just visit, but I plan to stay/ I'm going to go back there some day.

And my heart is breaking, but I manage not to cry.  I hold very still, hardly daring to breathe.

The in between time

When you live with someone who lives on the autism spectrum, maintaining a modicum of rhythm and predictability is key.

Particularly during a pandemic.

So yesterday, I baked up our usual hot cross buns, and younger daughter and I watched Tim Minchin as Judas in the 2013 production of Jesus Christ Superstar. This year, they're more than traditions; they're lights in the dark hallway with no door in sight (yet).

And this year, it's not only pleasant, but imperative, that we decorate eggs. We usually try a new technique every year, but we haven't done marbled eggs for ten years, and Demeter has never tried them.

They look nothing like the eggs we did in 2010, but that's okay. We like 'em.

Tomorrow? No church, but chocolate eggs, ham, and the Easter Beagle. (And elder daughter, but - shhh - don't tell Demeter; it's a surprise, and the next surprise is that Demeter can't hug her granddaughter for two weeks.)

Going agley (or whatever the Welsh variation might be)

I had such plans for today.

It's St David's Day, of course, and the Resident Fan Boy picked up a generous bunch of daffodils yesterday. (Some years, they're scarce, but there's an abundance today.)

I headed into the cluster of shops near us and picked out two daffodil-bunches for Demeter: one opened and one nearly opened. "No bag," I told the cashier. "I'll just carry them to my mother like a kid heading home from school."

Demeter has whatever was laying me low a week ago, a nasty cluster of colly-wobbles and chills, seasoned with an afterglow of enervation.

When I got to her apartment, she'd become scary-sick, needing help to negotiate the trip to her ensuite bathroom, and refusing food, drink, and medication. That last item was particularly worrying, as she has the usual stack of medications required from a person her age. I stood over her and (gently, I swear!) persuaded her to take her morning pills, then controlled my panic as she nearly choked on them.

Spent the afternoon in her living room, staying within earshot, and ditching my plans to attend a St-David's-Day-themed cemetery tour. (Hey, you have your thrills; I have mine.)

The road not taken

Walking home from the drug store, I decide to incorporate my route to my former home with my present home, descending into Fairfield via tree-lined and still leafy Vancouver Street.

I'm somewhere behind the cathedral, when I hear an exchange taking place behind me, between a child and a man: high voice/deep voice, high voice/deep voice:
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"Guess what?"
"What?"

This continues as they overtake me, a young dad and his colt-legged daughter, clad in a hoodie and leggings, dragging a long stick along the pavement.

Pang.

Two decades ago, elder daughter was seven, and would have come down this hill with her dad countless times, and much in this vein.

I'm rather relieved when this current-day pair lope past the turning which leads to our old house.

That might break my heart.

Racism and yelling and bullying, oh my

I was in the middle of my art lesson when the phone rang.

It was elder daughter, shaken, upset, and full of guilt.  She was on her lunch break, hurrying back from tending to the Accent Snob, who caught his paw in her apartment elevator as a fun conclusion to last weekend.  She's been soaking his paws in epsom salts.  He finds it very relaxing.  I'm not sure she does.

Heading back to her office, she walked smack into a situation.  Several people were waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk.  Out of the blue, a "scary and crazy" man started yelling about "Trudeau's immigrants", how they were living off taxpayers, and stealing jobs.  You know, the usual original ideas that obviously come from deep thinking.

Elder daughter felt helpless, wanting to stand up to him, but not daring to.

"What did the people he was yelling at do?" I asked, absent-mindedly adding a few strokes to my painting.

"Nothing; they kinda ignored him."

"Sounds like they had the right idea; you say he was scary and crazy."

Sitting with my paints in Victoria, I "walked" her back to work, listening as her ragged breathing slowed.

My fellow students discussed the issue after the call ended.  Best not to challenge a larger, nuttier fellow spouting epithets, they agreed.

Coincidentally, I'd sent elder daughter the following clip from John Mulaney, one of her favourite comedians.  It's about racism and bullying too, except with humour, something non-inclusive people often lack.
Elder daughter had already heard it, of course.

I like to think she appreciated the gesture.

The magic dress

I'm not an enthusiastic shopper.

As a result, I've learned to tackle Christmas and Birthday Season - the latter being the thirty-day run between the period before I must post my parcel to elder daughter in Hades to Mother's Day - in manageable purchasing bursts, none more than ninety minutes.

I found younger daughter's birthday approaching rapidly, but despite my careful planning and plotting, had failed to find an item of pretty clothing to join the gifts of movies, music, and makeup.  Usually, I wander into a likely shop and something will call to me.  Although I'd heard elder daughter's name floating out at me in April, nothing whispered about younger daughter.

With two days to go, I wandered into a shop in Cook Street, mentioned the specifications to the employee there - something feminine for a petite stature with a generous bosom, as younger daughter takes after one of her paternal great-grandmothers.  (She certainly didn't get it from my side of the family...)

I spotted it a split second before the clerk did, a simple sundress, reminiscent of the late Fifties, early Sixties.  Flower print, modest boat neck, slightly pleated skirt, and defined waist. Sort of Sandra Dee without the sly overtones.

She showed me several others, but I kept saying, "That one's calling me."

I presented it to younger daughter on her birthday, and she wore it the very next day for her part in a fundraising concert.

It was like magic.  The dress, which fit perfectly, seemed to endow her with extra social grace and confidence.  She maintained poise as garden tours strolled past her and planes droned overhead.  I was delighted (and careful not to say so) when she excused herself at lunch - a new thing in itself - to reapply her makeup in the washroom instead of at the table.

Natural shocks (that flesh is heir to)

Another birthday season is drawing to a close at our house, with the birthday of younger daughter, which is near the end of a rather long line of family and friendly birthdays - complicated by Easter this year, and Mother's Day every damn year.

As I do annually, I think back to a distant May day, not nearly as warm as today is, and the shell-shock of bringing another person into this world.

Perhaps the biggest shock is how different it is every time.

We are all so very shocking, in our very different ways.