Little Old Lady … in Waiting

Tag: eulogy

  • In Conversation with Dr. Alison Luke

    Alison Luke is a witty, artsy intellectual who I had the great good fortune to meet in the schoolyard when our first-born darlings entered kindergarten together. A founding member of the “Coffee Mommies” collective, the setting for so many rich and sumptuous mornings of coffee and conversation, and the genesis of a great many stimulating and enduring friendships, Alison was always that triple threat friend: maker of tasty baked goods, a scintillating conversationalist and a formidable academic, well versed in a wide spectrum of subjects, always happy to engage on topics ranging from literature and art to philosophy and politics.  Her eyes shine brightest when she gets her teeth into questions of class, culture and power. 

    Perhaps the best way to describe Alison is like a character in a Woody Allen film, one of the better ones, maybe Manhattan Murder Mystery …think urban, cultured, a perfect dinner party guest.  Curious, thoughtful and ethically grounded, Alison is verbally agile, vivacious, and delightfully funny, especially when existentially alarmed.  In short, she is most excellent company and an exceptional friend to call one’s own.

    Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Alison’s father, a British South African engineer was in the UK doing graduate work when he met and married a small-town girl from Lincolnshire, England.  A poverty activist and social worker, Alison’s mother was instrumental in establishing the first homeless shelter for men in Fredericton, NB, calling them her ‘angels.’  Growing up in Fredericton where her father taught at the University of New Brunswick, Alison developed an early and lifelong interest in politics, excelling in debate and model parliament.  Today, she is a proud card-carrying member of the NDP, an ideologue, who votes her conscience in a well-established two-party system, and remains deeply left of center on the political spectrum when much of her cohort has crept quietly to the midlands.

    Originally planning on becoming a country doctor, but confounded by the multiple-choice format exams, Alison finished her first degree in English Literature with a drama option in theatre, and completed a PHD in Sociology in 2010, remotely from the Maritimes while raising a family. No small accomplishment. I asked her how she landed on Sociology. “Sociology is the study of society, trying to understand why we do the things we do but rooted in social structures. Marxism, Feminism, Critical Race Theory…all that comes out of Sociology.  My PhD looked at how our attitudes change over time around things like religious identities and sexual/gender identities…not as much of a political bent to it as I might have liked but at the PhD level you learn very quickly that you need to do something you can finish…and that was something I could finish,” she laughs.

    Today Alison works as Associate Research Director at the Center for Research and Integrated Care at UNB, which focuses on models of care designed to improve health care delivery. “We are working on making health care less fragmented and more integrated, so we do assessments and implement pilot projects like patient navigation or case management and then evaluate to see how it’s working. My work is all about health service delivery, and everything we do is patient oriented which means we always have patient partners or care givers or more broadly people with lived experience who sit on our research team and inform everything we do.”

    Timely work indeed.  I asked Alison if she feels her team is making any real progress within the maelstrom of the current health care crisis. “Frankly one thing that drives me nuts, working with the government who use the language of efficiency and cost-cutting, is that they always want more for less. I’m often the person in the meeting…at 58 I don’t care so much about optics now…I speak up and say maybe the answer might actually be that we need to invest more in primary care, because we don’t invest as much in primary care as say the UK.  If you’re worried about the ER overflowing with people and long wait times, and people lying in hospital beds and worried about whether they should be there, then invest more in primary care.”

    In the last few years, Alison recently took up the tuba and the euphonium or ‘little tuba’, lovingly described as “the cello of the concert band” and plays in Saint Mary’s Band as well as a lovely local ensemble called The Second Chance Band, an orchestra of enthusiastic, eclectic and quirky amateur musicians whom she affectionately likens to the “land of misfit toys.” “I have band practice three nights a week and have reclaimed a lot of joy in having music in my life again. A band is a beautiful thing.”

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I grew up with a strong sense of community and a love for helping others and a strong belief that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.  My mother was an extremely strong influence…maybe not the most nurturing person in the world, but she showed me how to be strong and passionate and to care about the world around me. My dad taught me a love of learning, to be interested and curious about the world…wanting to know about everything and I like to think I embody those qualities.  I have always been interested in debate and public speaking and politics and even theatre which I think is a way of showcasing passion. I love the whole performance aspect. I was always involved in music and theatre; it was a big part of my formative years. Later I got to travel a bit around Canada.  I think I got a pretty good education, I had two amazing children, and eventually settled in Saint John…and the rest as they say is history.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    I think it’s not giving a fuck. I’ve heard that before, I’ve read it, but it really resonates with me. I do think there is some freedom in getting older and I don’t care so much about most things these days.  Now with that, there is the whole other thing about being a woman getting older. Invisibility, which can be freeing, is also wrapped up in all this ageism stuff. We become little old ladies and people maybe start to treat you a little differently, and that can be a bit demeaning. But overall, the freedom I think on the whole is good.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    It’s kind of two sides of the same coin.  I work with a lot of people who are under 40, so a lot of young people, and you do hear a lot of little jokes about the fact that maybe Alison can’t hear very well, which I can laugh about, but it is interesting to me.  Somebody at work once referred to a pair of shoes suggesting they must belong to Alison because they look like old lady shoes, so I promptly called him out.   I do find ageism very interesting.  I saw it with my mother when she became sick, people talking over her or making an assumption that she couldn’t answer for herself. And so even though I’m not yet 60, you start to see this creep in of ageism and it kind of pisses me off.  The worse part of it is imagining someday being seen as having no value at all.

    What would you title this chapter of your life?

    Autumn. The Fall is my favourite season. There is a sense of comfort and plenty in the Fall season. You’re not trying to fit into bikinis, it’s the season of comfy sweaters and layering. Back to school is my favourite time of year and it reminds me of this season of my life.

     If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Sometimes I wish I was more easy-going. As we age, we maybe worry a bit more about certain things.  I wish I could just have people over and not worry so much about what my house looks like, I don’t know when that happened.  I never used to care quite so much about those things.  Maybe we become our parents a bit more as we age.  I think of us now as the accumulation of all the things we were when we were young and I don’t think those things are gone.  But as we mature, maybe we soften, and maybe some of our younger insecurities are gone now, but new worries take hold, like worrying about not being around for your kids someday.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    To focus on what’s in front of you and to live your life in the moment.  I think we spend so much time thinking about regrets or worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, and I think it’s enough to just focus on what’s in front of you today.  And that may be a problem to solve or maybe something really awful that’s happening in the moment.  I’m not some Pollyanna saying “Don’t worry, be happy in the moment” but I’ve learned to focus on what’s right in front of me and let that be enough for now.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    Yes, it’s a quote by Anton Chekhov.  It’s a line in the Cherry Orchard about a character being teased for being a perpetual student. It’s not a fancy quote, it’s more the idea.  “He moved through the world as a perpetual student, more interested in understanding life, than in ever mastering it.” For me it’s about having a lifelong interest in learning and staying curious.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    Melancholy. I love the word melancholy.  It’s a great sounding word.  I love it because it’s kind of that interesting place where you’re not euphoric but you’re not sad … but you’re not quite content either.  It’s this sweet place, like a Fall day, it feels kind of cloudy, or windy, maybe late in Fall, and you’re bundling up to go outside, or settling down to a good book.  I think we reflect when we’re melancholy. I think of the Romantic poets, and this idea of being in the depths of despair, like Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables…I guess I like getting caught up in the idea of being tragically cast sometimes.

    Describe your perfect day.

    My perfect day would be sleeping in a little bit for a start.  I don’t like to get up really early.  Working full time, I long for days when I can work from home and push the snooze till about 8 am.  After that, I would love to have a really good cup of coffee, probably two.  Then I’d like to do my New York Times puzzles. And on a perfect day with no housework or anything like that, I would want to go for a really great hike in the Fundy area with ocean views. After that, I would like to go to a pub for a nice craft beer and come home for a good dinner, listen to some music, talk politics, put the news on, maybe watch a show and I would be sure to carve out a good hour or so to read in bed, a favourite pastime.

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    Well, if I really think about someone I’ve always wanted to sit down to tea with, it would be Karl Marx.   He believed that if people can suddenly wake up from their sleep, we can realize that our numbers mean we can change the world. Our numbers are our power and there is hope in that.  I see Marx as very hopeful, and I would just love to pick his brain. I’d love to hear his take on what’s going on now around the world. We would talk about politics, of course. I want to sit with him in some smoky old pub, drink a beer and smoke a cigarette and talk to Karl Marx about the state of the world.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Hard to narrow it down to three.  I mean there is the obvious, my children, and my children do bring me huge joy but if I was to think of just me, it would be reading.  Reading brings me great joy. Also camping in my little camper.  It was a pandemic purchase that has brought so much joy.  Our favourite place to camp and hike is Fundy National Park. We have a little heater and a functional bathroom…I love it so much, I love the Maritimes; I love everything about where we live and with the camper, we can explore it all. A third joy would be spending time with family.  My dad visits every weekend and time with family and friends means everything to me.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    I don’t feel guilty about any pleasure.  I love wine and I love chocolate. I love to eat…I love good food… I love butter. But I try very hard to not to think of them as guilty pleasures, they’re just pleasures, they’re my pleasures. One of my favourite ways to spend an evening is to go out for a good meal or make a nice meal at home…some nibblies and wine and maybe trying a new recipe.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    Well, I’ve thought a lot about this one, and though I was raised going to church, I’ve never believed in the whole idea of this place called Heaven. In all of my various sociology of religion courses, I was always a big fan of the eastern traditions, like Buddhism and even Hinduism, and I’m very drawn to the idea that energy is neither created or destroyed. But also, there is a side of me as well, the existentialist, who hates the idea of living for something better after death. That sort of thinking can work to oppress people and keep people poor, ‘Oh don’t worry, at least you’ll go to heaven.’   I think people need to make the best of the life they have right now…act now, and make this life a good one.  But at the same time, I pair that with an idea that once we go, I think we’re in the trees and the birds and we may even be reincarnated.   That would be more where my thoughts might go to as a belief system, if there is anything.  My practical brain says I become good compost, and that’s also great.   I’d be eaten by worms or be food for a tree, and then become the tree or the birds. Bury me in the ground, I want a compost burial.  I hope that kind of thing is available as an option around here.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I’ve thought a lot about this one as well. There is what you think you’d like people to say, what people will say, and then you’ve got the self-deprecating person who might wonder if anyone will say anything nice at all.  ‘Maybe nobody will come to my party,’ Alison laughs.  But what I’d like my eulogy to say is that I was passionate, that I cared about people, that I had a love for life and that I was compassionate.

     

     

  • In Conversation with Nicola Carter

    If I ever write a novel, my heroine would look and speak and live a life a lot like Nicola Carter. Think Gwyneth Paltrow in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tannenbaums, some undisclosed number of years later. Closing in on 70, Nicola remains an uncommon beauty, with a brilliant mind, and an elegance or manner that sets her apart from her peers. She has an air of mystery…she intrigues me.  It’s not that she doesn’t dive in to the deep end and discuss deeply meaningful, life altering experiences, it’s simply that you are left with the impression that she holds something in reserve, like a secret locked away, encrypted in her backstory. I must confess to a LOLIW girl crush.

    During our interview Nicola serves me a cup of hibiscus tea, her current favourite, and a plate of halva, a dense, sweet middle eastern treat, both firsts for me.  A tea ball in the character of a mouse, hangs precariously from the side of my hand painted cup.  I am enchanted. In the home she shares with her husband, Jeff, the walls have been hollowed out to hold and frame hundreds of books, the remaining wall space is covered in an interesting, esoteric art collection gathered on her travels or inherited from ancestral homes. One small impressionist landscape in bright yellow draws my eye, a shock of sunshine from the back deck spills into the living room, and transfers my attention to a well-appointed outdoor space that transports you to a private, wooded, Narnia-like oasis, all within the city limits. Every part of her home has been utilized with intelligent design.  I feel at home immediately, welcomed by the princely Leo, a well-trained and well-loved retriever, easily the greatest treasure in Nicola’s collection.

    Born in Saint John, Nicola spent her early childhood in Fairvale (Rothesay).  Her mother was a concert pianist and her father a well-known corporate lawyer, described as “The Giant Slayer” after fighting and winning a case in the Supreme Court against a prominent NB family empire. Her father passed away when Nicola was just 15 and her family moved from Toronto to New York where she and her brother were both accepted into the prestigious Dalton School, where many prominent and powerful U.S. leaders are educated.

    While English Literature was her first love, Nicola completed an honours degree in Computer Science receiving the program medal, graduating at the top of her class in a male dominated field of study.  She started a family around the same time she started her IT career with the Newfoundland Telephone Company, later working for McGill University where she was involved in building the internet in the mid 1980s, when only research institutes and the military had access to the platform. She was instrumental in building the Quebec network (RISQ). and later ran the province’s operations network for them.  She describes the experience as “good fun…we we’re inventing things.”  She eventually returned to New Brunswick, where she soon began work at UNB, tasked with building the internet in NB. “NBTel very quickly saw a way that they could monetize it, by installing modem banks…where people would buy email addresses and then NBTel would manage it.  At this point the network was still dial up and they put me in operations where people were hands on with the Internet and where they needed the most support and experience.”

    “In time I made a lateral move into engineering where I was tasked with maintaining the infrastructure and eventually moved into management.  Every new technology came with problems and I enjoyed being part of the teams that solved those problems.  Engineering was also where I met my husband, Jeff.”  The information highway was a brave new world and Nicola was well placed with the credentials and the knowledge to take on the challenge of an exponentially accelerating and expanding field. “When it took off it took off,” she remembers.

    Today, retired for more than ten years, Nicola maintains an active lifestyle, as an avid outdoorswoman, a passionate chef, a cryptic crossword aficionado, an art lover, a grandmother and more recently a great grandmother. She is well travelled and well-read and enjoys what I would describe as an aristocratic lifestyle. Her days are her own, she maps her own course, and although she has known great loss in her life , she found her way out of the dark, a herculean task, her intellectual curiosity intact, and her joy of learning enhanced and thriving.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less?

    I was born in Saint John, and went to school in N.B., Toronto and New York, always a bookish introvert with a passion for reading, animals, music and asking questions…annoying questions.

    After graduating, I had some false starts, bailing from a pre-med program at Western, bussing tables in Vancouver, driving across the U.S. in winter in a $200 ‘62 Ford Fairlane, later landing in Newfoundland with a revised study plan at Memorial: a degree in English Literature, then a sharp turn to an Honours degree in Computer Science, acquired to gain immediate employment (I was pregnant with my first child at that point).

    Over 37 years, I enjoyed a varied, challenging career in technology-based roles, beginning at Newfoundland Telephone, then McGill (early heady days of building the Internet), UNB (more technology builds as the Internet evolved including some teaching consulting and development in other areas such as multi-media), and finally at NBTel in Engineering and Operations technical and management roles until retirement in 2015.  My favourite roles? Solving complex technical problems.

    Since 1979, I have enjoyed parenting my sons Ben and David, born in Newfoundland, and since 1994, step-parenting Jennifer and Jessica, daughters of my husband, Jeff.  The challenges were many, and the rewards, great.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Self-knowledge of my physical and mental strengths and weaknesses. This helps me better understand what I need to do to thrive in my body and my mind.  I confess to not always acting on this knowledge but it keeps me from trying unnecessarily hard.  I can generally relax and accept more than I used to.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Loosing people I love.

    What would you title this chapter of your life?

    I have a different one every day but I’ve settled on “Riding the Waves: Aging Gracefully and Gratefully”

    Describe Your Perfect Day

    A day which starts as a blank slate with no appointments holds the promise of a perfect day.

    The day would flow with a balance of exercise, reading, music, time with a friend, learning something new (probably from CBC, overnight radio, or a podcast), a long dog walk and, if it’s not winter, kayaking, swimming, dock-sitting, and ending with a really good meal.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    I don’t think I have lost many qualities of my youth, except perhaps overwhelming anxiety which I’m glad to have tossed, mostly.  I am glad to have retained an abiding sense of wonder, hope, and optimism, a walking “Maggie Muggins” inside. I retain my childhood thirst for knowledge and ceaseless curiosity.  Lucky me.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Hmmm…I have really experienced and learned a lot.  The most important lesson I have learned is that control is an illusion. I humbly accept how little control we mortals have over much on our lives. This is profoundly freeing.  The seeds of this knowledge were planted early, with the unexpected suicide of my father when I was 15. Untimely deaths have been a recurring tragedy in my life.  In 1994, my youngest brother, Erskine, succumbed to a long-term illness, aged 24.  In 2023, my oldest son, Ben, died unexpectedly in Egypt, where he had lived and taught for 10 years.  That same year, my dear younger brother/best friend, Cyrus, died, aged 65 in Istanbul, where he made his home as a teacher for over 30 years. I am still reeling from these last two losses but will say that the profound knowledge that I can control so little, and that I should not try, brings me some peace. Maybe we can only really start letting go when things have gone.

    The lesson is not all bound to negative outcomes. I have had some surprising experiences which have happened around me, circumstances not in my control, that have reinforced the lesson in a positive way. Back in 1984, my partner and our two sons were in Montreal during the Labour Day Central station bomb blast.  We were actually at the station when the bomb erupted with noise and smoke and screams.  It’s a crazy story …we made our way out of the carnage and by some strange circumstance ended up chatting with a man who reassured us that the bomb had not been on my brother’s departing train.  That evening the man’s photo appeared on the TV.  He was the perpetrator.  We then became involved in the subsequent inquest and trial. 

    Another time I was able to rescue two little boys from drowning at a local lake, just by sheer luck…I spotted something.  I was just in the right place at the right time.

    Finally, and perhaps most extraordinarily, I brought Jeff (husband) back from near death…also by sheer luck, when I found him unresponsive and not breathing in time to bring him back to life. How fortunate I was in time.

    In short, I placidly accept my relative insignificance, and do what I can do to deal with situations…good, bad, or frightening, and accept the surprise of unexpected adventures.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    A quote that frequently comes to mind is “Would it help?” This came from the film, A Bridge of Spies, when a spy is about to be sent to his probable death in East Berlin.  His captor notes that he seem svery calm and asks if he is afraid, to which he responds, “Would it help?” I think of these words when faced with situations which could drive anxiety, or fear or anger. It gives me space to temper my reaction.

    Can I have another? In a recent interview, Bob Rae mentioned that he read aloud Shakespeare Sonnet # 25 as he migrated from one political role to another. The quote contrasts temporary “proud titles” with the enduring joy found in true love I think that sentiment brings a valuable humbling perspective to some of the trappings we might boast That resonates with me.

    The two quotes Rae highlighted from the Sonnet were:

    “The painful warrior famoused for fight, / After a thousand victories once foiled, is from the book of honour razed quite, / And all the rest forget for which he toiled;”

    “Then happy I, that love and am beloved, / Where I may not remove nor be removed.”

    Do you have a favourite word?

    My favourite word is an acronym, F.A.E. (fundamental attribution error) I use the word often at home as I did at work, to remind myself and others that we should not ascribe someone’s behavior to our ill- formed impression of their character, when the bad behavior could result instead from circumstances of which we are not aware. We should not immediately presume to know what’s going on in another’s head.  We should take a breath and seek to understand.  FAE has a been a good tool in de-escalating conflict.  I can cry out, ‘Hey, FAE!’ at home and we all pause to reset.

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead or alive, who would ir be and what would you talk about?

    My brother, Cyrus, whom I would call my longest, precious friend.  We never judged each other, shared so many interests, were both avid readers, and curious learners. I want to pick up where we left off in 2023, when he was still well, share some tears and many hearty laughs.  Sublime and the ridiculous.  My internal conversations with him still go on.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Witnessing the next generation evolving.  I have loved watching my sons and step-daughters making their way.  Now I enjoy seeing my grandchildren, who are all different and special in their own ways, growing.  Grandparenting is such a rich role.  A great grandchild was born into our clan last year. Another person to witness in their evolution.

    Walking in nature or just walking – especially with my dog.

    In summer sitting on the verandah at the camp looking out at the lake and listening, and often reading. Doing nothing is not really doing nothing.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    So many pleasures and so little guilt.  Is that wrong? I assume that guilt might arise if one felt judged for these pursuits.  I happily admit to seeking solace in true crime podcasts, and doing word puzzles pretty much every day.

    Do you believe in life after death?

    If there were life after death, I don’t believe it involves a corporeal existence nor anything we currently understand.  Perhaps we live on in the memories kept by friends and family and our energy is drawn back into the universe.

    What would you like you r eulogy to say?

    I’ll come to this answer indirectly. At my son’s celebration of life ceremony, five of us spoke: myself, Ben’s father, Arthur; Ben’s brother, David; Ben’s lifelong friend, Matt; and Ben’s close friend in Cairo, Jim. We did not discuss in advance what we planned to say.  What emerged organically was a remarkable and moving tribute, with little overlap between the 5 speeches, each one recalling different aspects of Ben.  It was clear that we all had different relationships with Ben, largely dependent upon our roles.  In total, we together painted the complete picture of Ben and learned how he had touched each one of us.

    I would like to be remembered similarly, in eulogy or privately, by those I have loved or touched, for what we have shared and what they have valued about our relationship.  Actually, I’d like to know these things before I die.

  • On Grief and Loss and other Incurable Conditions of the Heart

    “Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?” 
    ― James Joyce, (The Dead)

    “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises it’s head from the crowd of the world to say ‘It is I you have been looking for,’ and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

    -Naomi Shihab Nye (Kindness)

    My brother, Kelly Blaine Joseph Jude Lewis or KBJJ, as he signed all our written correspondence, was 90 percent angel and only 10 percent human…always…not just in death like some knighted memory where all our flaws are conveniently forgotten. Even as a child, the middle child to be exact, he was everyone’s favourite, a good son, a sweet man, a comic, a sage, a poet, a most excellent companion, a loyal and honest friend, and a beloved brother. He was a quiet, thinking man…he noticed the little things…he was careful with other people’s hearts.

    A fit, 58 year old vegan, my brother died of a massive hemorrhagic stroke on a beautiful summer day, three and half years ago now, and the sense of loss and grief I have held every day since his parting is still so close I can barely breathe when I remember him. My days are laced with little daggers that keep him alive and I am grateful for every one…the rough cut decal fore-edge of a new book, cinnamon raison toast and earl grey tea, bookstores, and coffee shops, an Irish lilt or a Scottish burr, nature walks, and the sea…always the sea, or the tang of the sea scented streets of this dirty old town he so loved, never more so than on a crisp autumn afternoon. He was all of my favourite things … “my talk, my song,” and “everywhere he walked was holy ground” to me.

    My brother lived alone, a singleton, and it was only the kindness of a concerned co-worker that alerted us to what was to be the last day of his life. He was rushed by ambulance to hospital where neuro-surgeons explained that there was nothing to be done. So, we sat in shocky silence by his deathbed and held his still warm hands. When death came close, I lay my head on his chest and listened while his heart stopped beating and his lungs swelled with his last breath. To the woman who gave our family those last few hours with my brother, to sit with him as he left this world, to say our last goodbyes, I will forever, be in your debt.

    The physical sensation of such a loss is acutely painful … a panicky breathlessness takes hold of you, the ground is swept away, and the sky goes out. There is no place to run away to, no safe space, no comfort, no medicine to alleviate the crushing weight that comes to rest squarely on the center of your chest and refuses to shift. It makes a home inside you, and though you pray for the blanket of unconsciousness, the horror and ache is still there when you wake. You wonder how your own heart can hold out… it remains a mystery to me.

    As a nurse you can imagine the cornucopia of magic beans and pharmacotherapy that arrived at my door in the days directly following my brother’s death. Although I was desperate to forget for a few hours that he was was gone, I was afraid to venture into uncharted terrain… “what dreams may come.” I settled on a steady diet of day drinking which made it possible for me to breathe in the first few months after he left us. “Grief felt four dimensional”, weighted, surreal, and still faintly familiar… I was always cold. People bring things. I remember food arriving, food I could not eat …and friends and family saying things I could not really fathom. I nodded, I let people hold me, but I couldn’t feel their warmth. I absented myself, I learned to cry quietly. I was adrift in the dark, night swimming far from shore, unreachable, inviolate… unspeakably sad. Still, I was grateful on some unconscious level…for the people…and their words…and their offerings …distant reminders that I was still here, that my own heart still beat it’s unwanted song. I let the mourners come, and my brother’s friends, such beauties, brought some solace with their stories.

    There is no medicine that I know of, no antidote, no cure for grief. No sutures to close the gaping hole in your chest. It does not heal …you bleed out slowly …you die a death as well. Our dead take a bloody big chunk of us with them, the part that only they could see, the part that they loved best, and you don’t get that part back. You learn to carry the cavity inside you, and after a time if you are very brave, you can repurpose the space as a kind of light catcher.

    Of course, the immediate shock of such a loss is nothing to what follows … the deep hollowing out, the exquisite loneliness, a yearning for everything you saw reflected in their eyes, and all you held dear in them, the staggering loss of what you thought you could keep forever. C.S Lewis in his book, A Grief Observed, originally published under the penname Dimidus (Latin meaning cut in half), writes in his opening line, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

    After 6 weeks of staying as numb as I could manage on cheap pinot grigio, it stopped working altogether. Deep into my cups I was still stony cold, and I was terrified. I felt abandoned, alone, and inconsolable. Eventually I was desperate enough to attempt the unthinkable. I put down the bottle opener and stopped trying to hide from the full flare of the pain…I leaned into it, I stared at it’s sun. I stopped trying to outrun it, I stood my ground, and braced as the pain unfurled inside me, it intensified and it was eviscerating. Could I stand it…would it kill me, could I actually give it it’s head and let it run free inside me… was I strong enough? I’m still not sure.

    Today when it comes for me, the sadness, the memories, his voice, his heart, his poetry, his beautiful mind, I stay with him for as long as I can, I nod to the pain, like some old friend that crosses my path. I soften, I approach slowly…carefully now… I ask myself in a gentle voice, a voice I might use if speaking to a 4-year-old child…I ask where it hurts, what I’m most afraid of… and then I ask what might help a little, and the answer is always kindness.

    What is unbearable becomes bearable in time. Not because the grief goes away or gets smaller, but because we grow stronger around it, by holding space for a loved one who lives within us still. The transition is deeply unpleasant, like walking a “razor’s edge”, but befriending the pain and discovering the gift inside the grief, the gift of empathy and kindness, invokes an evolution of the spirit, a parting gift from the ghost of your lost loved one.

    Grief and all its jagged little teeth is the price for the privilege of being loved and having loved.  I know too that the size and shape and depth of grief is in direct proportion to the quality and breadth of that love. People ask if I’m better now. I always say ‘yes’ because it’s easier than explaining that the ache never leaves you…it’s only that I made friends with it.

    How do I keep him with me… the man called Parker Stephenson in my phone contacts, named after a tv sleuth of our youth, because he looked at life like a great mystery and always smiled like a boy pretending to be a detective, in the moment before he solves the case. I sit by the sea, I haunt the poetry section, I practice silence until I get a sense of his nearness and hear his voice, my own personal guardian angel. I look for every opportunity to practice kindness towards myself and all those I meet. Kindness ideally unobserved and undisclosed. I acknowledge daily what a grand thing it is to live a life and to know such love.

    If I could tell him one last secret, boil the kettle for tea just once more, or read a single line of poetry to him, I’d whisper

    ” …here is the deepest secret nobody knows

    (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

    and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;

    which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

    and this is the wonder that keeps the stars apart

    i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)” (Cummings)

  • In Conversation with Sherry Fitzgerald

    Sherry Fitzgerald is my extraordinary sister-in-law and the youngest little old lady in waiting I will be interviewing in this series celebrating women over 50, a project devised and designed to elucidate wisdom teachings from my peers as we enter our last and ideally most intentional years. I have learned a lot from this dynamic, pocket-sized, ‘powerhouse’ wellness expert over the years, and I saved our conversation especially for January, a time when so many of us are reflecting on lifestyle changes to optimize health and wellbeing.

    Sherry’s life story sits unequivocally in the action-adventure category.  She rises at 4 am each day, works out twice a day, running, swimming, and biking 3 times a week, and making time to strength train 4 to 5 times each week. I often see her in Yoga class as well, she calls it her ‘treat’. In her early 50’s, Sherry has a body that most women in their 20’s would covet, and her biological age is, I strongly suspect, at least a decade younger than what her driver’s license indicates. She has run dozens of marathons in her athletic career and began training for Ironman competitions in her 40s, completing four of these grueling tests of strength and endurance to date, notably in Lake Placid and Mount Tremblant. For non-sporty types, these are triathlons starting with a 3.9-kilometer swim, followed by a 180-kilometer bike race, and for the closer, a full marathon, a 42-kilometer run. Mountain climbing was Sherry’s first physical challenge, climbing Mount Katahdin at age 18 and working as a mountaineer for a time in her younger years, spending 3 months in the fiords of Newfoundland. She is proficient at rock and ice climbing, she has jumped out of planes and bungee jumped, and was married in a hot air balloon.

    I asked her where such fire comes from, the genesis of her tremendous discipline and a lifelong devotion to fitness.  She shared with me that losing her father two weeks after her 17th birthday was a traumatic and profoundly impactful experience. “To be honest with you, I think I didn’t want to be on the earth for a while…there was a period in high school where if I knew more about suicide, I might have taken my life.  Once I figured out that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I kind of went in the opposite direction and said ‘Ok, who are the healthiest people in the world…I’m going to mirror what they’re doing’, and I did a 360 turn from there.  That’s why my fitness roots are so strong.  Every triathlon, every Ironman I complete is a little memoriam to my dad…most marathons I don’t even stop for the medal…it’s never been about that.”

    How she maintains such discipline has always been a mystery to me.  I asked her the secret. “I know our minds are very powerful, and sometimes not in our favor,” she tells me, “They’re always trying to keep us from doing anything hard, and I know that about my mind, and so now it’s the behavior that has to override that, so I just put actions first, before the feelings.  I am good at moving.  I get the endorphins, and I’m lucky in that I feel good when I’m moving.  But I also want to make sure that I move in a way that’s good for me, that includes rest and recovery and sometimes trying something new.  I’m not so good at sitting and that’s an area I’d like to explore more now.”

    No interview with a fitness expert would be complete without asking about diet, especially as the new year begins.  With respect to food, Sherry prioritizes longevity and optimizing feeling good above all. “I know instantly when I eat something whether it’s going to support my health or betray me.” Sherry eats a colorful rainbow of food, securing as many phytonutrients as she can get, and maximizing healthy fats and proteins.  Her diet is research-based but also customized to satisfy her palette.  “You have to make it your own, so you don’t feel hungry, or like you’re missing out. The food I eat leaves me feeling my best and if I didn’t feel that way, then I would still have some work to do.  I eat a plant-based diet. I don’t eat meat, or processed foods…no dairy, no wheat, no alcohol…I stay with whole foods. But there is no set formula. I’m not religious about food. I do take supplements and enjoy a pea or hemp protein smoothie daily maybe with chia and collagen and creatinine.  I do believe in fasting as well for my body to detox and clean.  During the day is my grace period. I graze and stay light during peak movement hours.  At the end of the day, I eat an enriched salad with a warm veg as well and I try to include 9 to 12 different colours on my plate.”

    Sherry has volunteered and worked contract and salaried positions at the YMCA in Saint John since she was in high school, initially as a fitness instructor and later as a personal trainer. Today she works full time as the Fitness Supervisor at the Y, where she is a well-loved and tremendously popular icon of fitness, a wellness mentor, and a stellar ambassador, exemplifying the philosophy and principles that the YMCA has long championed, embodying core values like inclusiveness, and kindness. I have on many occasions considered writing to her CEO to let them know what a magnificent asset they have in her and would have done so had we not shared the same last name. She has saved my life more than once.  After suffering great personal loss and working to overcome injury, it was often her voice that kept me moving and held me together on the hard days, and her steps I followed to find my way back to myself.  

    A wellspring of positive energy and a beacon of light, I know she has helped a great many others transition through similar periods of challenge with her characteristic humour, relentless encouragement, and deep hearted kindness. There is a small legion of little old ladies in waiting queuing up at the Y most days for the full Sherry experience, where she is leaving a legacy, fortifying a cohort of bodies, minds, and spirits, ensuring we live full and active lives, one standing abdominal curl and suitcase squat at a time. She makes movement fun, she creates a culture of safety that meets us where we are on our fitness journey, she distracts us from the hard parts, and encourages us to experience and enjoy the challenging work of staying healthy. She asks us to imagine what feels impossible some days and empowers us to find our own stride and strength, leading us in classes that build our muscles, create community, and elevate us all.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less.

    I grew up fast after losing my father at a young age, and it changed the entire direction of my life. Health, movement, and taking care of my body became a priority from the beginning. That path led me to a lifelong career in fitness and wellness, helping others live the life they don’t want to lose. I built a family of my own, two children and a husband who anchor me, inspire me and remind me why every minute matters. I’ve learned to chase joy, strength, and connection with intention. I believe in living fully, honestly, and with purpose.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Understanding what truly deserves your energy and letting go of everything that doesn’t.  It’s a gift to grow older, as we know.  My energy and my first priority has always been my family, but especially now, after the kids moved out.  I make a point to keep up with what’s going on in their lives, checking in on a regular basis, and making connections when I can, when they let me, she laughs. I make dates with my mom, celebrating her is a priority to me as well.  But at the start of each day, I prioritize myself.  The stronger I am, the more strength I can lend to everything else.  So, it always starts with me.  I’m up early and in bed early by 8 or 9pm.  It would be a wild night for me if I didn’t get to bed until 10, there would be some mischief happening.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Realizing that time moves faster than you think, and that you can’t get any of it back.  I set intentions every day and at the end of day I usually do a little recap. In my bed I’ll revisit what went well not only with respect to my goals but also regarding my personal values, so if I can be authentic and live up to the values I’ve set for myself, then I count that as a win, to have lived a good day.  I don’t wait for Friday every week to weigh in and see how I’m doing…I think we’re past that.

    What would you title this chapter of your life?

    Living with Intention and Purpose

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    That living authentically and staying true to my values matters most, especially when life is going well. It’s important not to take anything for granted, to appreciate your life every day.  Every day is a gift.  Choosing to look for the brighter side and trusting that every experience, even the difficult ones, is something I am meant to learn and grow from, here to shape who I am becoming.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    The ability to bounce back without overthinking. As a child when something happens you tend to get distracted by something else so quickly and it’s easier to just let things go; whereas as an adult, and I’m getting better at this now, but if someone looks at me a certain way or if I potentially hurt someone’s feelings, or someone hurts mine, it stays with you. We have more experiences at play and more meaning behind those experiences because of the life span, and things can become more emotional.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    What you give out always finds its way back. I do believe in karma. I think angry people hold that inside themselves and I wouldn’t wish that for anyone.  My mom is very religious and brought us up on the ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  So even if no one else is around when you do something bad you still internalize it, and it will come back to teach you again.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    Kindness.  It’s my number one strength.  Not only in how I treat others but also in how I treat myself.  I wasn’t kind to myself for a lot of years and it’s a fine balance between giving and not taking too much away from yourself.  I’m just getting it now.  I wasn’t as kind to myself as I was to everybody else for many years.  I practice kindness in a more balanced way now and that feels good.  A coach once told me to imagine someone you love very much and consider how you would treat them or counsel them in similar circumstances. You would want to treat them kindly, and so now hold the mirror up and take that approach with yourself.

    Describe your perfect day.

    A morning workout to set the tone, followed by time with my family, unrushed, present, connected. A long walk in nature and meaningful conversation. I have that perfect day every week with my friends and with my family.  Now whether that’s my husband’s shining moment of the week I don’t know. (Laughing) No… marrying Derek was probably the smartest thing I ever did, and I think there was a higher power that brought my husband to me.  He is pure kindness.  Meaningful conversation for me includes our speaking about our shared memories and the future, dreaming together, and listening to stories from my mother’s childhood as well. I’m at age now where I have the capacity to care and listen better.  I ask more open-ended questions to learn more from the people I care about most.

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    My father. I’d want to tell him who I became, and introduce him to the family he never met, and I would ask him everything I never got the chance to ask. I’m very proud of the life we’ve built together.  It doesn’t just happen, as you know, it’s a lot of hard work and a lot of sweat, a lot of time and effort and sacrifice, but also lot of joy and a lot of learning.  My husband is a gift, I’d just have to present him. The same with the kids, they are just so unique. I would just send them in.  I never really got a chance to know my dad as an adult, to learn what he liked to do, what some of his favourite things are.  I would like to learn more about him, to really know him.  I was just so angry that he left, it made for some very hard teenage years.  I would love the chance to get to know him, and to like him.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Movement. Family. Helping someone discover their own strength. In my work at the Y, where I get the most joy is having those conversations with people and them speaking out loud their goals and dreams and the privilege of being that person that can help them get there.  I’ve been given so many tools throughout my education to support people and I feel so fortunate to be that person that can help them unlock their potential or rediscover their passion and joy. Those conversations…they’re a big part of my intention and my purpose, and my joy, catching people when they need a hand up.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Reality T.V and Kind bars.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I believe our spirit continues, maybe as energy, maybe as memory, maybe as a presence that never fully leaves. I like to think that the people we love are nearby in ways we can’t see but sometimes can feel. Years ago, when I was in Newfoundland, I had hypothermia and was evacuated by helicopter to hospital, and I feel like it was my father who saved my life.  I think there was like a tap on my shoulder that kept me from falling asleep and I’ve always attributed it to my dad.  A lot of people wouldn’t have survived, but I did.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    She will be remembered for her warm smile, contagious laugh, and unique, spirited personality. She loved her family and friends with her whole heart and always put others first, while learning to be kind to herself as well. She had a gift for seeing the brighter side of life, supporting people when they needed it most, and making those around her feel truly cared for.

  • The Little Old Lady…in waiting sits down with Ottawa podcaster Trudy Chapman

    The Little Old Lady…in waiting sits down with Ottawa podcaster Trudy Chapman

    https://meanderings-with-trudy.simplecast.com/episodes/meander-with-sylvie-fitzgerald

  • In Conversation with Kate Elman Wilcott

    I first met Kate in the home of a mutual friend a few days before our first-born sons, both redheads, set off on a grand adventure, the public school system. I remember we talked about phonics and kindergarten teachers, A Mrs. Fox, and a Ms. Roach, aptly named for the wild animal tamers they turned out to be.  ‘Let the Wild Rumpus’ take a seat…at least until recess.  While the boys toiled at school, we packed up our preschoolers and headed out to each other’s homes, together with a few other like-minded women, and while the littles mingled, we formed a small wolf pack of our own.  We called ourselves the Coffee Mommies, but don’t let the name fool you…there was enough intellectual energy and collective sweat equity sat around those suburban kitchen tables to take over the world, and still be home in time to help with homework.

    I learned a lot about Kate Elman Wilcott during those years. I can tell you that she is a builder.  After earning a degree in Theatre from Dalhousie University, Kate spent the 90’s in Halifax, returning to Saint John in 2001, where she continued to build and expand on an eclectic teaching career in theatre, notably through her very successful not-for-profit venture, Interaction, a children’s theatre.

    Kate has built innumerable theatre sets, and produced countless theatrical productions, while simultaneously engineering a thriving playground for the arts in our city, principally for the youngest members of our community, and in doing so, has helped to build confidence, self-esteem, empathy, and a lifelong appreciation of the arts in a cohort of young minds.

    “Training in the arts is so good for kids.  If you just focus on the people you’re working with and build a strong group dynamic, creating a safe space where people can take risks and figure out what works and what doesn’t… if you just focus on that process, then the product is guaranteed to be great.  At the same time, you’re always working to deadline…the curtain must go up.  I was very much conditioned to work to that deadline because at 7 o’clock on a Friday night at the Imperial Theatre with 600 people in the audience, the show must go on. That’s great training for any career.” 

    As the former Arts and Culture Coordinator for the City of Saint John, and a recognized leader in community development within the region, Kate has worked as a teaching artist, producer, facilitator, collaborator, and director. Her professional and volunteer experience includes policy development, university lecturer, developing public safety protocols, organizing community events, fundraising, and even touring with Symphony New Brunswick. She has performed in an award-winning film, played the bass, trumpet, piano, drums, and guitar in a series of bands, and was named a YWCA Woman of Distinction.  She sits on the Harbour Lights Board and is currently at work writing a series of stories based on anecdotes from her studios.

    Presently serving as our Member of Legislature for Saint John West Lancaster, Kate is at the helm of a very busy constituency and is out working hard most days to build a better province for all of us to enjoy.  At an age when her peers are winding down and looking to divest responsibility, Kate, with her deep-rooted work ethic and sturdy moral compass, is taking on a greater community role, exemplifying the credo of a favourite literary detective, “Everybody counts, or nobody counts.” Kate is an honourable human being, a neighbour you can count on…the kind you want to run for office and represent you, to sift through the politics of competing interests, to search for solutions, and build a better world where we can all belong.  She has my respect, she has my friendship, and she will always have my vote.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    Ok… so, let’s go backwards for the origin story. I’m the MLA for Saint John West-Lancaster and have served in this role for just over a year, and prior to that I was the Arts and Culture Coordinator for the City of Saint John. For 18 years I ran a non-profit arts organization that focused on community development through the arts, which I founded in 2001 when I moved back to Saint John from Nova Scotia. During those years I also raised my two children and a couple thousand more that I worked with in my studios and in schools throughout southern New Brunswick. I spent the 90s in Halifax, studying and working at Dalhousie University, and professional theatres and schools across the province; that’s also when I met my favourite person in the world who’s been by my side since 1992…that’s my husband, Mike.  And before that I was a west side kid who loved to climb trees, and swim at Dominion Park, and play music, and act in plays, and play sports. For the first two weeks of my life, I lived at 53 Elliott Row, before the Elmans moved to the west side, where I’ve lived ever since.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Ok so when I was young, you’re often focused on getting to move on to the next phase of life…so middle school to high school, or graduation from university to the career world. But when I hit 50, I realized that the best part of life is who I am right now. It changes… I change each day with new experiences, but I enjoy being the age I am now, and while I know that I have opportunities ahead of me, I also know each day is to be savoured. And by savoured, I mean we have work to do, and we have to get it done. I fully feel with every ounce of my being that we’re here to serve and make the world better for each other, whether it’s through charity, or making people feel they belong, or nurturing, or entertaining, or problem solving. It’s our legacy and our purpose. I also embarrass far less than I did as a younger woman, and I like that.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    The little physical things I guess, that remind you that you’ve lived a good life. The aches and pains remind us that we’re still here…some of them I wish I didn’t have. My dad is 94, his sister and brother-in-law are 92 and 93, and they have such amazing humour and chutzpah…a certain mindset. I can only hope to be as blessed.

    One of the absolute worst things about getting older are the targeted ads on social media. The algorithms that think I really want to do chair yoga, or buy progressive lenses, and I really want to lose 30 pounds this month, or help my daughter raise her 13 kids on the farm. It’s insulting.

    What would you title this chapter of your life?

    GSD (Get Shit Done)

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    The boundless energy and time. I like to think I have managed to hang on to the inner workings of youth. Maybe it’s because I spent so many years playing with young people as my career, or maybe it’s because age…ahem maturity, never seemed like a good enough reason to stop playing, and that’s probably because my coworkers were teenagers for many years and that was very nourishing. I’ve never given aging a lot of thought … it was never something I placed above being genuine and kind…or just being myself.   My grandmother lived to 94 and she lived with us in her 90’s, and I remember in my 20’s shooting baskets in the driveway and she would come out and shoot baskets with me and to me that was normal.   My mom who died at aged 84 was doing yoga until the very end and had a chin up bar in her closet.  I think I’ve managed to hang on to the playfulness of youth, because that’s how I was raised and that’s the perspective I have, but it’s the time and energy that is imbalanced.  I think of my father, a mischievous charismatic prankster at 94. I guess we never appreciate what we have now, comparing ourselves to our 20-year-old selves, but why?  Sure thirty-five-year-olds have it good, but they don’t realize they have it good.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Oh, this was a hard one.  Living a public life brings with it so much, but at the end of the day just knowing that you were honest and true and worked damn hard, is the greatest way to fall asleep. That’s not a lesson I needed to learn myself but one I need to remind myself of when the work gets hard to turn off. I wore the weight of a lot of little people’s lives and their turmoils for decades, and later as a municipal worker with a portfolio working with various demographics and files, and now the lives of constituents and people all the over the province. There will always be buzz and easy trolling comments flying around, but I know I’m solid with people close to me who are good, kind, and honest. And people can disappoint you, but that’s on them more than it’s on you. At the end of the day, we have our own truth and I sleep well at night.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    It’s a quote by Viola Spolin, who was the premiere leader in the modern improv world, Spolin was a large influence on my approach to creating with others, and I still use her ideas today.

    “Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves. It creates an explosion that for the moment frees us from handed-down frames of reference, memory choked with old facts and information and undigested theories and techniques of other people’s findings. Spontaneity is the moment of personal freedom when we are faced with reality, and see it, explore it and act accordingly. In this reality the bits and pieces of ourselves function as an organic whole. It is the time of discovery, of experiencing, of creative expression.”

    I spent almost 30 years teaching and directing in studios and rehearsal halls, and the majority of that time was focused on play and intuition. I also used this theory to work in non-theatre environments such as corporate groups that needed a refresher on group dynamics, or classrooms, and community groups. Sometimes a person can get so bogged down on “the way it’s always been done” or “the end goal has to be…” or “they just don’t behave the way I want them to…” and this mindset of comfort can prevent progress or reaching the goal.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    ‘Yes.  Well, I have far too many favourite words but a word I use a lot is a Yiddish word, chutzpah. Chutzpah doesn’t just mean character, charisma or moxy…it’s very nuanced, like a lot of Yiddish words.  You know it when you see it. Sometimes it can mean a little mischievous, sometimes it can be a bit darker, but it’s always said in a positive way. My dad and his friends at The Villa… they have a lot of chutzpah.’  I ask Kate if she has chutzpah.  She smiles in a reflective, playful way and says, ‘yes, I have chutzpah, and I can up the chutzpah ante when needed.’

    Describe your perfect day.

    Well, I thought it was last Thanksgiving Sunday and then I stepped on a nest of yellow jacket hornets… but really it was a beautiful day.  We brought our Thanksgiving dinner up to the cottage.  I think everybody was at peace that day…until the peace was dispatched by the yellow jackets.  A perfect day for me is a day surrounded by the people I love; walking along city streets and popping into good coffee shops or a pub; being in a studio and creating with people; playing in the woods; learning; great conversations; time spent with my children; and a great meal made by Mike, which is every day.  

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    Well, first of all, I wouldn’t have tea, I think I’d like to host a dinner party…Mike would cook. There’s a great play called Top Girls by Carol Churchill, and the second half of the play is a dinner party with all sorts of more obscure famous chicks: Pope Joan, Dull Gret, Isabella Bird, Lady Niko…I saw the play when I was 22, it was staged when I was at Dal, and I have often pondered who I’d invite over the years. I prefer a feisty dinner party to a quaint tea. 

    I would absolutely love to spend time with my mom, and my mother-in-law who passed away in August, both of whom still had so many stories to tell, and my grandmothers as well… I would love to be able to talk to them at this point in my life. My mother had me when she was 43 and she passed when I was 40 so I didn’t get to experience that relationship as a more tenured woman.  I would love to share some of my more recent life events with her.  Both of my grandmothers were kick-ass women who quietly but boldly broke the glass ceilings of the early 20th century in their own ways. My paternal grandmother was one of the first women to drive in Saint John, and my mom’s mom ran a business. 

    You know there is a great photo wall in Fredericton in Chancery Place of all the female MLAs who served in New Brunswick, some living, and some passed… I’d like to invite a few of the pioneer female MLA’s as well, and at the head of the table I would seat our current premier, Susan Holt.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Hearing people laugh.  I like following the lives of the kids that I’ve worked with over the last 35 years, seeing them grow, and following their adventures as adults.  I’m also extremely happy organizing something in the community and then standing back and seeing people connect and find their joy…that brings me joy.

    I absolutely love the camaraderie my little family has. We don’t have much time together lately but those stolen 48 hours when there’s a weekend visit or a stopover are the absolute best.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    I don’t think I feel guilty about anything, but I do enjoy taking naps during movies and a cozy night in…they are few and far between these days.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I believe that we stick around through the energy and work that we do while we’re here. It’s like we are little ripples in time. I know that there are people who came before us, either blood relatives or mentors who are living on in the work I do, in lessons I’ve passed along to children who are now teachers and parents, so if that is living on after we die then yes, there is a life after death. It’s a very agnostic way of looking at things, and I also think it’s important to focus on the here and now. 

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    Oh, I couldn’t possibly start with a eulogy…it’ll be a long party.  But the epitaph would probably read “….and curtain” which can signify the end or the beginning.  The curtain opens and closes the play.

    Authors note:

    I have included an additional question to the LOLIW interview this session: What would you title this chapter of your life?  I was curious how previous interviewees might answer as well…so I asked them.

    Sr. Rhona Gulliver

    “Wisdom, Wit, and Woolies”

    Dr. Margaret Anne Smith

    “The Intentional Years”

    (Iwona) Maria Kubacki

    “Ch-Ch-Changes”

    Margo Beckwith Byrne

    “Coming Full Circle”

    Shova Rani Dhar

    “Renaissance”

    Jan Lucy

    “Revival”

  • In Conversation with Jan Lucy

    I wasn’t looking for a new friend when I met this captivating woman.  She was waiting for me in what we now refer to as the ‘therapy pool,’ the LOLIW early morning aquacise class at the local YMCA.  A large part of me believes she was sent to me by someone who now ‘walks invisible.’ Jan’s scientific rationalist core would smile at the notion, but there are days when I believe I have her half convinced in the power of a good God Box.  Exquisitely kind, intelligent, politically progressive, community minded, and sea-loving, Jan moved to Saint John from Ontario with her husband, Don, three years ago to be close to the water in retirement. 

    Graduating with a degree in English from the University of Guelph, a proud Guelph ‘Griffin’, excelling in competitive swimming, Jan lived and worked for much of her career as a campus administrator at a satellite campus of Nipissing University in a small Ontario town called Bracebridge, cottage country for the rich and famous including such stars as Stephen Spielberg, Goldie Hawn and Martin Short.  ‘I bumped into Kurt Russell at a bar once,’ she laughs. 

    Born in Picton, Ontario, her early childhood was spent in Germany as her father was a meteorologist seconded to the military. She grew up in Ottawa and met her husband by putting an ad in the Toronto Star classifieds. ‘Where are all the Alan Aldas in the world?’ she wrote.  ‘He was a feminist, he was a humorist, and he was political,’ she explains. She received 44 responses. ‘Don was in my ‘no’ pile,’ she laughs.  ‘It was my girlfriend who pulled out Don’s letter and said, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?‘  So, I wrote to him, and he wrote back and the rest, as they say, is history.’

    After a series of unsuccessful pregnancies and adoption attempts, Jan eventually privately adopted her first child, Vincent, from Brazil.  ‘It was my labour,’ she remembers, describing the painful journey that eventually led to the great joy of bringing home their first son.  ‘When he was 4, I knew I really wanted another child and so it was back to Children’s Aid to begin again. This time it was different. Now we were considered a ‘black family,’ and so it was more a case of how many do you want?  We went to the front of the line and through a progressive adoption process we eventually welcomed our second son, Omar.  I was 39 by the time he arrived, and he was like a kitten climbing the drapes.’

    Since arriving in Saint John three years ago, Jan, socially dexterous, with charming old-world manners, and an earnest desire to connect and give back, has worked with new Canadians helping them navigate and acclimate, she has become an active member of the Saint John Naturalist Society, engaging in  ‘citizen science’. and data collection, and is a member of the Lift Community Choir, singing and supporting local causes. Most days she can be found hiking or bird watching in our beautiful province in the company of her husband, Don, and her LOL dog, Siskin.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I grew up the youngest of 3 children in a loving home. I lost my father at aged 14, when he died in a British-European plane crash…no survivors.  I went to the University of Guelph and received a degree in English where I was also a Guelph Griffin, a synchronized swimmer.  I have been married to my husband Don for 38 years, after meeting him through the Toronto Star’s Companions Wanted section. I have 4 children, two stepdaughters and two adopted boys…I like to say they were all born in my heart.  I worked for 20 years as a campus administrator for Nipissing University’s Muskoka campus where I had the best students and faculty to grow along with.  I moved to Saint John three years ago at the age of 64, buying my house online, not knowing what would come next or who I would meet.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    The best thing…is that I’ve had the opportunity to get older.  So many people don’t. Whether it’s disease or accidents or suicide…and I think maybe it’s because of Vincent (son) being ill… and family member struggles with mental health…this idea that it could end for any of us.  So just to make it this far has been great…I hope I still have many more years, but you don’t know.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Feeling like I’m running out of time…and again maybe it’s because my dad died so suddenly…he was only 46, that I worry about my life being taken away from me before I’m finished doing the things I want to do.  I’ve always been a big list maker and I like to accomplish many things in a day. What’s that old expression, “I want to arrive at the graveside all dishevelled, skid in and say, ‘Wow, what a ride!’ I don’t want to sit in a lazy boy…that’s not my thing.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Being more playful, I think.  I grew up with this ‘What will the neighbours think?’ mentality.  So not worrying so much about what’s expected, not worrying if your socks match.  I almost didn’t give my husband a second date because he didn’t put his cutlery together on his plate.  Or when someone is coming over…are there dust balls?  I was more playful as a younger woman.  We stayed outside and played until the streetlights went out.  So, I find if I’m given an opportunity now, I try to be more spontaneous, less wary.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    I don’t know who said it to me about your impact on your environment or on the world…that a single drop of water can overflow a cistern or a well… so not to underestimate what your small gesture or your small action can do, positively. So, I try to lift others up…I need to listen more…I know that…but by listening… if others want my advice, to try and provide what is needed. I also know I need that too. So…we all struggle in life, and I guess that’s why I love the pool so much…and why we call it the ‘therapy pool.’ It’s sharing those struggles that helps us remain optimistic and hopeful. And celebrating the high notes too, like when your son asks to speak to your friend on the phone, because he knows she is important to you.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    “Don’t tell me not to worry, the things I worry about never happen.” (Unknown author). The other thing that my mother used to say all the time that kind of ties in to that is…’this too shall pass.’  And the whole idea that anxiety happens in the past or in the future but not when you are truly here, in the present.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    I do. It’s a made-up word, it’s ‘snigg.” So my mom and my grandmom were very progressive with their use of technology…I think they were probably emailing before I was.  My mom meant to type, after a very sentimental message, the word ‘sniff’…like after a sad story, ‘sniff’.  But typed ‘snigg’ instead.  So we’ve all taken on this accidental word whenever we come across anything sentimental or that touches our heart, we’ll always write ‘snigg,’  And what’s kind of cool is that my son does it now too, so it’s a three generational thing now.

    Describe your perfect day.

    This one was a little more challenging for me, but it has to do with water…being near water, being on it, being in it…that’s where the day starts…with water.  And then learning, I’d like to learn something and whether that’s something I’ve read, something I’ve researched, gone to a lecture or a play, but something that I’ve learned.  And lastly sharing thoughts and time with friends. 

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    So… I thought about this one and I think it would be my mom’s mom, my grandmother. She was born in 1894. I just thought she was amazing.  She was an equal partner in her marriage to my grandfather who was Professor Emeritus of Botany at the University of Alberta.  She always felt it was important to be an intellectual equal with him and provide him with companionship.  She was pretty educated for her era as well.  She attended Alma College, a liberal arts college, but she also helped my grandfather type and illustrate his work for his PhD. And she raised two amazing, strong women, my aunt and my mother.  One of the stories that sort of exemplifies her is that on her 100th birthday there was a big reunion of family and she remembered everyone’s name, what they did, what their partners did, and asked wonderful questions.  Also, that same year, she was in a nursing home at that time, and she played the Virgin Mary and was on the front page of the Victoria paper wearing her blue scarf and holding a live baby, a little brown baby.  Before she died, there was a picture of her in the pageant by her bed, and her last words to my mother were, ‘I like to look at that picture and imagine I’m holding baby Vincent.’ Snigg.

    Another story is that when she first learned that I was moving in with Don, my grandmother’s response was, ‘Does she have a prenup?’ And then, I have a gay older brother, and it was just at the peak of the AIDS epidemic when he came out and he didn’t know how she would respond, and he went to her apartment and said, ‘am I allowed to come in?’ and she just reached out her arms to him.  So, I would like to have a discussion with her around how she became so wise, beyond her years, when there was homophobia, there was racism, and women were subservient in society…what drew her to be more? What was her thought process?

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Taking some risk..like joining a choir…I mean, not bungee jumping, but I guess maybe moving to New Brunswick. I think sometimes life can be too comfortable. Do you know the story about the lobster?  The whole thing about how a lobster grows…how it has to shed its shell because it’s getting too tight, and becomes very vulnerable because it doesn’t have its hard exoskeleton. It could be dashed against the rocks…but to grow it  has to shed its shell. I always loved that story.

    The other is obviously learning new things. I never thought I would be a bird watcher until I moved here.  I love the fact that we are so multicultural here too because where I used to live it was very white…boring…one dimensional.

    And then helping others…which is a big part of my experience in Africa. It started with my sister probably fifteen years ago or more when she went on her dream vacation to Tanzania, and she met a young safari guide who had dreams of owning his own safari vehicle. She befriended him and helped with a website and referring some clients and creating itineraries for guests.  The guide’s wife was a schoolteacher, but she donated her salary back to their community.  They are incredibly lovely people and wanted to do more for their village. The guide eventually became a village elder and reached out to my sister for some help, initially for water, and then for a school.  They started very small… educating the village children and then as time progressed and climate change was affecting their livestock and food, our family became more involved.

    We ended up doing a sibling safari and as part of that, my brother who is a huge permaculture believer, suggested we might bring in a specialist from Kenya who had some success there, to see if there were possibilities for the village. We thought if they could start a small farm, then they could harvest the fruits and vegetables to feed the school.  They started teaching farming skills in the school and the kids began working with the permaculture and redirecting water runoff, and within 3 months they were feeding the kids at the school. After that some of the mammas started planting as well and the school expanded, and we were able to fund kids who couldn’t afford school fees through the ones who could, and the garden was expanded to 7 acres, and they sold the extra produce.  This all happened over the course of many years but we still talk to the village the first Friday of every month. I asked them once if I could ever be a Maasai chief.  Women don’t traditionally have much position, but I was told, not long ago by that same guide who my sister befriended, ‘Jan, you’ll be happy to know, I have three women on my advisory board now.’ Helping others brings me joy…we’re a ripple in the pond.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    I try not to feel guilty…but I do. It’s around sweet things, specifically chocolate…really good chocolate. I never feel guilt over a kitkat…I mean going out and spending a fortune on high end truffles, because it’s money for sugar.  I feel like it’s a drug and it seems so silly and petty and something I should just let go of but at the same time, as it provides me with pleasure, why should I feel guilty about it…why don’t I deserve it?

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    Ahh…I wish I did. I believe energy leaves me when I pass.  I want to hope there is something … maybe it’s living with a scientist. I don’t think there is, but I’ve also had these things happen…and I can’t explain it …so maybe there is something beyond what we know…but I don’t know what it is.  Is it the pearly gates…I don’t think so.  When I went on my sibling safari with my brother and sister…we were in Kenya and we were sitting at a resort and this man was wandering around singing, and all of a sudden he started singing ‘You Lift Me Up’ by Josh Groban  which was my mother’s funeral song and my brother and sister and I all looked at each other…I mean…in the middle of Africa…a song so meaningful to us all.  So, it’s those kind of things, but at the same time…I don’t know.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I think I would like it to say…and this is a big task but…’She left the world a little better than when she arrived.’

  • In Conversation with Shova Rani Dhar

    Shova Dhar is my oldest friend. We met in third grade.  She was the smartest kid in my class, and in most rooms she enters I suspect.  Becoming her friend changed the trajectory of my life, motivating me to push myself academically in a way I might never have done had we never met.  I can still remember our Grade 3 Health project, a beautifully drawn portrait of a boy skeleton, with breakout close-up drawings for the more intricate bones.   Shova was the artist, I, the lucky bone labeller. We wrote a play together some years later, titled, ‘How do you like your murder, steamed or boiled?’ earning a solid A for our efforts in advanced English.

    Shova describes herself as a ‘gregarious introvert.’ She is, in fact, a peerless, exceptionally gifted human, a scientist and a seer, an artist and a stargazer…there is no one else in all the world like her.  She is an ageless, exotic beauty, and ‘my brilliant friend.’  A biologist by trade, an accomplished artist by nature, and an animal lover (all species), Shova exhibits the kind of charisma that only storybook heroines possess.  Fiercely loyal, generous in spirit, she is a boundless treasure to anyone lucky enough to call her friend.

    Shova earned a BSc in Biology and a Bachelor of Education from UNB. She has published research in marine biology, worked as a lab instructor at UNB, and as a Laboratory manager at the NB Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. She has studied salmon anemia, virus tested potatoes, and worked in animal health and rabies.  She has been responsible for fish, meat and dairy inspection, food recalls and risk assessment.  For the last twenty-five years she has worked for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and for the last 17 years as a food safety specialist, currently residing in Halifax, N.S.  

    Of course, I asked her what she eats, and while she wasn’t comfortable discussing her food choices on the record, she did share that listeria is real, and that as we get older, we can’t fight it off as well, or if we’re too young, or don’t have enough stomach acid, or are pregnant. ‘I’ll be eating a lot of mush that’s hot or frozen as I get older,’ she laughs, ‘and I don’t eat out much as I am too leery of food handling practices that I can’t control.’

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born with mixed heritage in the heat of the summer, the younger sister to one older brother but grew up with my Canadian extended family on my maternal side, as my father was killed in a car accident when I was only 8 months old. I grew up outside of Saint John and was formally educated at the University of New Brunswick.  I am a biologist, an educator, a Food Safety Specialist, a Reiki Master, and a Theta Healer™, with a love of artistic expression, especially the performing arts. As a strong unionist, I have always focused on championing the rights of others who cannot fight for themselves. I have married my best friend, travelled to many countries, enjoyed the company of many beings (human and other species), and have learned to work in light and energy. That’s my other side…the ‘woo-woo side’ as people would say.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Ahh…perspective. You can see the bigger picture and therefore there’s less drama about every little hiccup that happens.  Even though there are times I don’t do that, as we age our edges get rounded off a little and you have a better perspective of what life is … you see the span of your own life, and things you used to think were the end of the world are no longer the end of the world for you.  That’s the best thing.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Coping with loss. That’s the thing that gives me anxiety.  Can I do it?  Losing the ones you love, the pets you love, your cohorts, your generation.  The feeling of gradual obsolescence.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    I found this a very difficult question because there are so many things I would want to retrieve and some I wouldn’t want to, however, the sense of endless possibility, and the feeling of immortality, or ignorance of the finality of this temporary corporeal existence that we’re in right now, is something I would love to experience again.  As younger women we were more present in our lives, we lived more in the moment, we weren’t worried so much about what’s gonna happen when our time was limitless, we weren’t concerned if we could squeeze it all in… we never even thought about all that, we were just living, and I miss that, that spontaneity, being in the moment, a time when we were less reflective and less conscious.

    Now with perspective we’re always weighing one thing against another, whereas younger people are more present in their lives…even if you were full of angst as a young person, you were still anchored in the moment…not worrying about the quality of the experience.  People say youth is wasted on the young.  It’s not. They’re not wasting it…they’re really in it. They don’t even realize how precious it is.  That is the sad part. They don’t yet own their magic…they’re magical but they don’t know it yet.  The magic of being fully immersed in living.  If we were able to go back in time, we would be super powerful, and we could use that power for good or ill.  I would hope we would use all that energy and power of youth for good, but it depends on the trappings of the soul.  People are still flawed even armed with perspective.  Maybe that’s why we can’t go back.  God is pretty smart.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    I don’t know, I haven’t learned too many easy ones.  I have so many lessons to learn.  For me, so far, forgiveness is the big one …forgiveness and gratitude. Forgiveness of yourself and others.  It’s hard to do that. But gratitude is huge as well…to learn how to maintain gratitude…because you cannot be unhappy and feel gratitude at the same time. Those two emotions cannot exist at the same time.  That has changed my life knowing that.  So, whenever I’m terribly unhappy, I imagine a scenario, even if I have to invent one, a scenario where I feel grateful.  I’ll share my go to scenario with you.  I imagine I’m carrying a big armful of priceless china in boxes, not very well packaged, and I have to get through a door, and I can’t manage it without maybe dropping a parcel.  There is a guy on the other side of a busy street, he sees me struggling…he crosses the busy street, arrives at my side, and opens the door for me and I can enter in and I think ‘Thank you,’ and I feel gratitude washing over me…gratitude for him being so kind, and then I go through the door.  And at that moment if I’m unhappy I allow the gratitude from the scenario to wash over me and it helps…small acts of kindness, real or imagined, help a lot.  I use it all the time. The shift is immediate when you feel that gratitude wash over you and the sadness may come back but its less when you can feel gratitude.   It brings instant perspective.

    Other lessons I’m still trying to learn are trust, to trust in God, and to accept the things that I cannot change.  Those are hard lessons that I’m still trying to learn.  Forgiveness…I’ve worked hard on forgiveness… and I’m getting better at it.  I used to be full of resentful thoughts. I’m a very protective person of the people I love. I’m a grudge holder from way back.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    I have four quotes on two themes.  I couldn’t pick.  First, ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’ And I put in brackets…this is not part of the quote, Begin it now,’ because I’m a procrastinator.  I had it in my university dorm room, its Goethe, and it has served me for many, many years.  A second quote on the same theme is from the Ghost of Christmas Present (Dickens), ‘There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish.  The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short and suddenly, you’re not here anymore.’  I always think, let’s not procrastinate with the important things.

    The second theme is again from Scrooge, the 1970’s soundtrack from Leslie Bricusse on happiness.  ‘Happiness is whatever you want it to be.’  I had that at my wedding as one of my songs. And finally, a quote by Kurt Vonnegut, ‘If this isn’t nice, then I don’t know what is.” It’s a quote I learned from my husband, and when I hear his voice in my mind saying it, it calms me down and gives me perspective and makes me feel gratitude.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    ‘Justice’ and ‘perseverance’. I have two, but I love justice, just the sound of it, it’s a sweet sound to my ear.  It’s a real part of who I am, and it always has been.  I’ve always been a bully fighter in school, a fierce advocate for others…and courage is there because of it.  It takes courage to fight for justice.  In tarot, the symbol for strength is a lion and, being a Leo, I’ve always felt it was just part of who I am. It takes strength to fight for justice.  And ‘perseverance’, it’s a very important word for me as well.  You have to persevere…things aren’t instant, and you have to keep fighting for the things that really count.  You have to persevere against your own weakest nature. If you want to obtain things you have to work hard and again that comes back to my quote, ‘begin it now.’ When things aren’t easy you have to persevere and if you don’t, you’re giving up on yourself.

    Describe your perfect day.

    This was harder than I thought it would be, but I experienced the perfect day not that long ago with my family…this summer actually, and I reflected on that day when I formulated my answer.  The day starts with me waking up from a restful sleep and with good energy.  There are some planned activities but nothing stressful.  A nice morning stretch…I move my joints…I have a good breakfast.  I spend time with the ones I love, and unexpected events lead to unanticipated fun.  There is the sense of surprise, camaraderie and sharing laughter.  The unexpected events put you in the present.  I don’t always want to be planning and then judging whether or not things went well…it harkens back to the youthful joy of just being alive.  And after camaraderie and laughter, then you come back to your place of peace and revisit the day’s events together with your family.  You retell the story of the day, sharing your impressions, enjoying it all a second time in the telling…and then you go to bed feeling grateful knowing you’re loved and that you’ve loved others.  That’s a perfect day. 

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    I would want to see my father.  I would want to talk to him about his decision to agree to leave this life when he was only 38. He died in a car accident. But I believe that people talk to their creator before beginning a new life, we choose our soul family and choose the lessons that we want to learn.  Maybe my lesson this time around was learning to be a woman who grows up without a father. His absence in my life has been so huge and yet I never really got to know him. At some point he decided he would come here and be my father and leave, allowing me the space to learn the lesson I had chosen. I’d like to speak with him about his decision and ask why he left me…because I know he loved me.

    Just recently I looked at my father’s passport picture and I feel like I saw him for the first time, and I’ve looked at that picture a thousand times, and I realized that he is in many ways still here with me.

    The other person I’d like to have tea with would be Carl Sagan.  I’d like to talk to him about intelligent design.  I’d like to explore his thoughts on that.  I had the hugest crush on him, I was in love with him for so long.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Creating things… creating things for others to enjoy, and myself.  Anything from food, a good meal, making baklava, or creating a more fair, stable, and safe workplace. I do a lot of   Occupational Health and Safety (OSH)…that’s near and dear to me.  I also like making music…learning a new piano piece or improving my vocal range while I’m singing in the car.  Nobody needs to hear it, but I get great joy when I manage to expand my range and enjoy little successes.  Artwork of course, I like creating art, that gives me a lot of joy.  I don’t do it a lot anymore, but I will again… soon.  I’ve been doing some needle felting and making some 3d figures and those are fun little projects and after making art I always think that was so much fun, why don’t I do this more often.  And maybe writing too because this project and thinking about my mother’s story…I think I’d like to delve a little deeper into that.  I’d like to work more in watercolour, I have to persevere there, watercolour is unpredictable, and trust is not there, so learning to trust the process and persevering… and then revel in the outcome, whether it’s what you planned or not.

    A second source of joy for me is being the presence of or caring for animals, especially baby critters of any sort.  To have a kitten in your hand, and care for it is the most joyful thing. Looking after the young of any species I find very joyful.   We have an unofficial office cat named Spooky and I enjoy looking after her right now.  She is my therapy cat.  We do a daily session before I enter the office.

    My third joy is stargazing.  I look forward every year to watching the Perseids meteor showers that peak on my birthday in August. I usually go out to the cottage and lie on the beach or in a field near Freeman Patterson’s place at Shamper’s Bluff to watch them.  I watch as well for lunar and solar eclipses, and, of course, the aurora borealis.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Again, I found this question difficult because I don’t feel guilty about too many things except for maybe online shopping and surfing the internet… scrolling, that’s a guilty pleasure that I’d like to get rid of… it’s a bad habit.  It’s wasting your life.  It’s instant pleasure, but it’s a distraction from the real work that we’re here to do. I could be in a studio, where I can make messes.  That’s real pleasure. ‘Boldness is genius.’ We need to stop procrastinating.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    Absolutely. The basis of my belief in God and in an afterlife is from my grandmother. She…as a child had blood poisoning and died and went to another place, a beautiful garden with a man who she described as very much like Jesus, lovely white robes, a gentle man…holding her hand, walking along a path and she was so happy, she had never felt such joy and contentment in her whole life.  They walked for a long time and then he said, ‘Fern, we’ll soon be near the end of this path and when we get there I’ll have a question for you, and I want you to answer honestly. He said, ‘You can stay in the garden with me or if you want you can go and see your mother.’ At that point she looked down from a height and she could see her lifeless body and her mother bending over her, weeping.  And then she said, ‘I think I want to go see my mother,’ and she was returned to her body, and she lived a very long life.  Every day, twice a day, she was on her knees on the hard floor kneeling beside her bed, in the morning and the evening, and she would pray to God and say how grateful she was for being allowed to live.  She lived a life that showed me that what she experienced as a young girl was the truth. The rest of her life was a testament to her decision to return here. She would feed homeless people.  She never knew if that was the man in the garden coming to test her or see if she was still happy to be here. That’s how she lived her life.

    My father grew up in the Hindu tradition and although he never shared that with me, I think it worked its way into my understanding that God is there all the time. We drove across the site where he was killed every day, twice a day my whole childhood life, and we could feel him there.  My brother, a year older, as a child saw his “Daddy” standing at the accident site there once.  

    Finally, through Theta Healing …Theta uses the theta brainwave state, a very relaxed state, where you can access your subconscious beliefs. Part of my training to become a Theta healer involved accessing spirit and listening to what they have to say.  We worked in teams to access spirits we did not know, rooted in our training partner’s life, not our own.  And in your mind’s eye, images reveal themselves with qualities recognizable to the person you’re working with, and you could ask the spirits questions.  Spirit is there.  Our souls continue and come back in other forms…I think all those things are possible.  Obviously, there is continuance of our souls.  Theta experiences have helped me know that.   Sometimes you might worry, ‘am I making this up,’ but sometimes being open, things come to you that you don’t understand but when you share it with the person asking questions, they understand it.  They know what I’m talking about…I don’t…I’m just a vessel, I’m just a process.  The other person is the authenticator.  So yes, I know there is something more, and I don’t fear death.  And when we do die, I don’t think we’ll be very far away.

    What does it look like…the afterlife? A hyper reality where we are totally supported all the time…where we know we are taken care of always.  We are complete there.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    How I would like to be remembered…I’d hope someone would say that I was kind, and also that I was fierce, a protector, a good friend, and that I knew how to have fun, that I was fun loving… I’m self-described as a perpetual adolescent…that I was confidant, and had lots of personality.

  • In Conversation with Margo Beckwith-Byrne

    At the grand dame age of 65, Margo Beckwith-Byrne self-identifies as a ‘little old lady’ proper, although her trim, athletic figure and sporty lifestyle are characteristic of a much younger woman. An avid tennis and pickleball player, Margo is a spitfire that punches well above her fighting weight in any given scenario. She is confidant and decisive, and a natural born manager of men. On the personality tests that assign an animal archetype I’d guess Margo is more at home in the shark tank than the petting zoo. She is spirited, and salty, and strong…she’s had to be strong. Widowed at 42 when her husband went out for a swim on a family vacation and never came back in, she became a single working mom overnight, her kids were then 2,5 and 7.

    Equipped with a B.Ed. in Home Economics, Margo taught for two years in Labrador City before transferring her skills to work more in keeping with her natural aptitudes and temperament. She became a boss.  With the mind of an engineer, and an innate understanding of process and efficiency, Margo started her career in business, first at the Saint John General Hospital, where she very quickly assumed a supervisor role, and later in HR, first at Fundy Cable and later at Labatt Breweries, as an HR Manager.  Her last job was as Senior Vice President at Wyndham.  She was downsized at 54, which today she describes as a gift, one she did not recognize at the time.  An astute businesswoman and investor, Margo never worked another day, and is a poster girl for how to retire well.

    About a year ago, Margo visited the ER with what she describes as stomach discomfort and was eventually diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer. Since then, she has undergone surgery, and chemotherapy which she says is “the most miserable thing you could ever do.’ Margo tells me she is lucky because the cancer she has, MSI-H, is rare and responsive to her current immunotherapy. Her cancer-versary is July 31st.  She shares that the hashtag for colorectal cancer is ‘KFG…Keep fucking going.’  

    Margo speaks with the clear-cut, resolute voice of a woman who has found her truth, and in the process of documenting her wisdom, I caught myself re-evaluating a little of my own inner engineering. I am grateful for what she shared with me on a sunny afternoon, at her beautiful home that overlooks the sea.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born a Saint Johner and I grew up wanting to leave.  I had children, and then I wanted to come back.  I went to school first at St. FX and then finished at UNB Fredericton … I really liked sewing, I liked making clothes, I didn’t like cooking so much, but I ended up with a B.Ed. in Home Economics and after that I knew very quickly that I didn’t want to teach.  What was important to me at a young age was financial stability and so I spent the rest of my life trying to achieve that. There were lots of twists and turns but ultimately, I spent my whole life believing that happiness and contentment lay in things outside of me, and now I realize I was wrong.  Not everybody is afforded the knowledge that it’s not the external circumstances but rather the internal…because maybe they don’t achieve as many of their material goals, and I was very lucky to acquire mine, only to find out it doesn’t work. Some people still think it’s that car they’re saving for that will bring you happiness… I know it’s not that. 

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    I know it’s cliché, but it’s not giving a fuck about the good opinion of others. Hands down… the best.  Fuck you all!

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Your body breaking down. Not being able to physically do the things that you used to be able to do.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Let me flesh it out this way. I wish when I was young, I had had a better sense for how good I really looked.  I spent a lot of time in my youth wrecking vacations, get-togethers, events, thinking about my weight. I resent that time now. The focus growing up in my house and with friends was often about, ‘Are you fat or are you skinny.’  And the thing is, when I look back at my life, I was never fat, but it’s all relative.  Your appearance was more important than any kind of achievement.  I still have high school friends who’ll ask, ‘is she fat or skinny’. I was like 125 poinds and I would be obsessed with my weight.   Recently when I had to weigh in for chemo, the nurse said, ‘that’s great you haven’t lost any weight,’ and my natural thought is well fuck, and I’ve been exercising my ass off.  I guess I’m answering the question in reverse, but I’d like to go back and tell my younger self that no matter what you weigh or how you look, you’re still beautiful. They say youth is wasted on the young.

    But what do I wish I could retain, to answer your original question, my memory… I wish I didn’t have to write everything down to remember it.  But I guess the flip side of that is I can be humbled now because fuck…I can’t remember anything. Some days even with the ball in my hand, I can’t remember who’s serving.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Oh my god… again it’s going to sound so cliché but, happiness is an inside job. It has nothing to do with your external circumstances. I’ll give you an example, someone came to my house and looked out at my view and said, ‘oh my god you must be the happiest person in the world to be able to look at this every day,’ and I looked at them and went, ‘are you out of your fucking mind?’ because ‘wherever you go, there you are.’  I don’t strive for happiness…happiness is relative and the word is overused.  I strive for peace and contentment, and I recognize that it’s a moment-to-moment thing, and the minute I move past where I’m at, to the future or to the past, I lose the present, and that does me no service, nor is it of service to the people around me.

    The other interesting thing that I’ve learned, and I’m going to try and not come off all Christian when I say this, but so many things in my life I have orchestrated, worked hard towards, and wanted so badly, that achieving the result was all I cared about, with the belief that if I achieved that result I would be happy. Things would be good…I’ll finally have what I wanted.  But the things that have brought me the most joy in my life, were unexpected things that I did not orchestrate.  So, I’m gonna say it two different ways… now, I don’t try to determine how the day will unfold… I let the Holy Spirit do it, or to be more universal, I let the universe decide because to quote the Desiderata, “No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    “The great way (life) is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” (Seng-ts’an, the 3rd Chinese patriarch of Zen)

    Or Michael Singer, who I love, his take on it is “Life is not difficult for those who prefer everything.”

    Let things come and let them pass through. It’s resistance, our free will to resist, to hold onto all that stuff, that’s what affects us and causes pain.

    Do you have a favourite word?

    Oh, you know I have a favourite word, ‘Fuck.’  It’s so versatile, it is the most versatile word on the planet, and I like it even more that it’s harsh and it’s disapproved of. 

    Describe your perfect day.

    You know I thought about this, I thought about this long and hard, and I don’t have one, and I’ll tell you why. My mother said something to me years ago and I never really understood, but I do now. She said, ‘I am only as happy as my unhappiest child’ and I thought about that and thought, oh my god, she’s right, and no matter how I try to separate myself from the lives of my children in a ‘they’re on their own journey…it’s not my journey…they need to experience whatever they experience and the universe is there to teach them,’ it’s a lifelong lesson for me.  But if you want to know what I love doing everyday- it’s playing a racquet sport and knitting.  I think for me it’s like working a Rubix cube or something…it’s a puzzle. When I’m playing tennis, every game is fresh and different and challenging. When I’m knitting, I can’t knit the same thing over and over again because I’d be bored out of my mind. I like a challenge, and I like to keep my hands busy. Also, I guess I better say this in case my kids read this, I love spending time with my grandchildren…preferably without their parents around.

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    That would be Anthony De Mello.  I discovered him in 1992, after he died, in 1987. He wrote a book called Awareness. I had been reading Wayne Dyer, but De Mello took me up to a whole different level.  He was a Jesuit priest who woke up one day and thought, the Catholics don’t have all the answers so he incorporated Hinduism and Buddhism and every other ‘ism’ that you could possibly imagine and was basically the first person who helped me understand that it’s all the same.  All religions, at their core, they’re all the same.  And I read his book a million times and gave it to as many people as I could find.  When my husband, George died, De Mello was instrumental in getting me through it all.  It helped me understand the cosmos on a different level.

    We would talk about how he got to where he is, his whole philosophy of life, death, and everything in between.  Now that he’s dead, I’d ask ‘How’s it going on the other side?’  The book, Awareness was released posthumously, it’s  just snippets from talks that he had, and it gave me a whole new lease on life, a whole new way to experience joy in ways I didn’t understand before and it started me on a journey of self-awareness.  I would love to know how he got there.  Here is an example of a story that he told.  He was a Jesuit and a professor, and he travelled extensively, and he was in a rickshaw somewhere and the guy pulling him had TB and had just pre-sold his soon to be corpse for science, for the sum of 10 dollars American. De Mello wrote that the driver was a happy man, and thought he himself, was miserable, always complaining, and so he asked the man why he was happy, and he said, ‘well, why wouldn’t I be, what’s not to be happy about?’ And for De Mello that was a beginning of understanding.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    My grandbabies, my sports, and my kids. 

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Guilty…I don’t feel guilty about stuff… ever,  so I can’t really think of one.  Maybe lame TV, I mean I’m watching Agatha Raison right now which is really poorly done but set in the Cotswolds… so I don’t care. I like lame tv and lamer murder mysteries and I mean really lame, like Midsomer Murders lame…because I can knit and not pay attention.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I certainly do, but not in the way we experience it.   Do I think that the avatar Margo goes on? No.  Do I think the consciousness that is watching Margo as she goes through life, the consciousness that neither lives nor dies, continues…yes I do. When I wake up from a dream sometimes, I really have a hard time trying to figure out whether it was a dream or reality.  Sometimes it feels like real life, starring the Margo avatar, the life that we think of as reality, is actually just another kind of dream.  I believe that when we die, we just wake up and go ‘God, that was a rush, what was that about?’

    I remember watching some three-year old’s get into a fight and I remember them being upset and thinking…that’s just kids.   Well, that’s how a higher consciousness is likely looking at us and thinking oh, that will be over soon, don’t worry about it.  I mean how can you possibly believe and take seriously anything happening on this planet when you know that there are billions of other galaxies and multi verses… and you’re gonna take this seriously, I mean, come on. I always thought if Merle Haggard’s mother died when he was 21 and in prison she would have died thinking she was a failure as a Mom.  Ultimately, he ended up a rich, country western singer. Why worry about kids…you don’t know what their journey is gonna be.

    What does life after death look like…It’s impossible to imagine. When I look up at the stars on a really clear night, I say I’m not even gonna try to figure it out. I have no frame of reference. The Buddhists have a saying, something like ‘when the Sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger, or something like that.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I don’t want a eulogy at all.  I’m not interested in the traditional experience of death. I am not arrogant enough to think that anything I say or do will matter anymore than it did when my great great great great great grandmother said whatever she said. I mean the framework that humans have established, the goalposts for life… buy a house… go to school… all that stuff is just a concept that we all agreed on.  It’s like money, money is only worth something because we’ve agreed that it does, and assigned it a value, but if money means nothing to me now, then you saying it has value is meaningless to me. 

    I never understood Jesus in the desert, when the devil comes to him and says you can have castles and all the money you want and Jesus goes, ‘yeah, no thanks, I’m good’.  I never understood that.  Now I get it.  Because no matter what you get…a big house…a fancy car…then you’ve gotta work your ass off to keep it and worry that its gonna go away. So instead of it being something to aspire to, it’s a thing that loses its joy.

    One of my favourite quotes from when I was in leadership is, “Of a great leader they will say, we did it ourselves.”  So, if I shaped anybody, or if I influenced anybody, it wasn’t because that was my intention.  If they got something out of anything I ever did, power to them, but that was not my intention.  I’m just doing my dance and if other people benefit by my dance, good for them, even if all they’re saying is ‘I hate that dance.”  I never ever wanted to be a leader, but I certainly was someone who wanted to control things, and those are two very different things. It’s funny, every now and then my kids will say, ‘you were a good mom,’ but ten years ago when they were teenagers, they were saying something else entirely…it’s all relative, and it’s all irrelevant.

  • In Conversation with (Iwona) Maria Kubacki

    I first met Maria Kubacki when we were still teenagers.  She was a friend of my brother’s… think artsy, intellectual, an outsider, by choice or design. Recently arrived home to Saint John from a Toronto private school, she was the iconic, underground campus ‘it’ girl, a ‘Lit chick’- all cat’s eye eyeliner, black tights, and arthouse lipstick.  She was clever and cool, straight out of a Sally Rooney novel, this quixotic mix of edge and vulnerability that was foreign and familiar all at once.  Her style acumen was just the pretty wing man for her real talent, an unpretentious academic mind, a well-spoken confidence, and a reverence for the written word.

    Fast forward 40 years, Maria, a fellow little old lady in waiting (possibly in denial) forwarded her initial remarks with a disclaimer: “I’m a little embarrassed and intimidated by this. I don’t want people to think, ‘who does she think she is?’ I have no particular accomplishments. I’m just answering these questions as a fellow little old lady in waiting who is in the thick of middle age and thinking about how to make the most of the last third of life.” This same little old lady in waiting, earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and has worked as a book reviewer and freelance writer as well as an associate editor, and editor.  Currently she lives and works in Ottawa as a communications manager for the federal government. She took up writing fiction a few years ago and has published her short stories.  She is married to a lovely man named Ken and has two twenty-something children, Jane, and Mike. She sidesteps the 7-sentence limit of the first interview question so adeptly, using a series of semi-colons, dashes, and ellipses, that I had to allow it. Maria Kubacki is still very clever…and cool, maybe even more so as a little old lady…in waiting.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born in Warsaw, came to Canada when I was 4 ½, lived in Quebec City briefly and grew up in Bathurst in the 70s, where we were one of the few immigrant families, but it was pretty idyllic …double-dutch in the street with my friends, summers at Youghall Beach. I went to high school at a girls’ boarding school in Toronto where I was more focused on smoking, drinking and New Wave music and fashion than on my education, and where I started going by my middle name, Maria, instead of Iwona (my actual first name, pronounced Ee-vohn-ah and mangled by nearly everyone because of the “w”), or Yvonne (what everyone called me in Bathurst because it’s the French version of Iwona) – it was fairly common back then for immigrants to change their names to something easier for Canadians to pronounce, but it was weird and embarrassing to me to have all these names, and sometimes still is, as my parents, Polish family and friends still call me Iwona (or Iwcia, the diminutive, pronounced Eef-cha)…Bathurst friends and some cousins call me Yvonne, and everyone else calls me Maria.

    I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I loved reading – my parents were and still are big readers so we always had lots of books in the house, and also I learned English the summer I turned 9 from a British family from the Isle of Man who had all kinds of children’s classics all over their house, the Narnia series and that sort of thing – so I ended up getting a BA and then MA in English at UNB.

    I was quite lost in my twenties and dragged my MA on for many more years than I care to admit, but during that time I started doing freelance writing as a way to earn a bit of money and avoid my thesis – art reviews for a magazine called Arts Atlantic, and book reviews for the Telegraph Journal, which eventually led to a job as associate editor and then editor of the New Brunswick Reader, the Telegraph’s weekend magazine.

    I got married and had my two kids in Saint John before moving to Ottawa where we have lived for 22 years and where I wrote for the Ottawa Citizen and worked as a writer/editor at what was then Canwest News service (now Postmedia).

    For the last 16 years I have been working as a communications manager for the federal government and recently I started writing and publishing fiction, which I had never even thought about doing until I turned 50.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    People always say things like not caring what others think anymore, or not sweating the small stuff. Sadly, I still sweat the small, medium, and large stuff – I sweat all of it. I haven’t yet reached the part of getting older where you’re relaxed and just flowing and enjoying life. I’m still in the thick of it – middle age, work, responsibilities. I think the “best thing about getting older” hasn’t come yet, or maybe I’m just doing it all wrong.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Becoming set in your ways and more reluctant to try new things, acting and thinking like you are even older than you are. You’re drunk and high a lot more when you’re young, maybe that’s why you’re more open to new experiences then.  Children are like that naturally…they’ll be friends with anyone, they’ll try new things, and as we age, we tend to stick to what’s familiar, what we know we will like, people like us etc. Our world can get smaller and smaller.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Being open to life, people, and experiences.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Children and dogs have it all figured out – be in the moment, and enjoy every little thing, every day. Our beloved golden doodle, Tippy, who we had to put down a few years ago, was still chasing rabbits, making new friends, and wagging her tail the night she died.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    Does anyone actually have a favourite quote or do they just Google “famous quotes” when asked? I don’t have one off the top of my head, but whenever I see one from the Stoics, it resonates – like the Marcus Aurelius one at the top of your blog, which I love and need to meditate on every day, because I don’t think I am living my life this way now: “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly.”  I have lived a pretty cautious, small life. My anxiety, a lifelong affliction, has always held me back in life, even when I was younger. I would like to become a more fearless or at least less fearful person. Do more, see more, travel more. One of the reasons that it’s fun to read and write is that we all only have one life to live, and we have to make choices, and for some of us fear holds us back, but through writing and reading we can vicariously live many lives. 

    Do you have a favourite word?

    ‘Actually‘ – with index finger held up, because I’m a bit of a know-it-all, as my family and friends will tell you. One anecdote: on a family trip to Florida we took a drive through a ritzy area in St. Petersburg where there were big mansions…so we’re driving around  and all having a nice time, and we drive by this house that has these ornate pillars and my sister-in-law says ‘oh look, there are statues of dolphins on them’ and I was trying to fight the reflex and telling myself, ‘don’t do it’  and then it just came out, ‘Actually, I think they’re manatees.’ Everyone just rolled their eyes at me but they actually were manatees! It’s become part of the family narrative. 

    Describe your perfect day.

    Any day when I’m on a beach anywhere, in almost any weather, or just somewhere near the ocean or near water. It could be Venice, or Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman, or Bar Harbor, Maine. Or Brackley Beach in PEI, Sandbanks Provincial Park, Saints Rest in Saint John.  I think it connects back to happy memories of growing up in the Maritimes, spending a lot of time at Youghall Beach in Bathurst every summer throughout childhood and my teen years, and then living in Saint John for many years going to places like Cape Spencer, the Irving Nature Park, St. Martin’s.  I guess to me water also feels very open to possibility.  I think I like imagining what’s on the other side of the ocean. I also love the feeling of being on the water, I love kayaking… it’s just very freeing. 

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    I know people often say Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or Churchill but I can read them, no need to have tea with them. I love Jane Austen, but I think she would be really catty and judgmental in real life – I would be afraid of her. Maybe hanging out with Churchill while he sat around in his pink satin undies and robe while drinking and trying to figure out how to defeat Hitler might have been cool. But I think what I would really like is to have tea with both my grandmothers, although separately. I would ask them about their lives in Poland. My mother’s mother had a farm outside Warsaw and raised 5 children during the Second World War. She was not educated but was very smart, wise, funny, kind, and resourceful. She was milking the cows at like 4 am, made all the kids’ clothes by hand…during the war, German soldiers took over their farm and the kids all had scarlet fever as well …and somehow, she managed to keep everyone alive. And found time to make beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloths.

    My father’s mother was very ahead of her time.  She went to medical school in the 1920s when there was a “numerus clausus” – a quota that only allowed 10 % of the students to be women, and she was smart and tough enough to be one of the 10%. She did a PhD and was a specialist in internal medicine. She also loved to travel and trying new foods and was sporty and adventurous – she would rent scooters for her, my dad and his brother and they would all go adventuring together.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    My family and friends. Walking/hiking/kayaking. Travelling almost anywhere, whether it’s a day trip near Ottawa, a road trip to New York or New England, or Europe. I’m going to cheat and list way more things because many things bring me joy. Going to museums, big or small, almost anywhere. Cappuccinos and spritzes. Chocolate. Music. Going to movies at the Bytowne, our local rep cinema. Conversations about life with my kids, Jane, and Mike. Family dinners with the kids and my parents. Rewatching favourite movies and TV shows with my husband, Ken – Remains of the Day being the movie we rewatch most often, because it’s perfect in almost every way – from the writing and the acting to the period costumes and interiors and the incredibly sad but beautiful score.  Ken and I also like making up our own words to songs and making ourselves laugh. Sometimes we also meow songs – we don’t remember why we started doing that, but I think it was when our kids were little, but anyway it makes us laugh. It’s not possible to list just 3 things.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Taking a day off just for myself to do whatever I want. Or years ago, when my kids were little, Ken and I would sometimes take an afternoon off work to go to a movie just the two of us.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I don’t really think about it. It’s probably just oblivion – we probably just get reabsorbed into whatever the universe is made of…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But if there was some kind of life after death, it would be nice if it were an eternal sleep where we dream forever and get to be with everyone we loved and experience everything we ever wanted to but did not get to experience in life. In this eternal dreamworld I hope I get to fly, and look down over the earth, like Google Street view, but better.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I guess my kids would be writing my eulogy. I hope they say I was a decent human being who taught them to be decent people. I think they might say that I gave unsolicited advice very freely, but I hope they feel that sometimes it was good advice. I hope they also remember our Amazing Race-style family trips where I made them see and do everything, even if we were exhausted and our feet were sore from walking 20,000 steps a day.