Tag Archives: memories

It’s not cold, it’s honest

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I have a strong childhood memory of my Grandfather – Papa B. – Leon Bernstein. I’ve previously shared how to me and many others he was a ‘giant’! He quietly helped hundreds of people, he was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, and he was a people’s person… It didn’t matter if they were a gardener or a doctor, a grocery store clerk or a Prime Minister, Papa B. was someone who treated everyone with honour and respect, and everyone saw this in him.

One day a person in the community died and I was there when Granny B. told Papa about the person dying. My grandfather’s response surprised us both. Imagine a grey haired Polish Jew speaking with a West Indian accent saying, “Oh shite, bu(t) he was a real jack-ass!”

Granny retorted, “Leon, you can’t talk about a dead man like that, it’s rude.”

My grandfather responded, “What? If he was a jackass in life, you think he gonna be any different in death?”

At the time, this totally stunned me. I had always seen my grandfather as a person who only saw the good in people, I don’t think I ever heard him speak ill of anyone before this, it just wasn’t his nature. Now, older and maybe wiser, I understand this a little better.

When you spend your life seeking the good in people and doing good for them, you learn that not all people are the same way. You see the self-centred, the selfish, the assholes, and the jackasses, and you realize they don’t deserve the kindness you give others.

It’s not rude, it’s good calibration. I didn’t know the person who died, but if my grandfather called him a jackass, I’m glad I never met the man. The reality is that such a statement isn’t cold or rude, it’s just honest.

Some people carry with them anger, hate, selfishness, and/or a mean streak that creates more distress than calm, more hurt than joy. And quite frankly in death they deserve to be identified for the character they were in life.

No need to spend time harbouring their ill intent, just acknowledge that they are gone, and continue on as you were before you heard the news. There are so many good people in the world that deserve attention while they are still alive, spend time appreciating and respecting them. Leave the dead jackasses behind and move on.

Old Withhold

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I’m cleaning out the bathroom cupboards. As I type this, I’m sitting on the bathroom floor looking at a small blue Cooper bag. It says ‘Barbados’ on the zipper end sides, underneath the ‘Cooper’ name and logo. It’s a miniature of a duffle bag and for decades it was my travel toiletry bag when I went on trips. I got it while living in Barbados and it is over 50 years old now. I haven’t used it in almost a decade and while it has held up fairly well, it is old and looks dirty. It’s time to throw it out.

My two eldest sisters, also born in Barbados, both had one as well. Mine was blue, theirs were red and green. I’m not sure they lasted 5 years for them, much less 50. Cooper was not the name brand anyone identified with back then. I think those were Adidas, Nike, and Puma, in that order, and maybe Fila as a close 4th. But I was not someone who bought into the trends… because I was nerdy, not cool, and I liked my little Cooper bag.

I can’t share a specific memory of using it, I just know that it has been a trusted travel companion for most of my life and I find it hard to let it go. The garbage bag is waiting, I’m hesitating. It logically makes no sense to keep it. I’ll never use it again. I won’t. And yet it’s so hard to say a final goodbye.

How many things do we hoard, that we cherish in a way that makes us want to hold on to it, to withhold it from a beckoning garbage dump? Not because it doesn’t belong there, on the contrary, we know that’s where it belongs. But this item, whatever it may be, is a piece of our past, a relic that ties us to our memories, a keepsake to remind us of who we knew, what we did, and ultimately who we are.

Some items will stay as long as we have room, but today I say goodbye to my Cooper bag. It doesn’t have a nostalgic hold on me anymore. 50 years is long enough. A final farewell and into the garbage bag it goes, never to be seen again.

Longer summers days

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Growing up in Barbados, the gap between the longest and shortest day of the year is just over an hour’s difference. Basically, sunrise is shortly after 6am and sunset happens around dinner time.

Here in southern BC, Canada, I’m writing this at 7:40pm and it’s still very bright out. The sun will still be above the horizon for another hour. If there is one thing I’ve loved about moving to Canada, it’s long, bright summer nights. This is especially great on the west coast. I don’t really enjoy it in places with mountains to the west.

For example, my wife grew up in Nelson BC, and when I used to visit there, the sun would go behind the mountains and it would be dusk for what felt like hours. I find that time of day tiring. I find that my eyes struggle to focus and I quickly feel drained. In Barbados dusk lasts about 10 minutes. You see the sun set below the horizon and moments later you have darkness. To me dusk is meant to be a fleeting moment, not a dragged-out eternity. Back here on the west coast, dusk isn’t as quick as Barbados, but it’s not nearly as bad as Nelson.

The slightly longer period of dusk is worth it here to enjoy a few more hours of summer daylight. I love having dinner and still feeling like there is a lot of the day left… it makes the summer seem longer in the best possible way.

Parent influence

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In my early years of teaching I had a student, Caitlyn, who seemed to have everything ‘together’ which is not something you usually say about a Grade 8 kid. (I think it’s ok to use her real name, she would be around 40 years old now.) She was bright, a good student, polite, kind, and helpful, with a good sense of humour and just the right dose of confidence.

Caitlyn came to me one day to tell me she didn’t have her homework because she did it the night before at her dad’s house, forgot it there, and then slept at her mom’s last night. Up to that point, I didn’t even know her parents were divorced. A while later we had student led conferences and both parents came. The way they interacted with Caitlyn and each other, I would never have guessed they were divorced. I remember thinking that there is no way Caitlyn could have been so ‘together’ if her parents were angry and bickering and making a battle out of the divorce.

Kids are incredibly influenced by their parents. I’ve seen this time and again. A parent is quick to blame others for something their kid did, so is the kid. But it’s not just kids mirroring their parents. A parent puts up hard, unrealistic expectations, a student rebels and refuses to play along. The point being, parents have incredible power to influence their kids and that influence cannot be understated.

How do we as parents treat others? Respond to stress? How do we value community, physical fitness, diet, diversity? It’s not a perfect match, but I’ve seen over and over again just how much parents influence their kids.

I was reminded of this again when I met another Caitlyn-like kid. It was an interview situation for our school and in the interview I watched the way her mom supported her, encouraged her, and gave her space to be her own person. The kid was an absolute gem, and I could tell this was fostered and nurtured at home.

It’s not a perfect correlation, and I even know families where you’d swear the siblings had different parents because their personalities and dispositions were so different. But time and again, I’ve seen the difference good parents make. Kids can be awesome despite their parents, but good parenting goes a long way to fostering great kids.

Blast from the past

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Tonight I’m going to watch a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon laser show. I think I was between 16 and 18 the last time I saw a show like this, so it has been at least 40 years.

I find it amusing that it can be that long between experiences and yet I still know exactly what to expect. I saw Pink Floyd’s inflatable flying pigs concert back in the 90’s, and I’ve always enjoyed their music, although I’m more of a fan of their Another Brick in the Wall album. That album took me places in my mind that I didn’t know I could go to. I’d lay on the couch and listen to it for hours, especially the side with Mother and Comfortably Numb.

Tonight I’ll get a little taste of that experience again. A little trip down memory lane.

Waves, ripples, and echoes

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The thing about grief that is most challenging is how different it is for everyone. For some it hits them like crashing waves on a rocky, unswimable shoreline, for others it feels like rogue waves hitting unexpectedly. For others it hits like ripples from a rock thrown into water, with a pattern of lulls and peaks. For still others it is like echoes of the past reminding us that the person was just here, while simultaneously reminding us of the emptiness to come without the loved one in our lives anymore.

For many, these feelings are intertwined with different emotions: Feelings of love, heart ache, loss, emptiness, guilt, shock, disbelief, and even anger. These emotions don’t always match with others who are grieving. For some people sharing their personal connection feels necessary, for others it’s private. From tears to laughter and everything in between mismatched emotions splash us like unexpectedly cold water, feeling that much colder when the people around us don’t necessarily respond the same way.

Like I said a few days ago, “I don’t have the words,” is sometimes the only words you are able to share… and yet they feel brutally insufficient. And so it is that the waves, ripples, and echoes hit us unevenly as we grieve. Each of us finding ways to make sense of loss, and finding ways forward… Finding ways to strengthen the echoes of fond memories while weakening the ripples of grief and loss.

The Last Time Theory

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I love this trend that’s going around. Parents are getting their grown kids to do things like jump into their arms, and wrap their feet around them, like they used to do as a little kid, to give a big hug for one last time. The theory is that you don’t remember the last time your kid did this, so do it one last time so that you will remember.

Back on Christmas Day 2024 I wrote ‘Firsts and Lasts’ about this same idea. The post, written to my daughters, starts like this:

“I remember. 

I remember the moment in the hospital when I first laid eyes on you; the first time I held you, and kissed your cheek. I remember your first smile, (that wasn’t just passing gas), your first laugh, and the first time you said, ‘Da-da’. I remember your first steps. There were so many firsts in those early days and, although they slowed, they still kept coming. From your first tooth to your first tooth falling out. From your first day at daycare to your first day at school. And from your first birthday to your last one as a teenager.

And so it is that I remember many firsts, but unfortunately I don’t remember too many lasts. 

I don’t remember the last time you fell asleep on my chest or came running towards me and jumped unabashedly into my arms for a big hug. I don’t remember the last time we were walking together and you reached up to hold my hand. I don’t remember the last time I did a push up with you on my back, or the last time you danced on my feet, or the last time I gave you a piggyback.

And such is life that as we grow up together, parent and child, we carry with us these moments, momentous ‘first’ occasions, but we never know what other forgotten moments disappear as we get older. We remember the firsts, not the lasts. We savour the memories of so many special occasions, and we lament those things that we take for granted only after they no longer happen.”

There are a lot of silly trends that go viral, and send ripples across the internet. This one isn’t silly, it’s heartwarming and wonderful. Parents trying to recapture a special moment with their child long after they’ve done something for the last time. I hope this trends lasts a while and impacts a lot of people.

______

((Cover image source))

Almost free

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I remember being a young kid when a door-to-door salesman came to our house and sold my dad a Junior Encyclopedia set. I was amazed at all the information in there. I could just think of any topic and it seemed that there was an entry for it.

In Grade 10 or 11 I took a programming course in high school. I don’t remember much other than having to punch little dots out of cards and handing them in. My teacher would bring them back to us the next class with a printout of the instructions we created with these punch cards.

At the time, I owned a Commodore Vic 20 which had 20k of memory. I remember buying the 16k adapter cartridge so that I could have 36k of memory, but I can’t remember why I wanted the extra data. I think I was writing a book on bass fishing with my buddy on the Commodore and we were using up too much space.

Now our fridges can do more than my Vic 20, and our phones give us access to quite literally any information we desire. Computers have wafer thin chips in them, the size of my finger nail, that can store entire libraries of information. We have no shortage of information or storage… as long as we aren’t trying to store 20,000 photos on our phones.

Information used to be power. Now it seems that information is free. Well, almost free, because we actually pay for information with our attention. The website is free but you’ve got to see the advertising. The podcast is free but you have to listen to commercials. Social media content is free but influencers push products your way, and sell you programs. And you end up not scrolling past an ad because it is designed like the content you normally consume.

We don’t have to buy encyclopedias anymore, information is almost free… The price we pay is our attention.

Dressing up

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I’m missing Halloween at school this year. I’ll be out of town for a meeting and so it will be the first Halloween in years that I won’t be dressing up. It’s funny, I feel both disappointed and relieved about this.

Disappointed more for the opportunity to see my students letting loose with their imaginative costumes. Relieved because while I take the time to really dress up, I’m not a huge fan of it. In fact, I’m going to a fancy birthday party this weekend and I don’t even like dressing up for that.

To me, dressing up is a major effort, and when I’m not wearing clothes for comfort, when I’m putting on a costume of any kind, be it Halloween, formal wear, or even a tie, I feel like I’m putting on a persona that doesn’t belong to me.

I know some people love it. I know people seek out opportunities to ‘put on’ another outfit and it excites them. Not me. I feel fake. I’ve never enjoyed using clothing to somehow change how I’m presenting myself.

I recently found an old photo of me at my uncle and aunts wedding. I was probably 4 or 5 years old, and the moment I saw the photo I remembered hating my outfit. In the photo I look miserable, and you can’t see my bow tie because I’m pulling on it when the photo was taken. I don’t remember anything about the wedding itself other than it was in Trinidad and I had never seen large hills (growing up in Barbados) and so I was amazed by the ‘mountains’. Besides mountains, the only other childhood memory from that trip is hating to be dressed up. So even in some of my youngest memories, dressing up wasn’t something I enjoyed.

No Halloween dress up for me this year. I’m sorry I won’t be there for the kids, but a little part of me is celebrating that I don’t have to dress up.

A Turn for the Worse

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November 12th 1985 was a cold, overcast day in Toronto. I was taking the bus home from school during my Grade 13 year. For those who do not know, Ontario had a Grade 13 for anyone planning to go on to university.

I had to take two busses home and my transfer happened a half block away from North York General Hospital. My grandfather was at that hospital after a minor heart attack and I thought maybe I’d go see him before going home. Then I got to the corner and decided that I’d just go home, I had just visited a couple days before.

I went to the bus stop and waited about 8-10 minutes for the bus before seeing it approach the traffic lights behind me. I remember at that very moment changing my mind, thinking ‘I’m right here, I should visit him’. So I walked back to the street corner as the bus approached and passed, and I made the turn to go visit Papa T.

When I got to his hospital room I could hear him having an argument with my Granny about some minor thing. He was shaving, sitting upright in his bed with an electric razor, my granny holding a small mirror for him. We had a nice visit and I felt great walking back to the bus stop afterwards.

The next morning I was at the school for a 7am swim practice and about half way through I felt awful. I couldn’t describe the feeling then but dread would be the term I’d use looking back now. I actually stopped my set and got out of the pool. What made me feel worse was that a couple other kids stopped and joined me on the bench. I was team captain and this was a bad example I was setting, but I just couldn’t get myself back into the pool.

For first class I had a spare block and so did my friend Kassim, who had a car. I had never done anything like this before but I looked at my buddy and said, “Kassim, I feel awful, can you drive me home?”

He didn’t. He convinced me to stay. It was Grad Photo Day and we both had appointments for our photos before lunch. “Stay until lunch”, he said, “Get your grad photo and if you still feel like this at lunch I’ll take you home.”

He convinced me to stay, despite how awful I felt. I couldn’t understand the feeling I was experiencing because I didn’t feel sick, and so missing photos didn’t make sense.

I made it to lunch and went to the cafeteria. I remember pulling my lunch out of the brown paper bag it was in as I sat down. I was saying to Kassim and a couple other friends we sat with, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just feel like shit.”

Then I sat down, looked up and locked eyes with my sister peering across the cafeteria. This was unusual to say the least because she went to a different high school. We locked eyes, then with no explanation I simply said, “It’s my grandfather.” Then packed my lunch back into the bag, got up and walked out with my sister.

This made no sense to my friends, but they had met my sister so knew I was going home. I don’t remember my sister saying anything to me. I don’t think I signed out. We got into my uncle’s car and drove straight to the hospital.

I wish I didn’t go. I wish my last memory of Papa T was of him shaving and talking about what he was going to do after getting out of the hospital, not him on life support with his eyes taped shut because he was leaving them open, unblinking. But I got to say good bye to his body after he was already gone.

I went home and wrote this poem. I haven’t seen it in over 25 years, but my sister is helping my mom declutter before moving, she found it, and sent me a picture of it.

For Motel (Mottle) Truss, my Papa T:

A TURN FOR THE WORSE

–

The earth did not stop moving

The wind did not stop blowing

The leaves did not stop falling

But tears filled my eyes

–

Oh how insignificant life can appear

When right before your eyes

One is being lost

But you can only sit and watch

–

He is in the best of care

He has his loved ones hoping, praying

But he has taken a turn for the worse

And we can only await his departure

–

I only hope that until his final breath

The thoughts of Family

Override the pain

And I hope that our memories

Will overide the tears

–

By David Truss, Nov. 13, 1985.