My "Perfect" Life - part 5

One of the earliest memories I have

Snow: merely a memory in the month of June (northern hemisphere)

is a snowy winter day when I was 5. For better or worse, I'm actually quite proud of this one. Picture winter in Northern Ontario with snowbanks high on every street corner,  snow-covered lawns, prints of brave feet having trudged through deep snow everywhere.

Then picture a motley band of children trudging home in their bulky outdoor clothes after a typical school day... back in the days when I was a child we were not bussed 3 blocks but we walked...  children of all ages from 5 to 13 were slip-sliding their way home through a neighbourhood of cold and snow.

As I walked up the hill from my school, there was a nasty boy in grade six one block ahead of me, instructing small children to jump into a yard that was on such a slope that surely meant the children would be snow-logged as they scrambled back to the sidewalk, and damp and chilled by the time they got home.

I steeled myself to engage with this guy it seems...

"Go into that snowbank!" he commanded me when it was my turn to be shouted at.

"You can't tell me what to do," I retorted and continued my march up the hill toward home.

He did not stop me.

Perhaps this boy had a strange sense of humour, and didn't actually intend to be bullying the small children. Or perhaps my comeback shocked him. Or maybe he took more interest in the next passing child. But I did not have a soggy walk home that day, and to this day I remember that moment clearly. In fact, that is a moment that assures me I had oodles of confidence when I was small.

Now, I've got a fair bit of confidence too, which I talk about in my book about building self-esteem (FREE TO BE) . However, in my life it seems there was a huge gap between the childhood confidence I once had and the acquired confidence I had to work to develop. This lovely memory has been useful to hold onto. And particularly at times when I have sought to discover my identity and develop my character through the difficult teen and twenties years, I've found it comforting to recall the boldness I was born with.

Are there moments that you have to 'hold onto' when you doubt yourself or your ability? Is there something in your past that guides you to understand your character? What do you remember most about those early years that gives you confidence in yourself?

I'd love to hear from you.

Until next Thursday...

My "Perfect" Life - Part 4

Sibling rivalry is bound up in disappointment. I was never disappointed by my sibling, so I never felt to rival her.

She was brainy and I admired her for it. I remember her reading one high school course for fun whilst studying another for credit. She read fiction voraciously. And sometimes she would recount to me lots of history I would otherwise never have learned. I learned more about Hitler and Russian and British history from her than from text books. I loved listening to her and I learned a lot. I wish some of those golden moments could have been kept in a bottle, because decades later, I have only memories. Our dysfunctional family has produced a gulf between these two sisters that only a miracle can close. I hope, one day, a miracle will come to pass.

My sister and I used to fight a lot. My mother, herself an only child, didn't seem to have any equipment in her mothering 'toolkit' to help us get along or to 'like' each other. Actually, I adored my sister.  Playing Sound of Music together was a favourite pastime for me - she sang the Maria parts and I played the sixteen year old girl to her Rolf. But I wonder if these play times meant as much to her? While most siblings grow up and get to share their memories and compare their perspectives, we have not.

I was four years her junior and labelled a pest. I liked to hang around when her friends were over, which she didn't like. I couldn't take a hint and was irritating I suppose. But I liked her friends, and admired her. I could have listened to her endlessly. Once I found her journal - she must have been in university by then. I only looked inside briefly but what I found was truly awesome! She wrote prose as though it were poetry; her reflections were intimate and beautifully composed. I only peeked as I knew it was wrong, but if I could have read her work I'd have soaked up every word.

I wouldn't say I lived in her shadow, though I admired her for her brilliance. Instead, by comparison, I was a more outgoing teenager to her quiet, introverted personality -- I dated a fair bit, was a bit sporty, acted in plays. By the time I grew up, I had mostly outgrown my interest in spending time with her. We had little in common except a last name. I would have liked to have been closer, but we were so different, I didn't really know how to befriend her. We were disconnected, but in spite of that, my respect for her never waned. Now, this sad comfort is all I have to offer a sister who wants nothing to do with me.

What do you do when someone you love but don't really know says she wants to live her life without you in it? What can you do? You can pray for change. You can try to reach out. But inevitably, I believe you must respect her wishes. Whatever the reason she may have, it is what she's said she wants. And a relationship without respect is no relationship at all.

Two decades since my sister said she wants me to have no part of her life, every indication suggests she has not budged in her attitude.

When I read stories of twins, who were separated at birth but in middle age are suddenly reunited, I think of my sister and I and wish we could have a happy ending. When I think of foster children forced to be raised in different households, longing for their siblings but remaining alone, I think how ungrateful we have been to have grown so far apart. And I think of my mother who had wanted a sister but had grown up an only child, and how she must have been devastated by the rift between her two daughters. Yet, out of respect, I continue to do nothing, because I want to honour my sister and don't know what else to do but to obey her wishes to stay out of her life.

I am sorry for the rift. I am sorry for my part in it. But I am unable to provoke change.

I'd like to end this excerpt on a cheery note. I can say I've seen my sister at a distance a few times quite unexpectedly, and I'm glad. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have seen her, to see that she is content. I wonder if a birth parent of an adopted child might feel a little as I have - watching without the other person even knowing she's there. I haven't approached my sister because I don't want to upset her; perhaps I give myself too much importance. Or perhaps I failed to recognize when we were young that I was important to her at all.

I wonder too, if she has had similar encounters with me - from a distance, without my awareness. And if so, I hope she is comforted.

Have you experienced a separation from someone you love but from whom you are now estranged? If so, how have you coped?

I'll write again next Thursday, sharing another glimpse into my past, hoping to spark something in you that invites your reflection too.

My "Perfect" Life - Part 2

Intimacy is a word that sparks in me a feeling of being hugged and the experience of eye contact. The family home in which I grew up was decent and respectable to the outside world, but we were not intimate. It was a time when fathers were the breadwinners, and were responsible as role models. I suspect ours was more-or-less the norm. At least to the outside world we were a typical WASP household, where fathers were detached entities to be respected, feared and obeyed.

My father fought in World War II as a fighter pilot. I know nothing of his experiences. He never spoke about it himself. Second and third hand, through my mother and a first cousin: my father's sister's daughter, I've learned a little about how the war affected him. After the war, my father spent time with his sister 'recuperating' emotionally. Evidently, he had nightmares. Later, when he attempted to finish his law degree and write the Bar exam, he was too war-torn to manage it. He either didn't write the exam or flunked out.
Apparently, my father was a brilliant orator and law student never to have his dreams realized. I say 'apparently' because he never spoke to me about himself. My mother did a bit, but she wasn't the most reliable source of information as she was prone to exaggeration and embellishment. But it's safe to say he did leave law school to volunteer for the war effort a year before finishing, and he never practiced the Law. He'd been valedictorian of his undergraduate class and his yearbook says words to the affect: 'If this boy doesn't make a significant contribution to society there is no justice in the world.' Some time after his death, I found the yearbook when I was in my 30's. Upon discovering that comment, I felt proud for my dad.
His failure to complete Law was not only a personal tragedy but also indicative of the losses to society. This man - like so many others - put his own life 'on hold' to do what he felt was his duty, never to fulfill his goals or purpose.


The story I'll use to introduce my remote and harsh father is third hand. It's the only story I have about him as a child, but it gives me the impression that my dad was a sensitive and loving child. It is a story I'll call 'Sweet Kittens'. A cousin told me the story, which in itself tells you a lot about the lack of intimacy in my immediate family.

When my dad was little - maybe about five - the family cat had kittens. The family was never well-off.... (One reason my dad didn't finish law school was because he had to put himself through university and then law school; I don't know how he managed undergrad but by the time he got to law school he had to work a year, then study for a year, then work for a year... back and forth like that. By the time he was to study his last year the war was full-on and he felt he should wait no longer but go to fight...) ... the kittens were important to my dad. He played intently with them. But at some point, perhaps when they'd grown and needed solid food, or perhaps sooner when it was realized no one else would take the kittens, they were put in a sack and drowned. My father watched, helpless, and then he ran off, crying, devastated. I highlight in the story that he appeared to be alone in his grief. His older sisters and parents, it seemed, were unconsoling. A younger brother wasn't yet born.

Growing up in our house, we always had a cat. The third family cat is the only one I remember. I was three years old when we got him and he lived for ten years. He was wonderful! My dad was affectionate toward Boots and spoke words of affirmation to him. Boots lived a high life of soft cat food, roast beef and ice cream. When my dad would nap on the sofa, Boots curled up next to him. Dad flattered Boots. 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever' Dad would quote. Then he'd reach down and pat the cat and say, "Eh Boots." My mother looked on as the cat received open affection. The words of affirmation and displays of affection my dad showed toward the cat are the indications I interpret as the potential my dad had for displaying love.
When Boots died of natural causes, it was my father who found him. He took his body away for disposal and we never had another family cat. I don't remember my dad speaking about Boots or his death after that.

I admire my father in many ways. Now I choose to look upon our distant relationship as a tragedy that was rooted in his experience of war and having no acknowledgement or treatment for the effects.

While this post may seem bleak, it is not intended to be so. Some of life's events and relationships can be disappointing, how we take our experiences and make them channels for strength and learning are up to us. I believe every experience makes us stronger, healthier, more compassionate individuals, able to offer to the world insight and hope.

Have you family memories that this story triggers in you? I'd love to hear from you - about your family, or your thoughts about mine. And I'll bring a third installment of My "Perfect" Life next THURSDAY.

My "Perfect" Life

Imagine a perfect world in which to grow up: it is an idyllic world where your physical needs are provided. You never go hungry, have attractive clothes to wear and your mother and father are married and seem to love each other. You know from an early age that education is important and that whatever post secondary education you will desire will be made available. The country is Canada, where the true north is indeed 'strong and free'. Your world encourages freedom of speech, religion and politics.

Now imagine such a world where there is no sense of being loved, of belonging, or of being taken seriously. Suddenly, you are in the world in which I grew up. Children are to be seen and not heard, integrity is only expected in the adult world, and behavior is criticized but never corrected.

I loved my parents, now both deceased. I loved them enough never to have composed the stream of thought I'll compose here because it would have angered them. Interesting I don't say 'it would hurt them.' I would not write if it would hurt them either, but I'm not sure it is possible I ever hurt them. I'm not sure they liked me enough to be hurt. Rather, they disliked me enough to get angry with me.

In my head are many random stories. Each of them are true. How do I compile a series of vignettes that will best encapsulate my family history? And why do I do it? These are the questions I must ask myself as a writer.

As this is a blog, I think I'll provide one story at a time, randomly at first. Perhaps something will begin to take shape and from that I'll design a more structured approach.

As to why I do it? It seems fitting to write about my life given I've entitled this blog "A Life Examined". I'm aware as I write now that my tone is a bit clipped and my mood remote. Perhaps I'm a bit nervous about writing to the world; perhaps I'm a bit anxious I'll fail. I know I'm not angry with my parents or my sister. I'm just wary of what I'm about to do... to share my journey in order to capture another's interest.


The first story has just two characters, my mother and me. It isn't even a story really, but a moment in time. It begins with my mother raising her hand to me and stopping. I was about 9. I remember I'd done something wrong - I don't know what but I'm certain I knew at the time - and she was really cross. She raised her hand and our eyes met. I was scared she was going to hit me and that fear must have been written all over my face. She looked at me, her hand suspended in the air and said, "Some day I'm going to hit you." (she never had up to that point, that I can remember, nor ever did)

The moment passed. I guess she walked away. There was no hit, but no hug either. No physical contact of any kind.

I was not punished for whatever I'd done. I expect she showed compassion, or tried to, by not spanking me. But she didn't teach me, correct me or help me to learn from whatever I'd done that I shouldn't have done it. Interesting that I remember the moment of eye contact and fear, but not what I'd done to cause her anger. Was it good for me as a child, to live in a house where my mother never spanked me? Certainly to have no consequence for bad behaviour was not ideal.

It was the '60's and Dr Spock and such teaching was that you should not spank a child and a child will work things out for themselves. Well, I didn't. Perhaps others did.

It's stories like this that I'll write about. It's stories like this that make me feel sad about how I grew up: completely disjointed from my mother, who lacked confidence, and from my father, who was emotionally shut down.

I grew up in one of the biggest houses on the street, with educated parents and a very brainy sister. I had music lessons and at 6, when I had trouble with reading, my mom helped me until I could read. But inside myself I was alone, lonely and torn between over confidence and under confidence, because I felt no love.

I have love now in my own family. I'm very blessed. And I'm grateful for my history, because it's made me who I am now. But every little experience as a child has the potential to bear significant impact on life as a whole. Perhaps I'm writing to help you to tap into your memories, to see how they've impacted you - for better or worse - and to help you to grow beyond them. Perhaps I'm writing to parents who struggle with parenting, or to siblings who struggle with sibling relationships. Perhaps I'm writing to daughters and sons who have parents who are aging and there is unsettled business between them. Whoever I'm writing to, I'm hoping my words will be read, and the words will help to make our relationships better, while we are still on the earth. I shall write again next Thursday. (Is it Thursday's child that's full of woe??)

me, sitting in my back garden